Life According to Missus Vonkysmeed

Here's my 15 seconds...

2012-02-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

Check it out, my Straightforward Mitts got mentioned on the WEBS blog today! Apparently they liked them so much they asked me if they could include my picture in their feature on socks and mitts using the Valley Yarns Charlemont yarn. They also did features on Charlemont for sweaters and for shawls over the weekend, check those posts out too for some great ideas.

I will say it is a great yarn, very soft and easy to work with. It is a little splitty, but what yarn isn't that has silk content? That silk content gives it a really beautiful sheen too. After a good wash and block the yarn really softens up and develops a nice soft sproingyness (is that even a word?). I do wish there was a greater range of colors, they are all in the dark jewel tone range and I am more of a spring colors girl. But at 439 yards for $12.99 this is as really affordable merino/silk fingering weight yarn.

As for the mitts, a great pattern with lovely results. It does require some concentration at first to get the angled ribbing set up but I found once I understood the pattern it was really easy to work along. I loved having a chart to follow but the pattern is also written out for those who don't work with charts.

Stash down progress

2012-01-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

One of my goals for 2012 was to knit down some of my accumulated stash. Why you ask? So I can buy more yarn silly! Like I have been dying to try Bugga! by The Verdant Gryphon, something from Quince & Co., and something from The Plucky Knitter, among other endless choices. Since my stash boxes wouldn't close before the new year I definitely needed to use up some of the collected yarn before I could set about gathering more.

I am currently working on four different items using up stash: a Dark & Stormy cardigan with my 14 skeins of Knit Picks City Tweed, the January Mystery KAL by Susanna IC using up a skein of Araucania Ranco, a Dew Drop Cowl using 2 skeins of Serenity, and Gordes Socks from Silk Road Socks using my gorgeous skein of Madelinetosh tosh sock yarn (I don't know why, but it is so pretty I just want to eat it, I know it won't taste good at all, but...). The extra bonus is that the cowl is intended to be a gift for Christmas, so I am also working toward the goal of knitting for the holidays all year long!

I have already finished up a Stacked Eyelet Cowl with 2 skeins of Serenity sock yarn (another holiday present bonus!) and a Springtime in Philadelphia hat using the last of my Valley Yarns Charlemont. See, I am knitting so fast I haven't even had a chance to blog about projects before finishing them up!

I am feeling pretty good about getting enough skeins out of my sock yarn box that I can now close it, and my worsted weight box now has some breathing room for the yarn currently residing there. I still need to clear out more yarn before I can buy anything but progress is being made, yeah me!

Potty Training, mark 2

2012-01-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Good God, I have to do this again! I don't know who was unhappier with it last time, me or Lil' Miss?! Neither one of us like it and I gave up for a bit before starting again and letting her take the lead, that worked much better. Now it is time for Destructo Boy to give up the diapers. I hope we both survive!

Yes, I do realize I am starting this WAY later than most people would, but I didn't want to turn it into a huge fight and he just didn't seem ready. I say this because he is already 3 and I know many people think I am way late on starting this. In my defense he was a late talker and had no interest whatsoever in the potty. Now he is very interested and I am hopeful the whole process will go quickly and smoothly!

We just started this week but he seems to like the potty chart so far, there is just something about kids and stickers. For our potty chart Lil' Miss and I decorated a half sheet of poster board with diecuts made with my handy dandy Slice leaving a space in the center for an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper where we will actually keep track of the pottying. For the 8.5 x 11 paper I just used an Excel spreadsheet to create columns for the days of the week and a marked starting line at the bottom of the page. Every time he sits he gets to put a sticker on that day regardless of whether anything came out or not (right now we are encouraging the habit of sitting on the toilet, I don't care if it is successful or not). And yes, I did just tape it to the back of the bathroom door with packing tape, I am so uncreative with my hanging of the actual chart!

Next we need to go to the store to get the inspirational potty training underpants, I am not talking about Pull- Ups, I hate those things (glorified diapers that are impossible to get off without making a huge mess!), but rather about the cloth ones most often sold by Gerber. It seems like the Pull-Ups style pants are just too much like diapers and keep the kids too dry but regular undies are so thin that if when an accident happens everything gets wet. The nice thick cloth ones are a nice happy medium for our family, now just to find the blasted things! They do seem to be nearly impossible to locate in local stores, which I kind of wanted to do for Destructo to get to carry them to the checkout and be able to understand what a big boy he is. Maybe we'll get lucky at our next Target trip!

New obsession; fingerless mittens!

2012-01-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

I made myself a pair a few months ago and loved them so much I promptly made some for, well, just about everyone for Christmas. They were pretty well received, one friend even sent me an email to let me know it made driving much more comfortable for her since she suffers from neuropathy. Now that the holidays and knitting for them (at least for thwe moment!) are over I can get into some truly selfish knitting.

I finally made another pair of fingerless mitts for myself, Straightforward Mitts out of Valley Yarns Charlemont in dusk to match my Polaris shawl. I never would have found the pattern myself, it was this month's KAL for the Fingerless Glove Fanatics group over on Ravelry. It was actually a very straightforward (heh, see what I did there!) pattern, very easy to memorize what to do once you got into the rhythm. It took a whopping 3 days for me to complete them form casting on the weaving in the ends. Unfortunately it is rather warm here right now, a little summer in January, so I haven't had the chance to wear them yet but once winter reasserts itself I will definitely be sporting them with my scarf.

I even had a chance to make Lil' Miss a pair of fingerless mittens that match her Uptown Girl hat I made a few months back. I used the Maine Morning Mitts pattern again for hers that I had already used once and resulted in a really nice pair of mitts that were gifted to Wobbly Head, my BIL. Hers took even less time than mine, one day start to finish to make them both. I think they may have ended up a bit on the tight side but I told her I would make her new ones next year if these ones don't fit anymore.

I think I'll make the BonBons mitts next with some KP Gloss lace doubled to wear with my Advent Calendar scarf. I am a little short on yardage, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Out with the old and in with the new

2011-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

stash down 2012!

I am quite happy to see 2011 in the rearview mirror. It wasn't the worst possible year but it was a pretty difficult one for us, at least the first half with the whole unemployment/no money thing. Here's to hoping 2012 brings much better things for us (steady employment would be huge)! At least it was a very productive year for my crafting habit.

First, a recap of my goals for 2011, I have had them posted in my sidebar all year and have been checking items off as I did them. So what did I manage to accomplish this past year? Well, I did knit at least 6 pairs of socks in the year, as a matter of fact I finished 8 pairs and have had a ninth pair languishing on the needles for the past 2 months (it's a pair for Destucto boy and for some reason I just do not want to work on them). Going along with the sock theme I also learned to do 2 at a time knitting, in fact it is my preferred method of knitting now, less counting! I did a pair of toe up socks but prefer top down to ensure proper fit for my incredibly high arches.

I have been swatching for everything, although sometimes that still doesn't work out that well, frogging is my friend! I did manage to knit at least one pattern from each of the books I owned at the beginning of the year, I have now added 2 more books to my collection and have a stack on magazines also that I need to knit something from. I definitely worked on holiday knitting all year, starting in January and still finishing up today.

I kind of failed on the whole keeping current with scrapbooks, updating the blog every week, and losing some weight. You win some, you lose some!

For the coming year I think I want to accomplish the following: make a quilt for Lil' Miss, make a quilt for my bed, make at least one holiday themed wall quilt (I want to make one for each month of the year to switch out on our family room wall), finish up the 2011 scrapbook, finish up Destructo boy's birthday book from 2011, learn to steek (yikes!), make sweaters with my sweater quantities of yarn before purchasing more (4 right now), and make socks/shawls/anything to use it up with all my sock yarns before buying more since the box won't close (11 colorways right now!).

So, do you have any goals for the new year? Whether you do or not I hope the new year finds you happy and healthy and 2012 brings lots of love and happiness to us all!

Still knitting along!

2011-12-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

Yup, I am still keeping up with the advent calendar scarf knit-a-long! I know, I'm shocked too. It's a little unclear to me whethe r the patterns are getting easier or if I am just knitting faster as I am getting each day's pattern done on that day. And doing so even with wrapping presents, last minute shopping trips, and finishing up handmade presents!

Here it is up to day 18, I meant to take a picture every 7 days but I started on the pattern for the 18th before I remembered, oh well, an extra day doesn't hurt! I am kind of glad I decided to do this in laceweight yarn as this sucker is already pretty long and I still have 6 more days to knit, I probably could have gone down a needle size too.

As much as I love participating in this KAL I can't help but think about life after it. I think it will be nice to not have to worry about falling behind if I miss a single day, but it will also be sad to not have something to look forward to every day along with the camraderie of all the knitters working on this around the globe (694 projects, 26 nations and all 50 US states represented). It will be nice to finally get started on my Dark & Stormy cardigan though!

Advent Craziness

2011-12-14T10:29:00.000-08:00

Somehow in my fevered brain I had the brilliant idea to participate in the Advent Calendar Scarf 2011 KAL, what in God's name was I thinking?! I have been able to keep up thus far, but I fear I will soon fall behind, especially once I start on the cookie baking craziness, {WARNING: extended tangent ahead!} for some reason I always end up making 10 different kinds of cookies, am totally stressed and wiped out then have tons leftover, when will I learn! Although I did finally learn about the glitter wrapping paper that tape won't stick to, oh the frustration of self-unwrapping presents, didn't get any of that this year since Target has this awesome kraft paper wrapping paper this year. I have been wanting to use kraft paper for years and they finally have some for sale, yeah!

progress up to the third day's clue

Anyway, back to the knitting, the pattern is a lace sampler and is a complete surprise as every day we get a clue for that days pattern, like a child's advent calendar. It usually takes me about 5 to 6 hours to get through the days pattern which I have been able to keep up with so far, I just fear I will fall behind as we get closer to the big day. It is fun though, I have already encountered a number of stitches I had not done before, and it is interesting to see how each pattern looks with all the others.

I think the idea is to have a scarf complete to wear on Christmas day, but since I already have a red dress to wear I think the scarf might be too much. I actually have two red dresses, but I got hit bad by buyers remorse and bought the second one as I thought I'd get more use out of it than the first, which I still need to return back to the store, ugh. Somehow I don't think even laceweight yarn can dry that fast though it would be nice to try.

and progress up to day 10!

Morgan, how I hate thee, let me count the ways!

2011-12-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

Which is exactly why I hate this pattern, having to count every stitch on every row. I do however, love the results. At the end you have a fantastic driving cap made all in one piece with just a little seaming at the end, ingenious construction truly. I just wish there wasn't quite so much counting needed for the end result.


Lil' Miss modelling the hat for me, I fear it may be too small for Chef

I just finished making a second one of these hats for my dear friend The Chef as a Chanukah present. The one I made last year out of a wool/acrylic blend was so well received I decided to make a second out of a cotton/linen blend for summertime wear for him. I'm sure he will love this one too and it will undoubtedly look great on him, but, all things considered I think it will be a few years before I even consider making another, I just hate the counting that much.

Then I tried it on and looked in the mirror...dang it looks cute! I may suck it up and make one for myself since I am sure something in my stash would work. But all that counting, as cute as it is I'm not sure I am ready to go through that again anytime soon.

Digger is complete!

2011-12-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the prolonged silence! Somehow time just got away with me, I have been knitting but since many of the projects are intended as gifts, well, I just can't discuss them here. I can tell you all about the latest project for Destructo though, I am quite proud of it.

This jacket took a really long time considering the size but I kept stopping as it made me nervous. You know how it is, the knitting project is scary so set it aside for awhile as you work on something you have far more confidence in yourself at making and then get back to it on a particularly good day self-confidence wise (is that even a proper word?). There were a couple of new techniques in this project for me, of course the intarsia but also sewing in a zipper, yikes!

Destructo-boy seems to love it and I am pretty happy with it myself so it was well worth all the trouble. For the zipper I first tried to hand sew it in but was not keeping even tension on the knit fabric so it was bunching up kind of funny. Since I just wasn't happy with that I ripped out the seam and re-pinned the whole zipper so I could make an attempt with my machine.

Ah, the magic of a walking foot! I went really slowly and carefully as I sewed with the machine and it did a much better job than I did by hand. All I had to do was whip stitch the floppy edge of the zipper tape down and fold down the upper cut off edged of the zipper tape. I think it came out beautifully if I do say so myself! It was just a little strange to sew on a zipper without the zipper foot on the machine.

Another obstacle were all the ends to weave in, even with doing a Russian join at each color change on the striping part of the jacket there were still floppy ends that needed to be woven it. Well, I suppose I could have just trimmed them but I thought they would look better woven in farther away from the edge of the jacket.

I must say I think it is awesome of the company to provide the pattern at no charge upon request, you don't often find companies willing to do such a thing.

Digger progressing, slowly

2011-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

I am loving this jacket, it just seems to be taking awhile to finish up. I suppose the fact that I am into endless stripes up the shoulders and into the hood doesn't help with the boredom! Destructo-Boy certainly loves it, every time he sees it while I am knitting it he pets it and asks if it is for him, too cute!

I won't lie, the intarsia was very intimidating but once I got started on it I could begin to see the sense in it. I still feel a little rough on what to do when switching colors, like how much tension to use. However, since it hasn't fallen apart I will assume I did it correctly if not perfectly. For the lettering I used the stranded technique rather than intarsia and it seemed to come out pretty good, no puckering on that part. I kind of mixed the two techniques on the construction vehicles and that may be part of the issue with the puckering. Not sure, but I will definitely do this technique again and maybe not mix them up to see if it looks better that way.

Another new technique for me on this project will be the zipper, I have never installed one on a knitted project before. There is some sort of fancy way of doing it I have read notes about that involves putting holes in the zipper prior to knitting it into the garment. I'll figure it out when I get there I suppose!

A different kind of Christmas village

2011-10-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have been debating starting one of those ceramic house village collections for quite awhile now. The ones by Lemax at the local Michaels always seemed kind of, well, a little cheesy to me and roughly made. However they are affordable which can't really be easily said about what I was really considering, Dept. 56 houses. There was even a store of theirs locally where we could go and look at all the different villages they carried. I think we ended up in there every Christmastime looking and wishing we could afford to start a village.

Now that Mister Vonkysmeed's employment status is more stable I decided to definitely start a collection this year and had even researched a local store that carries Dept. 56 villages for me to go look again. Then I ended up on the LEGO website to request a free magazine subscription for Lil' Miss and one thing led to another until I discovered this,

LEGO Winter Village Bakery, 10216

Yup, LEGO has gotten into the Christmas village business and they have a new customer in me! This is the third year they have produced a new building and with Mister Vonkysmeed's blessing I have ordered all three buildings to get us started.

With these buildings we get the additional fun of assembling them together as a family, always a good thing in my book! Additionally they are not made out of fragile porcelain as the other villages are, always a bonus in this family with young kids and a 'bull in a china shop' kind of hubby!

Starting on my second quilt

2011-10-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

fiesta de los muertos by Alexander Henry Fabrics

Since I have special ordered the fabrics off the internet I suppose I really do need to get this gift done for Mister Vonkysmeed for Christmas! He has always been a huge fan of Oingo Boingo and has had a box full of old concert t-shirts sitting in the garage for years. I thought it was a shame for them to be sitting in the box and suggested using them in some sort of project instead. He agreed to this idea and I discovered a wealth of information online about t-shirt quilts. To make sure I actually got this done I promised him a Christmas gift, and now that I have the fancy interfacing on hand and have ordered fabric I really need to get started on it!

The fabric is really amazing, part of the folklorico collection by Alexander Henry fabrics, they will definitely work with the assortment of shirts I have, 99% of which are black and at least half say Dia de Los Muertos on them. The confetti fabric seems almost custom made to go with Oingo Boingo! I'll be using it for the sashing and binding around the shirts themselves, the fiesta de los muertos fabric will be used for the back. I think I'll be using my new quilting book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman to figure out how to piece the back together. I think I may go get a few pieces of solid fabrics to work with the patterned fabrics on the back, maybe even for the binding too, I'll have to get started piecing and see what speaks to me.

The interfacing I have is amazing! Unfortunately I have no idea what it's called or where to get it, my friend The Quilt Master bought it through a friend of hers for me. It is essentially a very thin cotton with the fusible stuff on one side of it. What this means is after I fuse it to the shirts they will continue to be soft and flexible instead of stiff like regular interfacing but still stable enough to cut out properly.

Now wish me luck as I go off to start cutting and fusing!

Poor Me...

2011-10-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

Feeling down and sorry for myself, that would be me lately. Why? No reason in particular it has just been hard to want to do much of anything. Oh, I am still knitting but I just feel tired and yucky all the time, thus why I have been neglecting my blog here. Hopefully I'll get back to normal soon. At least the house is fairly clean though! If I let that go I get anxious on top of everything else so I do keep that up. Sorry to complain but if not here than where?

I have been working on the knitting slowly but have totally neglected the scrapbooking, which makes me feel guilty and so I neglect it even more. Notice a vicious cycle there anyone?! I like to have big blocks of time when I scrapbook and I just haven't been able to set any aside to devote just to that so to the backburner it goes. Knitting is much easier to pick up and knit for a few minutes before having to do something else so I almost always makes a little progress daily on one project or another.

I'll be back next week, hopefully with more energy and some fun knitting to share!

Of mysteries and frustration

2011-09-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have two big projects on the needles right now, and funnily enough they are both on US 7 needles (really glad I ordered those nickle plated ones now!). One is a mystery KAL by Susanna IC as a thank you for her support group on Ravelry reaching 1,000 members. The other project is from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard, the Backwards Cabled Pullover that I am making the backwards version of.

My mystery project is just that, a total mystery except that I know it will be a crescent shaped shawl designed by Susanna IC that uses beads. I ordered some Valley Yarns Charlemont in dusk for this project and am enjoying the yarn thus far. You can really feel the silk content in the yarn, it has that same dry crispness that silk fabric on the bolt has. The yarn is a tad splitty, but not enough to keep me from ever using it again, the limited colors available will do that (only jewel like tones available and I prefer brighter colors). The beads are from ArtBeads.com, TOHO 6/0 silver lined gray, and look amazing with the yarn to my eye. I wanted a more subtle effect than the silver lined clear beads I also ordered were giving me, just too much bling for me. The first clue of six came out last Saturday and I was done with it by Sunday. Unfortunately for me the clues will be released about every 10 days or so meaning I'll probably do a lot of knitting on it and then it'll sit for a week until the next clue is released. Of course, that leaves me plenty of time to fight with the other project...

That other project isn't too difficult if one actually takes the time to carefully read the pattern which I failed to do. I misunderstood part of it, 'Repeat Increase Row 1 every other row", I read that as being every other right side row but she literally meant every other row. Due to this mistake I had to restart after getting the raglan shaping finished, and then had to restart it again after I missed a raglan increase and it would have driven me crazy to leave it as is (yes, I am that much of a perfectionist, I would have seen it every time I put it on and it would have bugged!). Being on the third try now it is going fairly smoothly, I hope to have no more issues with it. I am finally getting a chance to use up some Knit Picks Swish dk in beach glass that has been in stash for quite awhile now. I always knew it would be used for a sweater of some kind but had no idea which one, after looking through this book trying to decide what to make I think it will look great with this one! Hopefully I'll have enough yarn to make the sleeves longer, full length or 3/4 length.

8 Years Ago Today...

2011-09-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

This day

I will marry my friend,

the one I laugh with, live for,

dream with, love

How to: Make a crochet hook case

2011-09-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

Not that there aren't some really great patterns/tutorials already available all over the net but yet again I just couldn't find quite what I was looking for. The free tutorial available at the Moda Bake Shop blog came really close but the instructions seemed overly complicated to me and I just really didn't want to do all that. So, taking my favorite part of that pattern, the curved flap, I reworked my interchangeable knitting needle case to fit crochet hooks. A quick disclaimer in the size, this case was designed for long handled crochet hooks as I have a lone Brittany birch wood hook that is 8" long, so I made my case to accommodate it, if you just have the Susan Bates or Boyle hooks you can either cut out the case pieces 1 1/2" shorter and/or make adjustments to the pattern as noted in the portion of the pattern about top stitching for the folds. So in celebration of September being National Sewing Month, let's get sewing!

the 2 cases I got out of the fat quarter pack from JoAnn's

First gather up your materials:

compass & cardstock template

Two 20 1/2" x 9 1/2" pieces of fabric for outside of case and for lining (to make the curved top I used a compass and made a half circle on a piece of cardstock to use as a cutting template for all my pieces)
9 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of fabric for hooks pocket
2" x 4" piece of fabric for button loop, or make a button hole on the curved top flap
Two 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" pieces of fabric for zippered pocket
20 1/2" x 9 1/2" piece of interfacing (whichever weight you prefer, I used heavyweight as that was what I had on hand)
20 1/2" x 9 1/2" piece of batting
7" zipper
button

First you will need to prepare the fabric that will make the pockets your crochet hooks will be slipping into later. Fold the pocket piece of fabric in half lengthwise, making it 9 1/2" x 4 1/4", then sew with a 1/4" seam allowance along the edge. After sewing snip off excess fabric, fold the tube right side out and press.

Next we'll work on the pocket in the lining. Yet again, I used the wonderful instructions from the U-handbag blog by Lisa to install the zipper and pocket. If you like to sew you should definitely follow her blog, great stuff there! Anyway, I put my zipper opening centered at 5 1/2" from the bottom of the lining fabric and didn't use any interfacing for my pocket, other than that I pretty much followed her instructions exactly. I did need to trim both ends of my zipper before sewing on the second piece of pocket fabric to close it up.

l: before sewing; r:after zipper sewn in, before pocket lining sewn together

Then you'll want to make a fabric sandwich by layering together the interfacing, batting and lining fabric. On top of this sandwich pin the crochet hook pocket fabric 2" above the zipper (this is where the bottom of the hooks will be) and sew along the bottom edge of the pocket fabric. I like to position the pocket fabric so the top edge of the pocket fabric is the creased fold you pressed earlier, as I think it makes for a cleaner looking opening to the pockets this way. Then top stitch parallel to this seam 1/4" down from the pocket edge, this will make it easier to fold the case later.

placement of hook pocket above zipper

Next, mark where the seams dividing the crochet hook pockets are going to be located with a cloth marking pen. I made these marks top and bottom to ensure straight lines would be sewn. Sew from the bottom to the top of the crochet hook pocket along these marks. Make sure to leave enough thread on all these seams to pull both ends through to the interfacing side to knot together and cut off the excess. I started in the middle at 5" in from the left edge and then sewed lines parallel to that one in 3/4" increments to make the hook pockets stopping at 1 1/2" from either edge.

sewing parallel lines for hook pockets

measurements for hook pockets

Next we'll do the top stitching for the upper fold at 8" from the bottom of the hook pocket and again at 1/4" above that (if you need to make the case a little smaller for shorter hooks instead of cutting the fabric out smaller you can just do the top stitching at 6 1/2" from the bottom of the hook pocket and again 1/4" above that).

placement of top stitching for upper fold

Now to make the button loop out of the 2"x4" fabric, fold it in half lengthwise (1"x4") and press, then fold the outer edges into the crease and press it flat again. Fold along the first crease and iron flat once more. Sew the open edge closed, with approximately 1/8" seam allowance. Pin the loop to the top center of the lining fabric sandwich, at the end where the curve is, with the raw fabric edges all lined up together and the loop to the inside of the lining.

l: button loop folded & pressed; r: pinned to top curve

Layer the outer fabric on top of everything with right sides together, pin around the edges. Sew it all together 1/4" in from the edge leaving a 4" opening at the bottom to pull the case right side out. I sewed in a curve around the bottom corners to better match the deep curve on the top flap. Trim excess fabric all around, turn right side out, and press all seams. Hand stitch the opening at the bottom of the case closed. For added stability I sewed a top stitch all around the outside edge of the case 3/8" in from the edge. Pull all loose threads through to the lining side, tie off and snip excess.

all pinned and ready to sew shut

hole that needs hand stitching to close

If you chose the button loop option fold the case into thirds to position the button so the loop will go around it and hand sew the button on through only the outer fabric. If you decided to do a buttonhole put it where you like on the upper curved flap and then hand sew on your button to the bottom flap for either option. Ta-da! All done. Now go crochet something!

finished cases, yea!

Please let me know if you were able to understand my instructions, or if you have had any problems with them. I sometimes over think things so may have not made something as clear as I could have. Happy sewing!

Needle Love

2011-09-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it, I've been a wooden needle snob, I turned up my nose at needles made out of any other material. I used to prefer wood or bamboo to anything else but after discovering the harmony interchangeable needles from Knit Picks I hardly ever touched my collection of straight needles. Then a few weeks ago I got my first nickle plated interchangeables with my Knit Picks order. I must say that I am hooked!

They are fantastic with stickier yarns, so much easier to knit the Lion Brand fisherman's wool I was working with than my wood needles. Don't get me wrong, I still love my wood needles, but after fight5ing with the wool yarn it was a real relief to have it just slide pleasantly along my needles. They probably won't be all that great with slippery silk or cotton yarns but for those stickier yarns like wool or acrylic they are perfect.

I have also found they don't hurt my hands as the metal straights I have used will, I have always felt that wood just warms nicer to my hands and the flexibility is more comfortable but I must say the nickle plated needles are just as great to use as wood. I have had problems in the past with fatigue from using metal crochet hooks, but I can say I definitely did not have that problem with these nickle needles. They are nice and light and don't make that annoying clicking that drives me crazy with the aluminum straights, I don't like to hear my knitting, I much prefer to feel it.

I guess I'll have to make myself a new interchangeable knitting case to make room for a whole new set of needles. One row for harmonies and one row for nickle plated! Because of course now that I have tried them I must have a full set of both. I foresee lots of little orders from Knit Picks to fill out my collection!

Scrapbook Progress

2011-08-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yea! I finally have made some progress since I have actually felt like working on them again. The book for 2010 is completely finished and I am in progress on the winter/spring portion of 2011 and scrapping Lil' Misses birthday book (each kidlet has a book of just their birthday's, thanks Gramma for that great idea!). I am rather proud of myself that I am making progress since I haven't even received the supplies to scrapbook the in progress pages, but that certainly doesn't stop me from designing the layout and printing the pictures! Now I just need to keep the momentum going and keep caught up with them!

Late Summer Knitting

2011-08-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

It has been a pretty cool summer so far making it not terribly difficult to knit this year. I've been working on a few projects I can't talk about (Christmas gifts are kind of hush-hush you know) but I am working on two things right now that I can talk about.

First up is the Plein Air Tote out of Interweave Knits Fall 2010. It is a really nice looking pattern and I am using up some basic Fisherman's Wool yarn that I was give for my birthday on this project. I have changed up a few things, like using smaller needles since I am using worsted rather than aran weight yarn and mixing two colors for the moss sides. It has been pretty easy to follow so far, I already have both cabled sides and the moss stitch panels all done. This is one project I fear may end up hibernating for awhile though, since the pattern calls for a sewn lining and I'll need to find some leather handles for it. Since I am not a fan of thrift shops I am not really sure what I am going to do to find inexpensive handles, maybe I should enlist some of my more thrift store-friendly buddies for help.

My second work in progress is Lil' Misses cardigan for back to school in a few weeks. She chose the Olearia pattern by Georgie Hallam which I must say is fantastic. It was definitely a little confusing at first since there are several variations to the cardigan included in the one pattern, so I would suggest to anyone else using the pattern to read through it first as I found I needed to. The cardigan is being knit with some lovely Knit Picks Comfy sport weight yarn is the bison colorway, I know, it's not exactly the first color that comes to mind when you think of a 6 year old girl. However, since we have already bought some new clothes for fall and the one thing they seem to have in common is brown, I though this color made the most sense for a cardigan (I feel like I am knitting with chocolate when I work with it which is a special bonus!). Plus everyone, even a 6 year old, needs some nice neutral colors in their closet!

Destructo Boy's new quilt

2011-08-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, already finished! I know, not much of a shock considering what an easy pattern it was but I am still rather pleased with myself. I am so glad I got my new walking foot for the sewing machine, it worked amazingly well and this would have been impossible to do without it. I suspect doing the hand stitching for the binding probably took the most time, my thumb is certainly still sore from it!

In case anyone is wondering, the majority of the cute car patterned fabric was made by Hoffman Fabrics, the blue sashing is a generic quilters cotton I picked up from Joann's and the aloha print fabric on the back of the quilt is by a company that I think is out of Hawaii that my local fabric shop carries, unfortunately the name escapes me right now. I used some polyester batting from Joann's also since I had already washed the fabric and really didn't feel like washing the batting too. Next time I'll use cotton batting and just wash it all together to get that nice scrunchy look.

I am actually really excited to keep working on quilts, Lil' Miss has already asked when she is getting one. She may have awhile to wait as I really need to make one out of Mister Vonkysmeed's concert shirts first and I have been wanting one for my bed for quite awhile now. Then of course I was inspired by The QuiltMaster to make holiday themed wall hanging quilts too, I already have the perfect spot in mind behind the couch. Great, just what I needed, another addictive hobby!

A Place to Knit

2011-08-12T09:29:00.000-07:00

This is my new knitting spot and boy is it comfy! We finally ordered a couple of Sky Chairs after wanting them for years. There has only been a place to hang them for about 2 years, so I am not that upset we didn't get them sooner, but I sure am glad to have them now! I have sat in their samples at their booth every time I have gone to a Renaissance Fair for the past 20 or so years and have always wanted one. Now I have two! It makes a great spot to relax and knit while the kids are playing in the backyard, and the fact I can turn around in it easily to keep them in view is an extra bonus, makes me much more comfortable with them in the pool. About my only complaint is the fact I have to kick a child out of my seat whenever I leave it for an instant.

Quilt in progress

2011-08-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how fast this thing went together! Okay, I realize now this was a ridiculously easy pattern, but at least now I understand how quilts go together. I still need to get the backing fabric, I already have the batting and just received a brand new walking foot in the mail so I can quilt it all together myself. Now to figure out exactly how I want to quilt this thing, shadow quilting the seams, or just big X's across each square?

Yes, I am already thinking about the next one, which will be a t-shirt quilt of all Mister Vonkysmeed's beloved Oingo Boingo concert shirts. I should have that done in plenty of time for Christmas and now is a great time to start being on the look out for Day of the Dead fabric for the backing. So I guess the Big Block quilt pattern was a pretty good introduction to what I will need to do to get that project done!

I think my needles are smoking

2011-08-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

Because this cardigan knit up crazy fast! It took me 13 days from start to finish to make it, usually it takes me at least a month to make a sweater and far more than that when I make mistakes (like my Nantucket Red that took almost a month and a half).

The pattern is Lilas by Hilary Smith Callis, and is a very easy to follow top down raglan sleeve construction. It seemed kind of odd at first since you are knitting that huge collar first, but as I went along it made more sense to me. There is very little shaping to this cardigan as it is meant to be more of a casual summer layering piece. All of this made it great for tv viewing, I just placed stitich markers between the stockinette body of the sweater and the border stitches so I could happily knit while engrossed in catching up with my DVR (mostly Falling Skies which shows a lot of promise to be a great show, here's hoping they keep making it better). As for changes, I just made the body of the cardigan about 2.5" longer than indicated, yes the pattern is for a cropped sweater but since I am a bit squashed through the body a longer length looks better on me. I also briefly contemplated making the sleeves 3/4 length but then realized part of the reason I loved the sweater was the great picture of Hilary wearing it over a long sleeve shirt so I followed the pattern exactly in the end (I need to go shopping for long sleeve tees once the stores get their fall collections in, I could wear all my short sleeve cardis this way!).

For the yarn I picked out Comfy worsted by Knit Picks in the sea foam colorway that was purchased for me as a birthday gift from Chatty-Cathy and Grumpy. I lurve this yarn! It's a blend of cotton with acrylic which gives it a bit of stretchiness making it very easy and comfortable to knit with, unlike most cottons. One of the reviews of this yarn on Ravelry describes it as feeling like your favorite tee shirt that's been washed a million times into comfy softness and that is exactly how it feels! I will definitely be using this yarn again.

I am looking forward to wearing this sweater again soon, well at least when it starts to cool down again! I really like the casual look to the floppy collar when the cardigan is left hanging open and that it can be pulled together for added warmth but still looks great. Another great addition to my growing collection of hand knit cardigans.

Enchanted Tiki Room socks

2011-07-25T08:12:00.000-07:00

My final pair of socks to accomplish my goal of 6pairs of socks knit in 2011! These were in a KAL for the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry for June, the challenge that month was to knit self striping sock yarn in a pattern that would show off the stripy effect. For my self striping yarn I chose to use some Felici fingering in the tiki colorway (and I even bought extra to make sure Lil' Miss could have some socks in this great color too), and yes, when I first saw the name I had the theme song to the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland running through my head. I have already promised myself to get a cool picture of my socks at the attraction at some point soon!

I really wanted to do the Jaywalkers pattern, but the way the chevron pattern is created would be too tight over my high arches based on other knitters comments. I suppose I could have tried to make them, but then when they didn't fit after all that work and me loving the look of the pattern so much I probably would have cried. So I kept looking until I found Topographical socks by Katie McEwen which gives the chevron look, but has columns of purl stitches and lacy yarn overs that give the sock a bit more stretch. That said, they are still rather snug on my feet.

I didn't really modify the pattern much, I just knit the leg to 3" before starting the heel flap, as that is as much leg as I like, and then for the heel I did a regular heel flap and gusset combo rather than the short row heel in the pattern. Again, I made this decision to change the heel construction due to the high arches. For the toe I followed the pattern exactly. It was a really easy pattern to memorize, the chart only had two rows on it and it was an 8 stitch repeat, so they went really quickly.

I am happy with the pattern, but not so sure about the colors, they are kind of bright. I am beginning to realize as much as I love all the crazy colored sock yarns I don't know that I am quite ready to wear them. And now that my small project bag is empty it's time to fill it up with holiday knitting. Starting Executive Funk for Chatty-Cathy next, yea, something other than socks for awhile!

Finally learning to quilt

2011-07-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

To be honest I have kind of quilted before, but it was a Hawaiian applique style quilt so not quite the same thing as a pieced quilt. A few friends of mine quilt, Crafty Auntie and The QuiltMaster, and their beautiful projects have finally inspired me to get started on learning this craft myself in spite of being terrified of having to cut a very straight line.

Since I often suffer from startitis, to force myself to get my act together and get the fabric ready by a certain date I set up a crafting party for this weekend so I can get help cutting out all the pieces in preparation for sewing it all together. I could ostensibly cut them out myself, but the chances of them beign square if I do it with my limited supplies is slim to none. The QuiltMaster offered up her rotary cutter, board, and whatever fancy rulers she has to help me get everything cut out.

For my first project I decided to make a really basic quilt for Destructo Boys' crib, well now it's a toddler bed since we pulled the drop down rail off about a year ago. I think it would look so much nicer with a quilt on top instead of just a sheet. I found some free patterns online and the one that most caught my eye was the Big Block quilt from Claudia's Quilt Shoppe. It looks simple enough for me to get some instant satisfaction, but enough different with the borders to keep me interested in it. Best of all it should give me some instant satisfaction so I can learn how to put a quilt together rather easily so I can make more!

Since I went out and got my fabric for the blocks, sashing, and borders I should be all ready to go for this weekend. I found some great prints with hot rods and woodies at the beach for the blocks and a really pretty mottled blue to use for the sashing and borders that seems to have all the blues that are in the other fabrics in it. For the lining I am waiting until I have more time to go through the less expensive flat folds at my local fabric store, for some reason spending $30 on the back of the quilt just makes me sick, It is great fabric, by Hoffman, but that is still a bit pricy for me. I suppose I should pre-wash the fabric already purchased to make sure if there is any shrinkage it happens now and not after the quilt is all assembled. Wish me luck!

Kudzu shawlette

2011-07-15T11:31:00.000-07:00

The main reason I decided to even make this shawl (beyond the whole, ooh pretty knee jerk response) was to get my mind back into the lace knitting mindset before I started on a wedding veil for Crafty Auntie. Kudzu was the KAL for the Beginning Lace Knitters group on Ravelry for June and as soon as I saw it I added it to my favorites thinking I would get to it some day. Then I realized I was planning on making the veil out of kidsilk haze which I hear is a rather difficult yarn to knit with so thought maybe working on something that gets me back into the place of mind I need to be to work on lace just might be a good idea. Then of course Knit Picks went and had a summer sale, I was a goner I tell you (yes, I bought much more than just the yarn for this shawl, darn their sales)!

The pattern is really easy to follow and is both written out and charted, I loved how I was able to memorize the short repeats in no time at all, which was nice since the rows were incredibly looong! There was a time halfway thorough where I though I'd never get done but that feeling went away pretty quickly thankfully. I think the yarn is a pretty good match to the pattern too, it's KP Comfy sport in the honeydew color, of course it wasn't on sale, but the yellow yarn that was the backup color I ordered was which will end up being a top for Lil' Miss someday. It is so soft too, definitely feels like your favorite cotton t-shirt as some have commented, I just want to cuddle up with the thing! The nice cotton/acrylic blend is perfect for wearing here in sunny So Cal on those days or evenings when there is just a hint of coolness in the air.

I have now decided this crescent shape is my favorite for shawls, I have a rectangular shawl that I barely wear and did try on the various triangular ones I made as gifts last Christmas but this shape is definitely best for me. Since it has a nice curve to it already it tends to stay put much better, which is my main complaint with shawls I hate how they fall off the shoulders, when I put something on I expect it to stay where I put it, I don't want to have to repeatedly mess with my clothes. Apparently The Momster likes it too, she was seriously coveting this shawl over the weekend at a barbeque we had. I think I know what her Christmas gift will be, now just to settle on a pattern, maybe Indian Feathers but with heavier yarn...

Easily pleased

2011-07-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

That would be me. I find it rather sad in a way that at 37 I am so excited to be able to finally ditch our motley collection of tupperware* that was given to us by my Pops in law when Mister Vonkysmeed and I set up housekeeping almost 10 years ago. The lids had finally begun to crack from use so I decided we needed a nice new set. Now mind you, I have wanted a new set for quite awhile now.

After doing a lot of research online I settled on the Premier line by Rubbermaid. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the few complaints I found were for things like the swirly pattern on the containers (which I happen to like), and that the lids recess into the container when put on (I think I can learn how full to fill them after the first spill). They are microwave, dishwasher, and freezer safe, but best of all they are supposedly stain resistant. I am also quite happy that they are BPA free, having recently retired our collection on Avent baby bottles I am aware of the dangers of this chemical. If glass didn't break I'd probably just get glass containers instead of the plastic, but with two little ones around it just seems to be asking for trouble.

Now, just to clarify, our old containers did NOT go straight to a landfill. First they will traverse through the garage for Mister Vonkysmeed to see if he can use any for storing various nuts, bolts, screws, etc. After that they will go over to the local thrift shop to do service in another home. Hopefully once they break they will be recycled to begin life anew, but it's kind of out of my hands by that point!

So far I am loving these new containers, they do everything they promised and look cute to boot. Best of all my cabinet where they live is no longer a huge mess! We don't have many yet, but what we do have are stacked up nice and neat. I plan on getting more, but only as we need them so we can get the sizes that will work best for our needs.

*I know that's the brand name not the product name, but like Kleenex gets used to describe all facial tissue, around my house tupperware has always been how we refer to food storage containers whether they were made by tupperware or not.

The Cardigan is out of time out...and finished!

2011-07-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

I originally blogged about my frustration with this Nantucket Red sweater a few weeks ago and have now finally finished it, yea! I went up in needle size to a US 6 and am much happier with the result. To be honest it totally sucked to have to rip out almost an entire sweaters worth of knitting but the results make the effort worth it. It went much better the second time around. The fabric being knit actually has some give to it so I was hoping it would fit, if anything I thought it would probably be a little loose at the end of the day!

It seemed to be going both slower and faster than the first time around. Slower because since I had already done it once I was having a hard time working up the excitement to get working on it, faster because I had already done it and knew what I needed to do next. Another change I made in addition to the needle size was to add in some extra stitches to accommodate my bust when working on the fronts since I am not a huge fan of the pulled tight across the chest look. That is how the sweater is designed, but looking through the finished projects it looks just as nice not pulled quite so tight. Although I did this it is still pulled a bit tight across the front but seems to look pretty good anyway.

The collar went much smoother the second time around, I managed to do a better job of picking up the correct amount of stitches this time. I did make a change here again, I decided I didn't like the short rows on the collar as the pattern calls for, it was looking funny to me so I pulled out the bind off and redid part of the collar for a third time. The collar looks much better now, I am actually really happy with it. I was very apprehensive with the sleeves as I was deathly afraid of them being too snug, so I decided to cast on a few extra stitches, 4 to be exact. The sleeves ended up being very close fitting but not uncomfortably so by adding in the extra stitches, I can't imagine how they would have fit without those extra stitches!

Mostly I am just so happy to be done at this point with a finished cardigan as a whole that fits okay since I did not want to have to knit this thing a third time! If it still wasn't fitting right I probably would have shoved the whole mess into my yarn stash boxed and worked on something else. I had started knitting this when Lil' Miss began the spring session of her ballet class and in the modeled pictures I am wearing it at her recital at the end of the class, about 9 weeks total from start to finish. That is one heck of a long knit for me, I hope my next planned cardigan, Lilas by Hilary Smith Calis, goes much smoother.

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today having barbeques, making ice cream, and watching fireworks. I always get a little choked up every year thinking of how proud I am of the nation I was lucky enough to be born in. Sure, we have a host of problems, but I am a patriot and love my country nonetheless.

I am reminded of a blog post I read a year ago regarding the Declaration of Independence (although for the life of me I can't remember who or where I read it), in it the author cited a tradition that has fallen to the wayside, a public reading of the Declaration of Independence that would occur at every celebration. Try as I could, I cannot locate anything to verify this as truth. Oh, I found a number of blog posts and articles on the internet that assert much the same thing, that it is an old tradition that should be revived, but I could not locate anything that cited any actual references. Well, I have my own reference that I am sure will amuse the heck out of all you reading, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Lil' Miss and I have been working our way slowly through the series and in her book Little Town on the Prairie she talks about going into town to celebrate the 4th of July, the first celebration of it in the new town. She specifically recalls a man reading aloud the Declaration as one of the big events of the day, so I can say pretty surely that in the late 1800's at least in South Dakota it was being read aloud.

With two fairly young kids I don't know how far I will get through the Declaration, but I will certainly try to read at least some of it to them. It is the document which announced the beginnings of our country and thus is vitally important, they should be aware of it from an early age. How about you? Will you at least read the Declaration to yourself if not aloud?

Meet Angus the Attic Monster

2011-06-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

He is the latest addition to a slowly growing collection of monsters around our house. He began as a way to utilize some yarn I was gifted that I would quite honestly never wear for socks, the colors are just nothing that appeal to me. But for a monster, particularly an Attic Monster? They are perfect! This little guy was nabbed by Destructo-Boy before the glue even had a chance to set on his mouth.

Another fantastic pattern from Rebecca Danger's Big Book of Knitted Monsters, Angus took only 230 yards of sock yarn that was held doubled on US 4 needles. It is so neat to be able to substitute just about any yarn for that which is indicated in the pattern, I absolutely adore this book! The patterns are very well written, some of the clearest instruction I have come across and the monsters themselves are easy to assemble and customize. I guess I don't need to worry overmuch about what to do with yarn leftover once a project is finished, just make a monster! I did use the resource suggested for safety eyes, 6060 on Etsy and she was fantastic! The prices are extremely reasonable, great selection, and the shipping was wicked fast, I had the package in my hands in less than 3 days from across the continental US.

Surviving

2011-06-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

That about sums up what I am doing right now when it comes to these kids. I cannot even begin to count the number of arguments I had to break up yesterday. With Lil' Miss being in school all day and therefore getting a break from Destructo Boy every day I kind of forgot how they often don't get along.

So I am really trying my hardest to not completely lose it and grab their little heads to bang together. I think we may end up taking daily walks to get some of their energy out and just to give them a view other than the house. Having said that I should note it's not like we sit all day around the house! I try to make sure we get out of the house at least once a day, if not to a summer class for one of the kids than on an errand or at least to the park. Even with an outing they still seem to get rather sick of each other pretty quick and end up in some form of an argument, and I only have so much patience for breaking up these daily fights.

One of my tricks to get a little break is to have them watch a movie in their room (yes, I am one of those bad mom's who put a tv in her kids room but at least they don't get cable in there!) while I get to do whatever I want in another room, usually watching a non-child friendly movie myself. Even with that they have still been arguing, over who is on who's bed, over being hit either on purpose or accidentally, it never seems to end. So for now I feel like I am just surviving while I figure out how to keep them happy and busy but not fighting constantly this summer.

Sheldon & Sheila

2011-06-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

the project currently gracing my title

After completing one of my recent projects, the Sourpatch top for Lil' Miss, I realized I had a whole mess of yarn leftover after knitting all those bubble stripes. After checking the Ravelry database for patterns using the yarn I realized I could make not just one, but two of the Sheldon turtles. I had been eying this pattern for awhile now so was happy to finally be able to make it.

Sheila smelling the lavender, beware of the bees!

It was a relatively tricky pattern, but I was able to conquer it. I think the part that was the most difficult was guessing the crochet hook size since it is not indicated in the pattern. I used a size US D which ended up being too small as the bottom part of the shell opening didn't really stretch very much and made it difficult to get the shell on and off the turtle. Which isn't such a bad thing, maybe this way the shells won't get misplaced!

Sheldon trying to blend in with the thyme, doing pretty good too.

I knitted these turtles in tandem, knitting the bodies first, than legs for one and then legs for the other, etc. so that they would be done at about the same time. I knew one child would feel left out if the other already had their turtle and they were still waiting. I got them done pretty close together, Sheldon was finished about an hour or two before Sheila so both kids ended up pretty happy. Unfortunately the necks aren't holding up too well to little kid handling. The pattern does say to stuff them firmly and I did the best I could but it still wasn't enough. On another project I saw notes about the knitter making an extra leg, stuffing it firmly and putting it into the neck to keep the stuffing there. In hindsight I wish I had done this too, but at least the kids love their turtles!

those shells sure were tricky!

School's out!

2011-06-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe that it has already come to an end! It seems like just yesterday that I was walking Lil' Miss to school for the first time and holding back tears as I walked away without her. It has been a truly amazing year, the amount she has learned and grown is mind-blowing. I remember Kindergarten as being essentially arts and crafts time, and maybe we learned to spell our names but it is completely different now. Lil' Miss went in knowing her alphabet, knowing her numbers up to about 20, and could spell her name. Now that school is over she is capable of writing complete sentences, can read at 2nd grade level, can do addition and subtraction of single digit numbers and a whole lot of other things I can't list out here.

Saying goodbye will be especially hard since her two closest friends are transferring out to a different school. We also struggled with the idea of transferring, as I blogged about another time, but our decision was made to keep Lil' Miss in our neighborhood school. Since she has had such a good experience and is doing so well it seems a little silly to transfer her out just because the school test score averages are relatively low. Happily her best friend Miss E lives around the corner and we moms have already been discussing ways to keep the girls close. Such as continuing the Friday play-dates and arranging to be in the same Girl Scout troop if both want to participate. Nonetheless, it will still be sad to not see them at school everyday (and not just for Lil' Miss, I'll miss seeing them too!).

Lil' Miss is having an awful time with saying goodbye to her teacher Ms. W. I think she has burst into sobbing tears daily all week. We had thought she might get to stay with the same teacher for next year in a Kindergarten-1st grade split class, but luckily for the school enrollment has gone up for the Kindergarten and it seems that they won't need a split class. Happily our school has some of the best 1st grade teachers in the district so whoever teaches her next year will be great, but Lil' Miss still wants her current teacher. It was heartbreaking to leave the school with my poor little one sobbing the entire way to the car. I tried to tell her that she can visit her teacher next year, and that she is going to try to get the class together over the summer at the park but it's still not the same as having Ms. W as her everyday teacher. I can kind of understand since it just hit me I won't get to see the kids in her class on my volunteer days anymore, I am going to miss seeing those kids every week myself!

My first Monster

2011-06-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

I have recently begun to knit some fun little creatures in my quest to use up stashed yarn. I hate having bits of yarn leftover and it seems like making stuffed friends seems like a pretty good use for them. Happily I recently received The Big Book of Knitted Monsters for my birthday and it sure does enable me to use up stash yarn on some really cute little monsters.

The first monster I decided to knit was picked out by Lil' Miss to be given to her school teacher, Dot the Dress Up Box Monster. Although we did rename her Cleo the Classroom Monster as she would be living in a Kindergarten classroom. She ended up being significantly smaller than the pattern as I was running short on red yarn, I just didn't do most of the knit rounds that added length through the body, so she is a tad squished looking. I even had to find another bit of red yarn from my stash box just to finish up the top of her head! And the blue arms, well, they should be red according to the pattern but I just didn't have enough yarn so they ended up blue. The snaggly teeth are because that way simply because I don't cut things out very well so I intentionally made them weird, but Lil' Miss likes them so it's all good.

Happily Cleo was well received by Lil' Misses schoolteacher. So well received in fact that I often see the monster sitting on her desk out of reach of little hands. Well, except Lil' Miss, since I made the monster she feels quite comfortable cuddling it as she does her classwork and teacher doesn't seem to mind. I can also claim responsibility in some way for the sale of another of the Monster books. Apparently teachers mom knits and always makes and gives scarves at Christmastime. Teacher shared a pic of the monster on her Facebook page and issues a strongly worded suggestion to her mother that a monster for Christmas would be much better received than another scarf. I do believe the book was ordered the next day.

I enjoyed knitting this little gal so much I am pretty sure I will ended up making every pattern in this book at least once, and some probably more than that. So, who else wants a monster for a Christmas present?!

My cardigan gets a time out

2011-05-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

It's not the sweaters fault really, it is definitely all mine. I didn't look at the measurements of the finished pieces and figure out what would work best for me, I just followed what would normally be my size and started knitting. Unfortunately this plan didn't work out too well as my Nantucket Pink (Ravelry link) has turned out much too small. Don't get me wrong, it is a lovely pattern, well written and the finished cardigans are beautiful, I just needed to take more care before I started my project.

Once the fronts and backs were finished they looked a tad on the small side so I washed and blocked it then basted the fronts to the back to try on and I just don't like how it is fitting. In the pictures the sweater is definitely pulled across the bust to close, but mine is just beyond that, it simply looks too small for me. Plus I am not a huge fan of the stretched too tight look (why I didn't take this into account before I started knitting is beyond me!). So I guess I will just have to take this as a lesson to not just do gauge swatches (I made 3 for this blasted thing!) but to also check the designers math with the stitches and final measurements (this one was off by about a half inch), and to make sure the final measurements are what I want for my finished garment.

Maybe one of my next projects should be something from Wendy Bernards Custom Knits (Amazon link) to help me learn how to take more control of my knitting. I know that any pattern can be adjusted to fit better, I just am not really sure how to do that yet. I will probably do some small adjustment to this cardigan when I reknit it, such as putting in bust darts, I am just not sure if I should go up a needle size or just follow the instructions for the next size up. I foresee some math in my future! Now that I have some pictures of the beautiful but too small cardigan now I can begin to frog, sigh.

Veggie Garden, 2 months in

2011-05-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

don't mind the overgrown grass, it'll get mown next week

See how everything has sprouted and is growing so good!? The ones by the fence don't seem too happy about the shade they are getting for most of the day right now, but we are hopeful that as summer progresses they will get enough sun to grow better. At least the plants further away from the fence are doing well. I have no idea when to start harvesting the vegetables but boy do those lettuces look good!

About the only problem we have had so far (besides remembering to water daily!) is that something has been eating the cabbage leaves. In fact every leaf was chewed off of one plant to the point only the stems were left. It seems to be sprouting new leaves and hopefully will produce something. I think I do need to thin out the squash though, there are 2 plants in two of the squares and they are soon going to be pretty squished (tee hee, squished squashes!). The pepper from the back also should be moved into the square towards the front where the seeds didn't sprout at all. Other than that I only have a few plants that didn't sprout. Surprisingly the green onions haven't done too well even though they came highly recommended by our neighbor, The Child Whisperer, barely any of those sprouted, maybe I put the seeds to deep or too shallow?

cabbage trying to re grow leaves that were gnawed off

Slice: upgraded

2011-05-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

I don't post about it too often but I do scrapbook and recently was able to upgrade my original Slice machine to the new Slice Elite. I invested in a Slice die cut machine made by Making Memories a few years ago to make my scrapping time a bit more productive. I chose it because compared to the competition it was the most affordable by far (only $150 compared to $300-600 for the competition), seemed to have the best ability to change the size of the cuts and was compact in size. Unhappily all did not go as well as I hoped. I do agree with many comments I have read on various scrapbooking forums, that the original Slice was rushed to market before it was ready so Making Memories had something to compete with the other electronic die cut machines for sale, Cricut, Xyron, Quickcutz are a few, then there are a slew of manual machines also (but with those you can't change the size of the diecut and then there is a lot storage required for them).

It worked fairly well at first, and then the problems started. It seemed to rather often have problems with retracting the blade all the way up. The result of this little bug was that I ended up with lots of tiny pieces of paper as the blade continued to cut even when it was supposed to just be moving to make the next actual cut. I don't know exactly why it did this but I found ways to work around it, letting it charge for awhile, only using it while plugged in, changing blades, constantly having it 'home' the blade, etc. Finally about 2 months ago I absolutely could not get the darn thing to cut out the word 'birthday', everytime I tried the blade wouldn't retract all the way and would cut the word into pieces. After I had ruined a considerable amount of paper, time, and patience trying all my tricks to get the Slice to work I finally gave up and emailed customer service.

I will report that I was very pleased with the response I got, it was quick and the customer service rep, Valerie, really seemed interested in resolving my problem. We ran through quite a few steps at first, making sure the machine was charged, that it wasn't overheating, that there was a fresh blade, etc. Then she had me add some oil in the bottom to see if lubricant would help, nope, it didn't help at all. Next she sent me a new blade housing unit to see if that would resolve the problem. After receiving it in a few days I installed it with high hopes, but sadly it didn't work either.

Since nothing we tried seemed to fix my machine and it was out of warranty I was given two options, I could send in my non-working machine (at my cost for shipping the whole thing in, ugh!) and they would assess what the problem was, for a small fee of course and then I would be advised what it would cost to fix it, or I could take advantage of the Slice upgrade program for current Slice owners. The upgrade program would require me to send in a piece of my current Slice, making it inoperable, and then I would be able to purchase the new machine for $75. Hmm, let me think about this, pay to have my old Slice fixed, which although I liked just did not perform as I hoped, or pay for a new machine at 50% off? Yup, where do I send in the piece of my Slice, and how do I pay?

I will admit, it's not the best solution as I now have a paperweight and a new machine that I essentially paid a premium for if you count in the cost of my original unit, but at least I now have one that works. And wow does it work! Of course the first thing I cut out was 'birthday' and it did it with no problem at all. I was able to use it unplugged and everything I had it cut out it did so without any problems. Lil' Miss was very happy as we also used it for a school project of hers. The new Slice Elite is also much quieter and faster, I am loving that!

Elite on the left, the poor cousin on the right

Visually the biggest difference is that the part of the machine housing the blade is larger on the Elite and seems to have some sort of gear inside, otherwise they appear identical. We'll see how it works as I continue to use it, but as of now I am one happy customer. Now maybe I can finally get caught up on my scrapbooks, right now I am still finishing up Fall of 2010, wow, how did I get so behind again!

Knitting for Lil' Miss

2011-05-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

Jiminy Christmas it's been awhile since I've chatted about knitting! I recently finished up two items for Lil' Miss and I didn't even have a chance to wash them before she snatched them fresh off my needles and put them on. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I mean who complains about someone who is so delighted to wear items knit for them? There were 2 projects I was working on for her, a pair of rainbow knee high socks I talked about earlier in this post and a summery cotton top, Sourpatch published in Petite Purls last summer.

I had fallen in love with the top as soon as I saw it but didn't get to it until last month. I seem to have trouble knitting a season ahead, which is probably what I should be doing but I just don't want to deal with wool in summer or little cotton tops in winter. Anyway, I used Knit Picks shine for this top and the colors and sheen of the yarn are perfect for the design, of course Lil' Miss helped to pick out the colors for the top and had great fun doing so.. In spite of the original being done in wool I chose cotton as the wool seemed a little counter-intuitive to me, I mean, who wants to wear wool in the summer? I had a devil of a time getting gauge and now that it's done I think I should have gone down a needle size for the color stripes as I did for the stockinette portion. The biggest hiccup occurred because I didn't fully read the pattern, for all larger sizes there are more color stripes and I just looked at the picture and bought according to that, oops! So I got knit up to the last strip with the yarn I had and set it aside while I waited for the final color to arrive. Once it did the knitting went fairly quickly, if rather repetitive once I hit the stockinette portion, knitting only knit stitches endlessly in a loop can get, well, hellishly boring! I did enjoy a few movies while doing that part I must say.

After the rough start with her rainbow knee highs they went pretty quickly the final time, taking about 2 weeks to complete from start to finish after the third cast on. It is so much fun to watch the color changes as you knit, really alleviates some of the boredom with doing endless rows of ribbing. I'll say it now, her next socks will not be knee highs (I'm thinking of either Hermione socks or Socks for Little Witches out of some felici in tiki I couldn't help but buy) and it will probably be awhile before she gets another pair of knee high socks!

The sourpatch top I knit for her fared better than the socks without being washed before wearing. The only issue with it is that it turned out a bit on the large side and since I thought a shirt that falls off one or both shoulders probably isn't too appropriate for school I wove a narrow pink ribbon through the top just below the cable cast on to nip it in. Although not part of the design the little ribbon and bow look totally adorable and make me even happier with my result! As for the socks, well, I felt kind of bad for her when I picked her up at school the day she wore them for the first time as they were sadly around her ankles. Hopefully that won't happen again as they have now been properly washed however if it does I think I may need to run some elastic thread around the tops to help keep them in place, at least I will if it bothers her enough!

School questions

2011-05-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Parenthood is not for sissies! The most unexpected issues crop up and cause stress/anxiety where you never imagined it would, like where to send your kid to school when they are already in school.

I just found out this morning that the two little girls we walk to school with are transferring out to other schools next year and Lil' Misses best friend Miss E is also transferring out, as are the majority of the kids in her little group in class. I had decided with Mister Vonkysmeed to keep her in our neighborhood school in spite of it's problems because well, it is our neighborhood school. But now with hearing about all these other kids transferring out I am second guessing myself, am I really making the right decision?

I'm feeling like maybe I am being lazy since I really don't want to have to drive her to another school instead of walking to this one. However we have had a very positive experience so why change? Lil' Miss is doing well, very well in fact, and we have been beyond happy with her teacher. 'The other parents are understandably concerned since our school is a Title 1 school (meaning at least half the students qualify for a free lunch-meaning they are poor, and mostly Spanish speaking) and is currently earmarked for Program Improvement (meaning their test scores have fallen-in my opinion due to the large percentage of ESL kids whose parents do not provide any kind of help to their kids at home). For these reasons they are getting their kids into other schools in the district that are higher performing schools. In spite of our schools problems Lil' Miss has a fantastic Kindergarten teacher and I know the first grade teachers are also very good but I still wonder if this is the right decision.

This is not a dilemma I ever thought I would have to deal with, I just assumed we would go to the neighborhood school and all would be fine. I never thought it would become an issue of whether to stay in our school or not. However I didn't realize we were not in the school district I thought we would be in when we bought the house, whoops! Maybe I should talk to Lil' Misses current teacher for some much needed reassurance that I am making the right decision. In other words, please don't let me screw up my kid!

Destructo TALKS!

2011-05-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, he is starting to talk to us! And now that he is started it's becoming a little flood of communication. It seems like every day a new word pops up, or words are being used together that never were in the past. Both of us seem to be feeling much better with the new communication being used.

The past few months have been, in a word, difficult. I found myself wondering why Mister Vonkysmeed and I decided to have another child, I mean Lil' Miss was never this difficult, was she? Then all of a sudden about a few weeks ago the boy started using new words, daily, sometimes several words in a day. And he continues to use them which is the biggest step forward. Don't get me wrong, we don't have many sentences yet, but he does seem to have finally grasped the notion that if he uses a culturally agreed upon word for something he will get results. Although we sometimes get the most interesting Destructo-Boy interpretation of a word that takes several times to decipher, that is if we are able to at all. My personal favorite is when he brings a book to someone and says "TO" most urgently. Um, run that by me again? He hasn't quite figured out that the operative word in "read to me please" is not 'to' but 'read', but it is awfully cute!

Most of the time the new communication is working just fine, sometimes not so much when he is trying to desperately say something and for the life of me I can't figure it out. Then the tears start and the volume increases, just fun all around (yes, he cries too). I must say it is so much easier to handle a child who is willing to communicate with us instead of the grunting and pointing nonsense that has been going on (I think I am really lucky to be alive since I was a grunter/pointer until almost 3 years old, thank goodness the boy isn't taking after his mommy!). Now that we have started to communicate we can begin to think about the next big step, shudder, potty-training!

Playdate DRAMA...

2011-04-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

Who knew there could be drama involved in playdates? Let me take you to the beginning to understand the current state of affairs. Lil' Miss made her first special friend, Miss E, in Kindergarten and withn a few weeks we saw them walking home and realized they lived literally around the corner from us. So the new friends mommy, Missus Sweden and I started talking and set up playdates for the girls. It was kind of funny as we had no experience doing this and both admitted it to each other, but I told her that I felt we should for lack of a better word, 'inspect' each others' homes to make sure we were comfortable with the girls playing there and make sure we had contact info for each other and all should be fine. She agreed and we had a new routine on Fridays.

So this was the state of affairs for a few months, every Friday we would have the girls play together for a few hours after school, alternating homes. it was working really well, and then The Third Wheel was introduced over winter break. She was the child of divorced parents and Missus Sweden felt kind of sorry for her so invited her to a playdate we had set up to have at her house. It seemed to work out alright, but you know how threesomes turn out, generally not too well.

The next playdate was scheduled at my house and instead of talking to me directly TTW's mother asked Missus Sweden if she could come to the playdate. So here I was with this child I hadn't really invited, whose mother had no idea how to contact me and who didn't even know where I lived, talk about poor judgment (please excuse me why I shimmy into my judgey pants!). So we continued on this way, alternating between our house and Miss E's house with TTW added in for spice. Then TTW's mom wanted to have a playdate at her home, um, NO! Why no? I had serious problems with her judgment, after letting her kid come to a home she had no contact info for, let alone had never seen, as well as her not being within walking distance, and the fact that she currently had a brother residing with her who until that time was a homeless drug user. But how to bow out gracefully? Thankfully The Child Whisperer came to my rescue with the perfect excuse, #1, Lil' Miss is not ready to be that far away from home (yup, blame it on the kid!), and #2, neither am I. TTW's mom seemed to asccept this, although she was clearly not happy.

So things continued on but there were starting to be problems, Miss E and TTW were starting to have some issues with getting along. TTW is a rather bossy child who is sadly lacking in manners (and I'll admit it, I don't much care for her) and Miss E had had enough of being told what to do constantly. So every week now instead of Missus Sweden and I getting to watch the girls play nicely and hae some fun with them, we were having to intervene to stop the fighting. Eventually Missus Sweden called up TTW's mom and apprised her of the problem, although she never pointed fingers or placed the blame on TTW, her mom went ballistic. Apparently we were the mean stay at home moms who were 'cliqueish' and didn't like her. She refused to accept that it just wasn't working because the kids weren't getting along, it was us evil moms that were the problem. Sigh, really? Didn't we leave this kind of crap back in high school, apparently not.

So currently we are back down to two very happy little girls going from one house to another on Fridays and having a fantastic time playing together. It really amazes me how well these two get along, when they have a conflict I will inevitably hear them saying "Eeny, meeny, minny, moe..." to pick who gets to choose. The truly amazing thing is that they did this all by themselves, no one directed them to resolve their conflicts this way. Oh, and although they still play with TTW at school and seem to be getting along much better, her mom hasn't even said hello to either of us since then. Hold a grudge much?!

The boxes are in the building

2011-04-22T17:27:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share my birthday haul since the boxes have all arrived, finally. I do still have some gift cards to spend but I am a bit of a hoarder so it might be awhile before I spend them. I got a box from KnitPicks, one form WEBS, and one from Amazon, I love that smiley face! I really wanted to pull all the yarn out and roll in it, but I managed to resist the temptation. I certainly petted it all and rubbed my face in it though!

First to arrive was the KP box with 10 skeins of Comfy worsted in a gorgeous color called sea foam. It is not as bright as it appeared on my monitor but I love it nonetheless as it definitely has the feel of the ocean to it. This was my birthday present from Grumpy and Chatty Cathy that she helped me pick out on my birthday after we went out yarn shopping. One of the reviews of this yarn said when knit up it feels like your favorite t-shirt and after feeling this yarn I can certainly believe it! Maybe this is the answer to my issue with the current availability of decent t-shirts at retailers, maybe I should just knit my own! Anyway, this yarn is destined to become a Lilas cardigan designed by Hilary Smith-Callis, a truly lovely drape front cardigan that I think I would get a lot of wear out of. I am debating about lengthening the sleeves to 3/4 length rather than the short sleeves as written in the pattern.

Next up came a box from WEBS, I went a little crazy since they are currently having their annual anniversary sale and the prices are fabulous! I ended up ordering Classic Elite Classic Silk in the princess pink color, Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in persimmon, and a lonely skein of Madelinetosh sock in fragrant. It is all gorgeous! The silky wool is the perfect shade of dark terracotta, it has a subtle pink tone to it and will be perfect for a Dark & Stormy (Ravelry link) cardigan designed by Thea Colman (I adore her designs, classic and simple, but very modern too, just my style). For the classic silk I'll make a Nantucket Red (Ravelry link) cardigan, it'll be another great layering sweater for spring and summer. The pink color is a bit lighter than I expected but still quite acceptable for me to wear (sorry Lil' Miss, you don't get this stuff!). The madelinetosh, well, I have no plans for that yarn as of yet. It is unbelievably beautiful though, I now understand why people love this stuff so much the colors just don't photograph nearly how they look in person, I do believe I'll be treating myself to this yarn on occasion in the future.

Lastly I got some books from Amazon, of course some knitting books and one just to enjoy reading. I am delighted to have The Big Book of Knitted Monsters by Rebecca Danger, I have admired her patterns for awhile but just couldn't afford to pay for them individually. Now that there are 20 available in a single book for less than $12 through Amazon, well it was kind of a no-brainer! I also desperately wanted the Silk Road Socks book by Hunter Hammersen once I saw the first pattern, they are all incredibly gorgeous and although I haven't had a chance t read through the book yet it appears that there was quite a bit of research that went into it on the history of the silk road and how the rugs are different in each region and then how all this went into the design of each sock (I can't wait to get started on one of these!). Lastly a work of fiction, New York by Edward Rutherford. I think I have read just about every one of his books and love them! His approach is unique, he follows a few families through a very long period of time and thus depicts the changes that occur in a community over such a long period of time, quite interesting.

Veggies!

2011-04-19T16:09:00.000-07:00

Yessirree, we are planting our first vegetable garden. I am a complete novice at this so it will definitely be a learning experience to see what will thrive and what won't. The idea first came to me last summer when the kids and I went along with The Child Whisperer as she needed to water a community garden she was part of. It seemed like such a neat idea for the kids to see where food came from that I thought it might be nice to do it in our own yard.

There isn't much space left to put in planters for veggies so we are giving it a go in the side yard, it is a bit shady on one side due to the angle of the sun, but as the season progresses it will be less shady. So Mister Vonkysmeed purchased a set of raised garden planters for us to start up our new garden in. I requested assistance via Facebook from my friends and got the most responses (21) to a status update ever I think! Everyone seemed to think squash, zucchini, various beans, and tomatoes were good bets. I also had a few suggestions to check out Square Foot Gardening to make the most produce out of the least amount of space.

We ended up choosing broccoli, radishes, zucchini, carrots, green onion, cabbage, lettuce, mesclun (a variety of lettuces), chives, and green peppers for our garden. the radishes had already been started from seed by Lil' Miss following her school field trip to a farm, but everything else we are trying to start directly from seed. Since we don't have to worry about frost here is a Southern California beach city I am hoping they will be okay and we will see them sprouting in a few days, hopefully.

We are currently using white plastic knives for our plant markers (aren't they quite snazzy looking?) but will be upgrading to some kid painted cuter ones soon. Mister Vonkysmeed will be making a few trips by the paint department of Home Depot to pick up paint stirrers, they should work perfectly! Wish us luck as we start our own Victory Garden!

Rainbow knee socks, third times the charm?

2011-04-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

why yes, I am enjoying my ipod!

Yup, I have started these suckers three times already. I am so hoping that this time they come out the right size. In case you were wondering, these are for Lil' Miss, not for me, I'm not really a 'rainbow' type person. When the new colors of felici were released last month I knew she would love the color so bought 2 skeins to make her some knee high socks (cause doesn't even fashionable Kindergartener need some snazzy knee hi's?). It is a really nice yarn base to work with, washable merino wool that is nice and smooshy, and it can being handle ripped out three times and re-knit!

The pattern I finally settled on was Riblet (Ravelry link) socks by Katt Walker designed to fit a wide range of young'uns. All would have been great if I hadn't decided to do them up to the knee (they aren't designed as knee socks), it is a really well thought design of ribbing all the way down the sock to ensure a comfortable fit on many different foot sizes. However I decided to just cast on and go for it after some reassurance from a fellow Raveler without doing any kind of gauge swatch to check my gauge against Lil' Misses calf circumference (I need to re-read my own goals list on the left bar don't I!). So after about 2 weeks of knitting I tried them on her again and this time she said they "didn't feel so good." Sigh, you know what that means! I frogged them and started over.

Funny aside here, a non-knitter friend was sitting in the room with me and some knitters when I began ripping them out. The poor thing was literally squirming in her chair watching me do it, I think she was just about ready to leave rather than continue to watch in growing horrified fascination. Everyone else understood my problem, yes I could just finish them, but they wouldn't fit and would never be worn so it was better to rip out 2 weeks of work rather than continue on with a doomed project.

I cast on for the second time with 70 stitches instead of 55 and of course after being too small this time they were turning out too big, so frog again. For my third attempt I cast on with 60 stitches and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out this time. My gauge seems to have relaxed some too, for some reason when I started these I think I was attempting to choke the life out of the poor yarn. Now that I have gotten used to working with it I seem to be having an easier time of it. Hopefully I'll get them done before she grows out of them, I just have to keep plugging away now that they seem to be the right circumference for her leg.

It's my birthday, let's go buy yarn!

2011-04-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just like the title says, I convinced Chatty-Cathy and Crafty Auntie (who is to blame, since she taught me to knit in the first place!) to meet up at my place and go to a couple of local yarn shops with me. I may do a lot of shopping online but I need to support my local merchants too!

First up was Knit Schtick, a very cute shop that just happens to be located a few doors down from where I bought my wedding gown (so, immediate happiness when going there beyond the whole I get to buy yarn thing). Not only is a great little store but they also have a great online presence and send regular emails informing their customers of upcoming workshops, knitting gatherings and new product arrivals. Unfortunately I didn't double check their hours before we left, whoops! We drove into the parking lot and I said 'Oh no, why are there white blinds drawn over the windows?!' Yup, they were closed, bad on me.

Next up was The Sheared Sheep, a bit difficult to find but worth the search. They don't have quite the grasp of new technology as the other shop but nice to go feel and buy the yarn regardless. Since shop #1 turned out to be closed we drove over to make sure this one would be open and it would be, in about 40 minutes. So we went off to a bookstore to kill some time before coming back to the yarn store. When we did return they were happily open with a group of ladies gathering around the table for a knitting class. It was a rather small selection of yarn, but it is always great to go pet the lovelies instead of just buying online and hoping it'll work. They had some Rowan Kidsilk Haze knitted up and I must say, that stuff is gorgeous! However, I just don't know what I would do with it, so none of it came home with me. I ended up getting a nice palmwood crochet hook by Brysun and a skein of Cascade Venezia in turquoise (it will become a Brambles beret, so pretty!).

Then my dear friends took me out to lunch at Todai all you can eat sushi and seafood, yummy! We had a nice leisurely lunch, although Chatty Cathy was saddened to discover the crab legs are only available on the weekend and not during the week. The sashimi style sushi was the best, some of the rolls had some really weird stuff in them. Maybe it is just me but raw fish does not go well will cream cheese! The desserts were delectable and served in bite sizes so one could easily try several guilt free.

After lunch we went back to my place to sit, talk and craft for the afternoon. Since Chatty Cathy hadn't gotten anything for me at the yarn store we pulled up Knit Picks and she bought me some Comfy worsted in seafoam that is destined to become a Lilas cardigan to wear this summer. Doesn't that look wonderful! They even helped me decide on some colors of Elsebeth Lavold silky wool (I got the persimmon to make a Dark & Stormy cardigan) and Classic Elite classic silk (the princess pink for a Nantucket Red cardigan, I certainly hope it's not too 'princessy'!) that I was having trouble deciding on. Then I horrified Chatty Cathy by ordering some madelinetosh sock yarn, she really couldn't quite believe I was spending $26 on yarn to make socks, I just told her it was my birthday and the yarn was pretty and I wanted it, so there! With all the online ordering my birthday will continue for the next week or so as the boxes begin to arrive, hooray!

To err is human, to mend is divine

2011-04-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

My dear brother Grumpy brought back to me a few months ago the fingerless gloves I had made for him for Christmas 2009. He brought them back because some evil moths had gotten to them and eaten holes in them. If you didn't guess where this is going, now I get to learn some new skills, namely mending holes in knitting. The more observant readers out there probably caught the timing in the first sentence, he brought them to me several months ago and I am only now getting to them, yes I am a bit intimidated by having to fix the moth larvae damage. And no, I really don't want to do it I would much rather knit something new. However Grumpy really loves the gloves and wants to be able to wear them again so mend I must.

now that's some moth damage!

First of all, right after he brought the holey things back to me my mind went bananas, screaming moths, motHS, MOTHS! over and over in an endless loop. I mean, how dare Grumpy introduce moth larvae into my sterile yarn loving house?! So I ran into the kitchen to find a ziploc of the appropriate size and crammed those suckers in as fast as I could. Then I perused the interwebz looking for assistance as to what to do with the defiled gloves sitting in my kitchen. First off I put them into the freezer for a few weeks, than I put them on the counter to bring up to room temperature before re-freezing again to kill any newly hatched bugs. Then I forgot about them for awhile again before defrosting them again and then putting them in the microwave for 3 minutes on high. Then they went back in the ziploc (can't take any chances with my stash or finished knits you know!) inside my knitting bag awaiting their turn with my undivided attention.

can barely see the mend on the side of the pinky finger, yea me!

One of the gloves had rather minor holes, the other was significantly worse so of course I decided to start with the easier one. I used these articles from Knitty to help me figure out what to do. Thankfully Grumpy wasn't particular about the gloves looking as they had when brand new so it didn't need to look perfect when finished. And let me tell you, after I had some time with them to do my best to fix the holes, they do not look like new. Thankfully I still had some of the yarn I used originally left in my stash so at least the mended holes aren't glaringly obvious. However, they are quite visible. Now that the first glove is fixed I need to suck it up and go after the second ones, they are just much worse (and thus are still languishing in my knitting bag as I write this!).

how the heck do you mend ribbing?!

Happy early birthday to me!

2011-03-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

My birthday isn't actually until next week but yesterday my dear hubby Mister Vonkysmeed brought home my birthday present and handed it over. I've known for awhile what he was planning to get for me so it wan't really a surprise but it was certainly nice to get it (ooh, and thanks to Pops-in-law too as this gift is from both of them!). See, I gots a brand new iPod Touch! I finally mentioned that I might like one after realizing that the Touch could replace my dinosaur of a Palm Zire and do even more. I admit to being slightly resistant to change, so have never actually had an iPod of any flavor before.

My only complaint is that I will miss the stylus. I know, weird huh? But it did take me forever to upgrade from a DayRunner (anyone remember those things?! I could not live without mine!) to a pda in the first place, and one of my favorite tools on my Palm is a notepad feature where I can draw or write lists, impressions of something I see, etc. Although Lil' Miss has been using this feature a lot, like while waiting in a Dr.'s office she asks for the pda so she can draw while waiting, of course this leaves me with absolutely nothing to do, but at least the kid id happy right?! I guess I can be a little old-fashioned about some things, like I detest e-readers, give me a real book any day of the week.

out with the old and in with the new

So, does anyone have any suggestions for apps I should look into? Mister Vonkysmeed is so sweet he even made sure there was a balance available in his itunes store for me to use to get some things for my new toy. I know I will want a better calendar, with the two anklebiters I absolutely rely on that thing to make sure I don't miss any appointments or classes of theirs, or mine for that matter! I'm not sure what else I should look into, so suggest away!

Glynis socks redux

2011-03-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

Remember how in my last post about these socks I said I was a bit off on the gauge? Well, yes that 1/2 stitch per inch off on the gauge makes a difference, a pretty big one too. After getting an inch of ribbing and 4 repeats of the lace pattern done I decided to try on the socks again. It was a huge struggle to get them over my instep, nigh impossible, sigh. I had to rip them entirely out and start over again. So not happy about having to do that but the alternative of having socks I can't wear or that are only partially knit is worse so I began again with the next needle size up, a US 2.

Now that I have restarted them, they are coming along quite nicely, I only did 4 repeats of the lace pattern of the leg instead of 9 as called for in the pattern because I didn't want socks quite that high. It seems that a 3-4 inch leg is what works for me and once I got to that point I started the heel flap. I had to do 18 slipped stitches on the heel flap height, about 2 3/4" high.

The color is definitely growing on me, once I had the mental image of Shrek blowing big pink bubbles the colors make me giggle a little inside every time I see them. It remains to be seen if anyone else will be as amused by them as I am. The yarn is a joy to work with though, so soft and easy to knit. It does get a little splitty but it's not a huge problem and thankfully my harmony needles are so pointy it's pretty easy to deal with. Hopefully they will wash up and wear nicely too and if they do I will definitely be investing in more Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy sock yarn!

I am beginning to rethink the whole 6 socks in 2011 goal, I think I am going to end up with 12 pairs by the end of the year at the rate I'm going. They may not all end up being for me, I just got some Knit Picks Felici in rainbow and tiki to make some socks for Lil' Miss, but I will definitely end up with more than 6 by the end of the year. This would be why I sometimes lowball my expectations, I get so excited and happy when they are surpassed!

Excuse me while I rant

2011-03-23T06:26:00.000-07:00

Hmm, no white here!

Can someone please tell me why it is so difficult to find the simplest of wardrobe staples, a white t-shirt? You know, just a basic whit t-shirt that you can't see my bra through? Okay, maybe I am totally out of touch with the current style (like I have always been, in high school I strongly resembled a goth-amish refugee, yup, imagine that one for a minute!) but it really shouldn't be so hard to find. Apparently every clothing manufacturer has agreed to use the thinnest material possible and the public just accepts it. It used to be that you could find a decent white tee, sadly mine was somewhat stained in the underarm area so it is now a lovely shade of rose pink, nice, but not white. I mean, I even subjected myself to walking into The Gap (I hate this store, so not me!) bu even their most signature garment was ridiculously thin, I mean, a dermatologist could examine me through it!

With spring and summer on the way I really would like to find a decent white t-shirt, and when I do I'll probably need to stockpile them! My favorite go-to store has sadly gone out of business, Mervyn's, and my second favorite store New York & Company has joined in the too thin material brigade. It has been awhile since I last tried to find one, and I am getting ready to begin the search again, sigh. This could be one of the reasons why I hate to shop for clothes, I need a specific item and just can't find it, or maybe I am being a bit like Goldilocks, this one too thin, that one too short, where is the one that is just right?!

Distraction

2011-03-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

newly organized closet, yea!

This weekend I was trying to work on my scrapbooks and my Slice die cut machine was being difficult and not working right for me. Okay, it's been buggy pretty much since I bought the damn thing but when it works, it really works and I love it. Anyway, I got mad at it and needed to find something else to focus on, so I decided to move around some craft supplies as I had been contemplating doing for a long time while I waited to see if my Slice would spontaneously start working properly again.

Once upon a time I was an artist, well, at least an art student and I still have a taboret in which my remaining art supplies are housed (from Wikipedia: a small portable stand or cabinet, with drawers and shelves for storage. It is used as a method to bring organization to a work area. This name for a portable cabinet is common to artists.). I came to the sudden realization that part of my reluctance to work on my scrapbooks is due to the fact it is a total pain in the ass to drag all my supplies from the closet where they are stored out to the dining table where I work with them so I decided to move the scrapbooking stuff into the taboret and relocate the art supplies...somewhere else (I so wish I has a craft room like I did while living with The Momster, I waited a whole week after Grumpy moved out to take over his room for my artsy crap!).

The scrapbooking stuff fits into the taboret nicely and all of the art supplies are neatly reorganized into my yarn storage boxes. Huh? What's that? How did the yarn get involved in this you ask? Well, it occurred to me that my current yarn boxes were bursting at the seams to contain the yarn I have stashed and since I use the yarn more than the art supplies maybe I should make sure the yarn is easier to get to and maybe devote more space to it. So one thing led to another as you can assuredly see by now and I spent all afternoon going through stuff, reorganizing it, cleaning out things that I don't use anymore or are broken/unusable, purchasing some new storage boxes, etc., etc., etc.

So, I got completely distracted and my dining table was still covered in partially completed scrapbook pages. Sigh, maybe I'll make some progress on it sometime this week, but doesn't my taboret look nice with all the scrapping supplies in it? And now I have some room to buy more yarn too!

obsessively labeled yarn boxes, hmm, OCD maybe?

Another Sock KAL

2011-03-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

So I started out the month of March by joining another sock knit-a-long, this time with the Sock Knitters Anonymous group. One of their challenges for the month is lace, and lucky for me I have a spanking new Sock Innovation book by the uber-talented Cookie A. begging to be knit out of so here I go!

For these socks I am using my lovely new skein of Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Sock yarn that I bought for myself at the beginning of the year. It is a truly interesting shade of pink and green, called magenta-moss on WEBS. It truly is magenta and moss, with some browny-green thrown in for good measure. I think it'll be one of those colorways that will grow on me over time (I have now decided it looks like Shrek chewing Bubblicious gum). Happily I was able to split the yarn in half and get each sock started at the same color change. I never would have been able to get the yarn split evenly without my yarn scale, I am getting a huge amount of use out of that thing. Hopefully I'll get two matching socks rather then fraternal twins since I was able to get both started at the same color change.

I chose the Glynis pattern out of the book as after perusing the projects on Ravelry of socks from Sock Innovation I decided that this pattern would look the best in self striping yarn. My gauge is a tad tight, but really, how much difference will 1/2 stitch per inch make? I think I'd rather they were a bit tight to get on then too loose. For some reason I am having a devil of a time so far keeping the pattern straight, I keep making mistakes and having to pull out work I just did to get it right. Frustrating, but necessary. Here's to hoping it'll get easier for me as I go along.

The Hoodless Hoodie

2011-03-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

I just finished up my Austin hoodie by Connie Chang Chinchio and I am so incredibly happy with how it came out. I still can't quite believe that I managed to make it come out the right size even though I didn't follow the gauge or my size according to the pattern. All I can say for this one is that the washing and blocking really made it, the fit was totally wonky until after I ran it through the wash and laid it out to dry. Can I say again just how happy I am with how this cardigan came out?

I did make a few pretty minor modifications to make my Austin. First off the gauge, I knit mine at 5 stitches per inch rather than the pattern gauge of 6 stitches per inch, just because I liked the look of the fabric better that way. To make up for knitting at a different gauge I followed the pattern stitch counts for a size larger than what would be my size, but I did follow the length for my size. Along the front I wanted to have buttons in case I needed to close up the cardi, so every 20 rows I did a really simple yarn over buttonhole. I also knit 10 rows in garter stitch for the hem as I wrote about in a previous blog post, and I did the 10 rows of garter stitch for the sleeve cuffs and for the edge of the collar. Ah, the collar! I knit the hood per pattern for 4.25" then did the garter stitch to finish it off. I didn't want a hood as I felt it would: 1) hide all the work I had done on the upper back of the cardigan, 2) would be a total waste of the yarn, and 3) plus I was afraid I wouldn't have enough yarn as I was making a larger size than intended.

As it turns out not only do I have plenty of yarn, I even have enough left over (about 340 yds) to make myself a nice little pair of socks! Do you sense a growing obsession there? I fear I do! A quick word on the yarn I used, Araucania Itata solid in light lilac (Ravelry link), after washing the yarn has softened up considerably, I am actually surprised how much it improved with washing! It doesn't have much give while knitting, but it is nothing like knitting with cotton or crappy acrylic (not all acrylic is crappy, just most of it). It was certainly a learning experience to knit with alternating 2 skeins at once since this is a non-dyelot yarn. The color of the yarn was worth the effort, but it is not my favorite thing to do! Maybe it is the fairly loose gauge of this garment that made the change from one yarn to another so obvious, but I will probably need to take a crochet hook to it in an attempt to even out the stitches a bit.

I definitely made my goal on this one though, I wanted to be able to wear it this spring, maybe for Easter and it certainly got done in time for Easter (and it would have been done even if it weren't so late this year!)! Now to get started on the next stash down before my new Knit Picks order arrives, a short sleeved Sahara knit with Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton & Silk in kiwi (Ravelry link).

I DO like green aggs & ham!

2011-03-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Isn't reading great? Especially when you get rewarded for reading the classic by Dr. Suess, Green Eggs & Ham. Yes, to reward Lil' Miss for reading through the entire book all by herself (and it's a whopping 62 pages long!) I made green eggs and ham for breakfast this weekend. I realize it's not a ham steak, but I thought since sausage comes from pigs it qualifies as ham, right?

Just in case you feel like doing this for your child, or maybe for yourself just because, let me be the first to tell you that just adding blue food coloring does not work. You'd think it would too. Normally when you add blue to yellow you get green, but with eggs you just get blue, so go for the green food coloring. If there is anything more revolting looking than green eggs, it's blue eggs. I think ours were a tad on the minty green side because I had already added the blue. I suppose it works for it being the month of March too, you know, like shamrock shakes, except it's shamrock eggs!

I can't say I enjoyed the treat quite as much as Lil' Miss did, even Destructo Boy ate his green eggs with gusto. Mister Vonkysmeed doesn't care for eggs even when they are the more traditional color so he escaped this mornings breakfast. I actually had to close my eyes for the first few bites, I know they are the same but that color leaves something to be desired. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm for green eggs I know I will have to do this at least one more time, when Destructo Boy reads Green Eggs & Ham by himself for the first time. When he does that he'll get rewarded too, with his own special breakfast.

I make a bargain with myself

2011-03-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

Weird I know, but I often tell myself I have to do a less desirable project to then get to do something that is more fun for me. Am I the only one who makes these kind of little deals with myself? And am I the only one who almost always keeps them?! Anyhow, since I seem to keep dropping the scrapbooking in favor of new knitting projects I decided to put a stop to that behavior with a new little bargain. Thus, I am not allowed to start another knitting project until I finish up the birthday albums and fall 2010 pages that are in progress. It seems a bit ridiculous, I know, but I have a feeling I'll just keep putting off the scrapping until I run out of yarn (like that would ever happen!).

So all I have in the way of knitting right now is my Austin hoodless Hoodie. I guess that'll help encourage me to get that sucker finished too huh?! On the plus side I am actually making progress on the pages, I already finished their birthday albums and have the pictures all printed out for fall. The only part unplanned right now is the journaling (the hardest part for me for some reason, you wouldn't think it since I blog, huh? You try to be brief and poignant every time and you'll get writer's block too I tell ya!) and since I have all the pictures for fall printed out and ready to go onto my already designed pages, I just have to sit down and do it.

Of course right after making this little deal with myself Knit Picks released their new colors of Felici, the bastards! So in spite of a self-imposed halt to new knitting I have a shopping cart full of yarn at KP that I will be ordering fairly soon. Sigh, excuse me while I go pull out my glue to finish up fall so I can get to work knitting down my current stash to make room for the new fibery goodness shortly to make it's way here.

New Socks!

2011-02-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

I just finished my toe-up socks that I have been knitting along with the Knit Picks Lovers group on Ravelry (blogged about here earlier this month). I used the Toe-Up Socks With a Difference pattern by Wendy Johnson with the motif from Pillars by Lisa Stichweh, knit with Knit Picks Stroll tonal yarn in Blue Yonder on 2.5mm needles. They actually turned out quite nicely, I am rather surprised! I thought I would have a lot more trouble than I did since I have these ridiculously high arches. As it turned out I just needed to start the gusset increases a little sooner and do a few more rows to make room for those arches (I started 1/2" sooner than indicated in pattern and did 2 additional rows of increases). That said, I do think I prefer cuff down, it is just that much easier to adapt the pattern for my feet.

The socks do fit comfortably, but as you can see they are pulling across the arch, the heel flap is being pulled in towards the top/toe of my foot to make room for that arch o' mine. I maybe should have added in 2 additional increase rounds, but I am not ripping anything out now to do so! I also might have made them a tad longer, but to be honest I was getting kind of sick of knitting them so crapped out and just finished them off, although I do like socks about this height I am finding so we'll just say I did it on purpose!

As you can see I even got started on a secondary goal for the year, working on Christmas gifts. I already got this little stocking ornament done and will be making a mitten and mini sweater ornament from my leftovers as well. They are really cute little things and do help use up those little leftovers, although since I prefer shorter socks my leftovers are a bit more in yardage I believe than others have. I wonder if I can make Lil' Miss a pair of socks from just under 200 yards of yarn?

Warm hands, finally!

2011-02-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much can change in a year. I first saw the Chevalier mittens last January and it was love at first sight, however, I was extraordinarily intimidated by them. All those cables, and something with that small of a diameter, eek! I really, really wanted them but wasn't sure if I could ever successfully make them. That said, I did buy yarn to make them the next month which promptly went into my stash boxes and languished there for a year. After a few very cold mornings last month, I decided I really needed some mittens and it was time to face my fear of the Chevaliers.

It turns out they weren't nearly as difficult as I imagined they would be. Seems that my skills have developed quite a bit over the past year and they weren't really that hard at all (they were fiddly though with that dang cable needle!). I guess that I hadn't realized just how much I have learned about knitting and things that once seemed impossible are well within my ability to do. I even managed to do them using magic loop and both at the same time, go me!

About my only gripe is that I mis-crossed one of the cables and was already so far past it once I realized it that I decided to just leave it rather than try to rip everything out to fix it. For you see, I had already done it once already and wasn't in the mood to do it again. Wasn't it the Kelts who would purposefully make a mistake in their lovely illustrated Bibles to honor God as he was the only one capable of perfection? Or was that a tradition in Islam? Whichever, I'll just think of my error as an homage to this tradition, plus no one will likely notice it but me! (oh, and of course anyone who reads this here blog will be sure to point it out to me if they see them!) I may have kind of brought it on myself though as I decided to mirror the mittens and thus changed up the cross for each mitten, teach me to 'improve' a pattern.

Next up for the hands, fingerless mittens for those not quite as cold mornings, but which pattern to make, hmmm?!

Wednesday is for kids

2011-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

At least in our house it is! We have allowed Lil' Miss to choose the dinner menu for a few months now, within reason of course. Her favorite so far has been fish of some variety, usually catfish (a five year old choosing fish, weird I know!) with rice and broccoli, interspersed with the request for my made from scratch mac and cheese. At some point I will hand over the dinner preparation to her to help her with learning to plan and prepare meals. Of course she will have to share the choosing with Destructo Boy once he gets a bit older and more verbal.

With the new year we have also added in games after dinner, after everyone is finished eating we all sit down and play games or puzzles together. Lil' Miss has been loving this new part of our routine and gets so excited when I tell her it's tie to go pick out a game to play. Mister Vonkysmeed is usually less than enthused with the choices (I'm not exactly doing backflips over them either to tell the truth) but she is only 5, so the games are of necessity a little on the simple side. Think Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-O and youget the idea. Maybe some nights we'll turn to the Wii for something a little different. She is learning to handle disappointment with this though, not an easy thing for a 5 year old. Some nights are a little rougher than others but it's getting better.

My hope is that by establishing a family routine now, when they get older the kids will still want to spend time with us old fogies, and it gives wonderful opportunities for open and honest communication with each other. I know that if I blink too long they will be all grown up and out of the house so I've got to enjoy my little anklebiters in all their frustration causing glory now!

Happy Evil Red Holiday!

2011-02-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

It's a long story, but a culmination of various different negative experiences led me to rename Valetines Day to The Evil Red Holiday quite a few years ago. Happily Mister Vonkysmeed has made it not so evil now, but it has become a little joke between us, so The Evil Red Holiday it remains. I hope everyone reading this post has a lovely day with those they love and hold dear, enjoy what you have and don't regret what is past.

Toes Up!

2011-02-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

Got started at the beginning of the month with the KAL in the Knit Picks Lovers group on Ravely. I am using the Toe-Up Socks With a Difference pattern by Wendy Johnson and am adding in the motif from Pillars by Lisa Stichweh. For my yarn I am using some Knit Picks stroll tonal in the blue yonder colorway, I am absolutely loving how the colors are blending, such gorgeous blues, teals, and aquas. It was a pretty easy start once I figures out the cast on. One of the Ravelers posted this link for a video explanation of how to get TAAT started on magic loop, after watching it through twice I gave it a go and got my socks cast on with my first try.

I followed the instructions for the increases and then did an additional 4 rounds before starting the lacy motif on the instep. I am really liking how they are coming along so far, but am worried about how to increase the gusset to make for a taller heel flap. I was clued into this post from Wendy's blog (a great read if you love knitting!) where she describes altering her pattern (yes the one I am using, hooray!) to make room for a taller heel flap. I think her adjustment may be a bit much for me, but it definitely gives me a starting off point to adjust the pattern to fit my feet. Thank goodness for helpful knitters on Ravelry! I wouldn't have had the guts to try toe up socks without knowing I could get their help.

I am actually a bit past where I was when I took the pictures, I am just about ready to start my increases for the gusset. Wish me luck as I try to figure this next step out!

The 'what was I thinking' cardigan...

2011-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

a really exciting lump of knitted fabric, I know

Would be the Austin Hoodie by Connie Chang Chinchio. It is gorgeous, really and truly it is, however it is a long sleeve, hooded cardigan knit with sock yarn! Talk about a time consuming effort, yikes! Then to make matters worse I decided I really didn't like the super loose gauge of the pattern as written so decided to go down a needle size, make that two, to tighten it up to a fabric I was happier with. But I really, really want it so I got started with the hopes of having it done for Easter, I had already purchased some lovely Araucania Itata in lilac from WEBS for 50% off so was all set to get started.

I have now started it twice, the first time I followed the pattern with the turned under hem and knit for several inches before realizing that 1) I don't like that kind of hem as it folds up while being worn, 2) I was switching between skeins of yarn (no dye lot=work with 2 skeins at once) along the front edge, not the brightest idea since they are exposed, and 3) I put the dang buttonholes on the wrong side (I am adding on buttons as that is how I wear my cardis). So I decided to rip out 5 days worth of work rather than continue on with a cardigan that I might not be happy with or wear when it was finally completed. Let me tell you, that was a painful decision! However, it was a necessary one.

I am now well past the point I was when I tore it out and am much happier with how it is coming along, The hem looks much nicer in garter stitch (plus it matches the garter stitch edge along the fronts quite nicely!) and will in all likelihood lay down rather than curl up like the picot turned hem on my Isabella does. I am also switching out the skeins right next to one of the false seams along the side, it looks a little wonky in places but I think I will be able to even it out with a crochet hook.

To make up for my tight gauge I am following a size larger than I would normally knit, and since I may run a bit short on yarn I have decided to also go without the hood, opting for a collar instead. I'll probably just start as directed for the hood and bind off after a few inches. Here's to hoping for the rest of it going quickly and error-free!

To scrap or not to scrap...

2011-02-03T11:33:00.000-08:00

Did you know I scrapbook too? Well, not nearly as often as I used to admittedly. I actually feel guilty for 'falling behind' on my scrapbooking. Whose behind? I guess my own self-imposed idea of how quickly I should get the photos in the album I suppose. I currently have the pictures ready to go for summer, but need to go through fall and the winter holidays photos to decide what gets printed. Then of course I do birthday books for each of the kids and of course I still have to do their 2010 birthdays.

I was talking to Mister Vonkysmeed about it the past weekend, that I felt bad I was so 'behind' on getting the photos done and he asked why I felt guilty, and more to the point, why was I trying to force myself to do something I really didn't want to do. I thought about it a minute and realized gasp that he ~~was right~~ had a point. So I gave myself permission to do as I liked and proceeded to knit on my Chevalier mittens.

However, I am beginning to feel like working on scrapping again. I will admit to as much of an ~~addiction to~~ appreciation of scrapping paper as I have with yarn, I love the pretty stuff and am tempted endlessly to acquire. But I had already purchased the materials to finish up summer and fall of 2010, so I just need to get around to actually working on it, which I have actually started to do (yea me!). Next up, getting those birthday albums updated!

ees boke

2011-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

some handy sign language in use

He Talks! Well, kind of. When a toy isn't working as expected, has another toy crammed into it, or just isn't doing what he wants Destructo-boy walks up to me (usually stomping on my feet in the most painful manner possible) and presents me with the toy stating "Boke!" or occasionally "Ees boke!" Another common word is "Wah" meaning water which would be our cue to go get him a sippy cup. We are also starting to say something resembling truck which are one of his favorite things right now (boy does this kid love trash day with trash, green waste and recycling designated trash trucks rumbling through the neighborhood!).

It is no less frustrating to communicate with the boy, he understands most of what we say to him and I know he is capable of speech now that he has said a few words. He has decided however to use grunting and pointing most of the time, he will say a word and then not repeat it for weeks. "Boke" and "Wah" seem to be the exceptions which he usually uses at least once a day. Thankfully we also finally got him to use at least one sign language sign, putting his hand to his mouth to indicate being hungry. This has certainly helped with some of the crying (yes, some of mine too!) around here.

At least I know for sure he is capable of speech, he is just stubborn about using it. Although I have a sinking feeling once he starts talking he is not going to stop!

Christmas knitting already?!

2011-01-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

Yup, it is only 27 days into the new year as of this writing and I have already completed three little Christmas presents. I found these awesome little patterns for ornaments and I think they are perfect for using up my leftovers from knitting socks. My plan is to knit up one of each after completing a pair of socks this year, that way I'll keep up with Christmas knitting all year and use up my scraps, happiness all around!

The patterns? Yes, all three are well written and easy to follow, it will be a pleasure to make them over again multiple times. On the left is Mini Mitten Ornament by Andrea Kopacek, in the center is Cheers! by Cheryl Niamath, and on the left is Mini Christmas Stocking by Little Cotton Rabbits. I was able to get all three done over the course of a Saturday in between dealing with kids and getting distracted by my computer from time to time. I used sock needles sizes US 2 1/2 and US 3, and each ornament used up about 5.5 grams of sport weight yarn.

The stocking ornament is knit flat and even comes with suggestions for different fair isle designs (maybe I can learn on something this small?) which look really fun to try. Looking at other project pages quite a few people have added initials onto the sweater ornaments a'la Harry Potter, which look really adorable, I think I'll give that a try too! Hooray for keeping another goal for the year!

Trains, trains, trains

2011-01-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Lil' Misses latest setup, pretty good for a 5 year old!

It was Christmas of the year 2007 that we were introduced to GeoTrax. From cruising around the 'net I quickly realized that these toys can become an addiction (well at least more for the parents if not the kids!). I think everyone bought a little something for Lil' Miss that year to add to the GeoTrax set, this happened even though she didn't quite "get" what to do with it all and certainly couldn't build herself a track yet! So, in spite of the somewhat uncomprehending 2 year old, the collection grew exponentially at first (mommy & daddy needed all those extras to build an interesting track!) with extra track packs, bridges, and assorted buildings. She did however rather quickly understand that the controller for the R/C train was important (still didn't know exactly what to do with it) and refused to give it up. So what did Mister Vonkysmeed do? If you guessed he went out and bought another R/C train for his own use, give the lady a prize, you're a winner!

We are not lucky enough to have a basement, finished or not, as they do in other parts of the country in which to put a playroom for the kids. We also have a fairly small home (Destructo-boy & Lil' Miss currently share a room, sorry kids but the planned addition will cost about 200K, gotta wait a few more years!) so our family room where the tv and my laptop reside also house most of the toys. Of course, fairly quickly the family room was being completely taken over by train tracks. We adults were getting ambitious with our constructions and every time someone wanted to sit down on a couch they quite literally had to step over various parts of the layout to get there. So I decided that the trains did not need to be out all of the time. But what to do with all those trains? Target (pronounce it tar-jhey so it feels fancier somehow) gave me my affordable solution of two Rubbermaid plastic totes. They fit ever so nicely behind the end table out of sight, keeping me happy and all the parts together when not in use.

Enter child #2 to the trains and what first started as a spot on imitation of Stitch in the "Ooh, SanFrancisco!" scene starring Destructo-boy as Stitch, has evolved into more interest in actually playing with the trains instead of tearing the tracks apart and flinging them all over the family room (yes, this resulted in Lil' Miss screaming and crying trying desperately to both stop him from pulling up more tracks and recover the pieces already flung across the room which would've been much funnier if I didn't have to physically pull them apart). He is finally starting to 'get' how to use the trains on the tracks, placing them correctly and running them back and forth with his little hands, he even got an R/C train of his very own this past Christmas.

I love to watch them when Lil' Miss is using the R/C train and Destructo-boy is madly running back and forth to keep up with the trains progress, squealing all the while, jumping up and down, pointing and yelling "Ack-Ack" (didn't know he had watched Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!). They have gotten a whole room of adults to sit watching them play with the trains this way, quite entertaining (or are we just easily amused, hmmm). He is absolutely fascinated with watching it go round and round, particularly when the track has been set up with lots of elevation changes, a roller coaster track as Lil' Miss calls it. I love it when a toy entertains the children and adult equally, talk about value for the money!

First socks of 2011

2011-01-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

nobody can dig out the chocolate first with these neapolitans!

Yea! I am on my way to keeping one of my goals with my first socks of the new year, only 5 more pairs to go. I used the Carolina pattern by Monkey Toes with KnitPicks Felici yarn in the Neapolitan colorway. I love them! Okay, it figures that I make some nice warm squishy socks out of sport weight yarn and we have a taste of summer in the middle of winter (it is currently 76 degrees F in my front hallway, gotta love Southern California!) so of course I can't wear them.

that nifty eye of partridge heel flap, love it

Unfortunately I did get almost done with one sock only to realize my gauge was too tight and they were really hard to get on my foot. Sigh, so I put in an order for some larger sock needles (can I tell you I was so disappointed with that!) and pulled it all apart to start anew. Since I has to start over anyway I decided to use my newly learned TAAT technique that I had just started to figure out on the sleeves for Lil' Misses new sweater. Knitting actually went rather quickly doing this, it only took me a little over a week to get them done. The only thing I am kind of iffy on is the toe, I do like the eye of partridge pattern I knit but I feel that I should have switched to that earlier even if it meant I just knit a few rounds without decreasing yet. Maybe it's just me but it looks a bit weird with the sock pattern going onto my toes, my toes are a bit squarish so it doesn't take too much to decrease for me and it just seems a bit sudden to my eye.

zoom, it's a toe!

Next up will be Toe Up Socks With a Difference by Wendy Johnson using the design element from Pillars by Lisa Stichweh with some KnitPicks stroll tonal yarn in the blue yonder colorway. I plan on starting these next socks along with the Knit Picks Lovers group on ravelry as part of a February KAL. I am really excited about these socks and am looking forward to learning toe up, here's hoping I can figure it out!

How to: Make a tote bag for knitting, crafting or toting

2011-01-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I didn't get better pictures before gifting this...

I do realize there are probably a million and a half free tote bag tutorials floating around on the web, but I haven't seen anything quite like mine so I thought I'd share. I absolutely love this bag I created to hold all my various knitting projects and tools and have already made several more as gifts. If you didn't guess on the timing of this tutorial, yup, the one pictured here was indeed a gift for a certain someone, Granola Mama in this case. I must say with this pattern there is something I really enjoy about picking out all the various fabrics and seeing how they work together. { it's located in PDF format here} Here's what you'll need to make one for yourself:

4 pieces of 18"x 8" fabric for the outside of the tote, one 4 1/2 " x 7 1/2" for the closure, and 2 more pieces 4 1/2" x 28" for the straps
3 pieces of 18" x 7" contrast fabric for outside of bag
lining fabric 1/2 yard of 45" wide fabric
interfacing (I use either medium or heavy weight), 4 of 18" x 8", 2 of 18" x 7"
batting, 4 of 18" x 8", 2 of 18" x 7"
fusible interfacing, enough for the straps and closure fabric
zipper (if you wish to put in a zippered pocket, you'll need some extra pieces of fabric also)
button or velcro

It is actually a pretty straight forward design (since I came up with it I'd be really surprised if it were anything but dead simple!) and doesn't require any fancy stitch work, well at least not anything I'd consider fancy.

materials all assembled and ready to sew!

The first thing I do is cut out all the pieces of fabric before I even think of pulling out the sewing machine. This way I make sure I have enough of everything, although it seems I am forever running short on either batting or interfacing! First thing I do is to make a little pocket for the outside of the bag, take that third piece of contrast fabric, fold it so the right sides are together into an 8x9 square. Sew along the raw fabric edge (opposite the fold), fold it right side out and press. Don't worry about the sides, they will be sewn up later.

Then I make little sandwiches of my outer bag fabric-batting-interfacing. I layer it like that so it will be strong enough to hold all my stuff, I have actually tossed my DSLR in my tote on many occasions along with my knitting projects and the bag has been able to hold that additional weight just fine. The bag should work fine if you choose to just have one big piece of interfacing and one of batting between the outer layers of fabric and the lining. I prefer to make sandwiches as I feel it gives some extra sturdiness to the finished product. On one of the contrast sandwiches layer the pocket you just sewed on top about 4" from the top and sew about 1/8" from the bottom of the pocket. Now to start sewing the bag together!

fabric sandwich components

pocket placement, I put the folded edge up top for strength

I assemble the outsides of the bag first, a front and a back which are identical. Take one sandwich of the main outer fabric and one of the contrast fabric and line them up with the long sides matched up to sew along, my seam allowance is usually between 1/4" and often closer to 1/2" as I can't seem to cut anything the same size to save my life (I also don't recommend using striped fabric as I did, it really shows up the crooked seams!). Once that seam is done line up another main fabric sandwich along the other long side of the contrast fabric and seam. Press the seams, trim excess fabric and set aside. Then sew together the other 2 main fabric sandwiches and one contrast sandwich for the other half of the tote in the same manner. Press those seams and trim the excess fabric too, now you have a front and back for your bag.

front completed, note the pocket on the center panel

front and backs laid right sides together to sew around 3 outside edges

Now place the outsides of the tote bag right sides together (make sure when placing the side with the pocketed contrast sandwich you have the pocket facing up, wish I had the first time!) and sew along the sides and bottom. It can be left at that, but I like to square up the bottom by folding the bottom seam so it lines up with the side seam to make a triangular shape and stitching a seam perpendicular to the bottom seam, I make it about 3" long. Do this on both bottom corners and then trim off the excess.

where to sew to square up the bottom corners

the bag standing up with the marked corner

the bottom corner right side out now, pretty isn't it?

Next up are the straps, first fuse the interfacing to the shoulder strap fabric and the fabric for the closure strap, follow the manufacturers directions on how to fuse together (if I tried to tell you I'd probably get it wrong and then you'd be mad at me-and I really don't like people mad at me!). Then fold the shoulder straps right side together in half lengthwise and stitch along the seam, fold right side out and press. Next topstitch along the length of the straps on each side about 1/8" in from the edge. Don't worry about sewing the ends shut, they will be hidden inside the bag. For the closure strap fold in half lengthwise right sides together and sew along the side and along the bottom, leaving one opening. Fold right side out and press, topstitch around the three closed sides about 1/8" in from the edge.

straps with fused interfacing, cut and ready to sew

closure strap right side out and topstitched

Now to do the lining, sewing it into a tube 18" tall and the whole width of the fabric around, well, check the fabric to your finished outside part of the tote (I had to cut 7" off of my lining fabric, leaving a piece 38" x 18", drat!). Then sew along the bottom of the lining, leaving an opening about 6" long to pull the finished bag through later. To finish it off nicely I fold the corners (lining up the two seams on one corner so they lay on top of one another) and stitch across the the corner as I did with the outside fabric. If you want a zippered pocket inside your tote bag, do it now, I used this tutorial by Lisa of U-Handbag for mine (this tote didn't get a pocket because, well, to be honest I was just plain too tired and lazy by this point).

To put it all together start with the outside of the bag right side out, place the closure strap at the center back (the side without the pocket is the back, unless you want to be backwards!), lining up the raw edges of the fabric of the strap and tote and pin. Take your shoulder straps and place one on the back and one on the front of the bag, also lining up the raw edges of the straps with the raw edges of the tote bag and pin, make sure the strap isn't twisted. I make sure the side edge of the straps line up with the seam between the main fabric and the contrast fabric.

straps laid on the tote which has already been inserted into the lining

Then take the lining, make sure it is wrong side out and put the whole outside of the totebag into it. Line up all the raw edges, making sure side seams match up and pin all together. Sew along the whole top of the bag then trim off the excess. Remember that opening you left in the lining? now is when you will get to use it. Pull the whole tote through the opening and make sure everything is sewn together, then stitch up the opening on the bottom of the lining. Now you will need to warm up the iron again to press the seam along the top of the bag prior to topstitching all around the top edge just as with the straps.

that opening in the lining for the tote will be pulled right side out through

tote pulled right side out, lining still needs to be sewn closed

top stitching along the top of the bag

the strap where if you can imagine, there is a buttonhole, sigh...

Now just use whichever closure method you prefer, button/buttonhole or velcro on the closure strap and the front of the tote above the pocket opening, I place mine about 1 1/2" from the top of the tote. Voila! A new tote bag to stuff all your other projects into. I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial, I know that I really enjoy making these tote bags for myself and my loved ones. If you have any trouble please feel free to shoot me a message and I will try to clarify if anything I've written doesn't quite make sense. Happy crafting!

New technique for a new year

2011-01-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

I want to try a few new techniques this year, not just knitting ones (which of course there are a few), but tricks to keep my life happier and absolve some of my guilt at letting things go too long this past year. If you are curious as to what all of these are I listed them in the sidebar off to the left under Goals 2011, feel free to laugh and learn along with me this year!

I am already in progress on conquering one of my resolutions, learning to knit two at a time on circular needles (abbreviated as TAAT cause I really don't want to have to type all of that over and over). I am currently knitting a Mi Escuelita cardigan for Lil' Miss, for which the yarn, Ella Rae Amity in aquamarine, was ordered last fall (yes, it's been sitting in my stash for a few months now, holiday knitting kind of got in the way!). It is actually a really quick knit and I must say I am very pleased with it so far. I have already finished the lower body of the sweater and decided to do the sleeves TAAT. It was a total bitch to get started but now that I am a few inches in I 'get' why people like this way of knitting. I am no longer obsessively counting rows and worried if my gauge changes from one sleeve to the other, and if they will look the same, etc. It may go a bit slower but they'll be done at the same time, and I need to finish both sleeves up to the armpit to join them to the body and continue work on the top portion of the sweater.

Maybe I'll give TAAT a try when I finally decide to face the music and restart my Carolina socks languishing in my knitting bag. They really are too tight and need to be redone, but I just don't have the heart to do it yet!

Sock Resolution

2011-01-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it, I am addicted....to knitting socks that is! I already have completed one pair, the ever popular Monkey socks by Cookie A., and am currently working on my second pair, Carolina by Monkey Toes. Wearing handknit socks just makes me feel so decadent! Probably the same feeling some women get from wearing fancy underwear. I will admit, I felt a pang of jealousy at the last image in this post on Mooncalf's blog, oh to have a sock drawer like that! So that's my goal, well at least one of them, to knit a sock every month (I know my limits and my level of laziness so a pair each month might be asking too much) so at the end of the year I'll have an additional 6 pairs tucked in my drawer to keep my toes nice and toasty.

My dear MIL got me off to a good start with my Christmas gift of knitting books, one of which was Sock Innovations by Cookie A. Squee of excitement from me when I opened that little bit of joy! Then later on Grumpy and Chatty-Cathy gifted me with some sock blockers and a skein of Imagination sock yarn, double squee! I think they must have known about the goal fermenting at the back of my mind even then.

I am going to be joining in the toe-up sock KAL planned for February in the KnitPicks Lovers group on Ravelry also, which will be my second knit-a-long ever. I just am a bit concerned about that style of socks fitting my freakishly high instep, remember my bitching when knitting my Monkey socks? Anyway, while perusing the forums on Ravelry when girding my loins to start those socks I found a number of knitters ~~cursed~~ ~~afflicted~~ born with high insteps who reported that the heel style of toe-up socks didn't work for them. However I have voiced this concern and am eagerly awaiting feedback from my fellow knitters as to how this obstacle shall be overcome.

Check out the nifty eye of partridge heel!

That said, I think a bit of ~~cheating~~ rule-bending may be in order, meaning the pair I have started and am working on will count as the first of my socks! Since I haven't even finished the first sock that shouldn't be too much of a cheat, although they are on hold at the moment as my gauge has changed. I may need to start them over anyway on larger needles. So, do you have any resolutions for the new year?

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-23T06:42:00.000-08:00

If only I had an army of elves to help me!

I know not to start a letter with an apology, but still, I am sorry to have neglected you all but I have been unbelievably busy getting everything done for Christmas. From last minute gifts, finishing up those that were already started and of course the "oh, crap!" when I realized that I forgot to make something for a special someone the crafting side has been pretty busy. Then of course there is the baking... the still to be made homemade rolls and pound cake for Christmas Day, the cheesecake for Christmas Eve, it never seems to end this time of year. I had trouble paring down my list of cookies and this year made a whopping ten different varieties. Mister Vonkysmeed thinks that something is seriously wrong with me, I think he may be right!

I promise to come back with a recap of my holiday crafting and of course more observations on the stunts of my two little ankle biters in the New Year. Until then Merry Christmas, belated Happy Chanukah, Joyful Kwanzaa, Jolly Yule, and a very Happy New Year!

Prepping for xmas

2010-12-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

It is my belief that it is never too early to start knitting or Christmas, particularly when you are a relatively slow knitter as I am. I actually started working on my holiday knitting back in June with the Haruni shawl for Chatty-Cathy and am making fairly good progress on the rest of the projects as you can see from my finished project basket. I have 19 projects completed, 2 in progress, and a few more to go most of which are sewn rather than knit. You know, it feels so much better to write it down and realize I don't have that much left to do, especially considering that the projects aren't that big (I don't do sweaters for xmas, too much fear of it not fitting!).

So this would be the reason I haven't been really good at updating things here right now, I've been busy knitting/crocheting/sewing and haven't felt the time was available to type. Then of course I haven't really been able to give a breakdown of what I did and am working on as many of the recipients actually check in here from time to time. Thus the messy basket shot of the finished items all jumbled together, so good luck trying to discern your gift in that mess peekers, bwah-ha-ha!

Maybe I'll try to get started a little sooner next year so I still don't have this overwhelming anxious feeling that I must knit faster hanging over me as I have the past month. Perhaps doing something for me, than a gift, than something for me and so on will help spread it out a bit better. But, you know what they say about the best laid plans!

Cow fetish

2010-12-07T12:48:00.000-08:00

Not that kind of fetish, what kind of sick people are you?! I was talking about this kind of fetish:

fet-ish noun
an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical powers to protect or aid its owner; broadly: a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence

After an angiogram last month discovered a torn arterial valve, Pops-in-law had a wee bit of open heart surgery this week to have it replaced. He is doing amazingly well and is being sent home from the hospital after only 4 days. In case you were not aware (and I was not until this request came my way) that when a valve is replaced they can be harvested from either pigs or cows and as you probably already guessed, Pops-in-law got some beef. So Mister Vonkysmeed suggested that I could just "whip out" a little cow toy for him to put a smile on his face. I suspect the humor will be most enjoyed by my Mister, but whatever it takes to help everyone get through this stressful event.

Now on to the crafty bit... I used a free pattern, Fabio Frog, from Lion Brand for the head, body and arms and for the snout ears and horns I used Chibi Cow by Marika Allely. Why did I not just use the cow pattern you ask? Well, I was lazy and wanted to make as few pieces as possible and this seemed the easiest way to go for me (the cow pattern has the head and body crocheted separately and had more rows to do-yes, I am that lazy). They were both very easy to follow and the cow was done in a day. I added on my own tail, just poked some yarn around a few crochet stitches, then braided it and ended with a nice knot. Last of all I found some pretty checked ribbon recycled from an old floral decoration to tie around Bessie's neck, now if only I had a bell...

I did suggest embroidering stitches along the cow's chest, but Mister Vonkysmeed thought that might be a step too far for his conservative father. All right, but if the Mister ever needs something like this, it is getting surgery stitches!

Giving Thanks

2010-11-24T07:12:00.000-08:00

Love me some Norman Rockwell!

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving. Why? It is a whole holiday about being with family and remembering what in our lives is good. Plus there is a whole lot of really yummy food around! Turkey roasting all day, stuffing, The 6 Fingered Man's yams (yes, I really do have an Uncle with six fingers-only on one hand the other got amputated-it's murder on little kids just learning to count!), mashed potatoes with gravy, and oh the desserts! We get to smell this yumminess all day while hanging out with the family, usually watching football and talking and laughing together, pretty relaxing. That said, Christmas is a close second with all the presents thrown in too, but on turkey day the focus is on togetherness and gratitude, not a huge haul.

So today on the day before our feast I wanted to take minute to thank you first of all for reading this, but there is so much I have to be thankful for in spite of the hardships my family has gone through this past year. I am hugely thankful for Mister Vonkysmeed, without him my life just wouldn't be complete, I mean who amongst us is lucky enough to marry their best friend? Yes, that would be me! Then of course I am thankful for my two little blessings, Lil' Miss and Destructo-boy, in spite of driving me crazy on a regular basis I cannot imagine life without these two in it. Then of course I am so very thankful for the extended family, they are all so loving and supportive and I can say we are lucky enough to be one of those rare families with very little drama, makes the holidays so much easier!

Then of course I am thankful for the roof over my head the food on my table and the support from a certain someone who is ensuring we are taken care of. With this year of unemployment there is no way we could have survived without that assistance, we are so very lucky for that in a time when so many others are losing so much.

And on a less serious note, I am so thankful that KTLA 5 has brought back the Twilight Zone marathon, I have missed my day of black and white tv goodness. I don't get to enjoy it at my aunt's house where we all gather (they like their football, so I bring my knitting!) but in the morning at home, you know what I will be watching! I wish it were on today too while I do some baking for tomorrow, I am making my very first pumpkin pie (mmmm, pie!) and am making a Cheese Ball with Everything for the big day tomorrow. I might even bake some dinner rolls from scratch!

So, what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving Eve?

FO Pembroke vest & Turkey hat

2010-11-16T06:39:00.000-08:00

Just in time for Thanksgiving! Known affectionately as Turkey Day around this house, I saw this hat pattern and had to make it for Destructo-boy to celebrate this holiday devoted to eating. I even finished the Pembroke vest I had started for him to wear on Thanksgiving that I was knitting along with some other members of the Knitting For Boys group on Ravelry.

I lucked out with the color, it's called honey but it looks just like perfectly roasted turkey skin. The hat was kind of a pain to knit, especially the decreases, I really had to pay attention to keep the goosebump pattern looking right. But the effect is perfect, it really does look like turkey skin. It took awhile for me to get to the legs, after fighting with the decreases I wasn't in a real big hurry to do so again on the legs. It took three tries to get it right. I started by making the turkey leg seperately with the intent of sewing it onto the hat. For this I followed the patterns stitch counts and wow did it turn out small! It was kind of like seeing quail legs on a duck, much too little. I started again, this time increasing the stitch count by following this modification and tried the technique of picking up the stitches on the hat. Unfortunately this time I started much too high on the hat, sigh, rip, rip, rip... I started on last time a little lower and it worked perfectly, so happy with the results! The boy seems pretty happy with it too.

Turkey hat specs:
Chicken Viking hat by Sarah Mundy, available online from Aloha Media

needle: US 5
yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice

The vest was actually a really quick knit, I was surprised when I was suddenly done. I talked about knitting up the back here, for the front I followed the same modifications as for the back. Once I had the two pieces sewn together it was time for the finishing of the ribbing along the neckline and the armholes. Prompted by some questions and comments amongst the people participating in the KAL I decided to look into doing some shaping on my ribbing. For the armholes I did the following: on round three I K1, P1, K2tog, P2tog, then knit in pattern until only 6 stitches were left, then I K2tog, P2tog, K1, P1. This resulted in the ribbing snugging in against the body a little better instead of flaring out. For the neckline I was inspired by the neckline shaping of the Keene vest, so on rounds 2 & 4 of the neckline ribbing I did a S2KP over the center stitch and the stitches just before and after it. This resulting a much neater looking ribbing methinks. I certainly like it and the boy seems to be happy with it especially since he grabbed it and ran off to cuddle it once it was done. Did I mention my kids like it when I knit for them?!

Pembroke Specs:
Pembroke vest by Kristen Kapur pattern available online in Petite Purls, Summer 2009

needle: US 7 & US 5
yarn: Encore worsted tweed by Plymouth yarn

First of Many ER Visits...

2010-11-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

Destructo-boy fell today, prompting my very first 911 call, and my first trip to the emergency room. We always knew he would be the one of our kids to go there first being the Dangermouse that he is, I just wasn't expecting it this soon, and while Mister Vonkysmeed was away for the weekend too (although I should have known to be on high alert because things always happen that way don't they!). What started as a nice little photo shoot with the kids to update my Ravelry projects page turned into a screaming bloody mess.

See, all I wanted were some pictures of my handknits actually being worn, so I got the kids dressed up all nice, grabbed my camera and started shooting. Destructo-boy started getting all giggly, spinning in circles to make himself dizzy and ended up falling against the back of the couch. Now mind you, this is an upholstered couch with the frame well hidden under fabric, who knew the back of a couch was dangerous? He immediately started crying and I scooped him up as the hit was quite audible, then when the screaming became frantic I got my first good look...I swear it looked like he was crying blood (has someone been reading trashy vampire novels?). I guess faces bleed heavily as his previous bad injury was tearing the upper labial frenulum (the piece of skin holding the upper lip to the gum) when Lil' Miss knocked him down last year, and boy did that bleed! No need for an er visit that day, a quick call to the pediatrician reassured me there was nothing they could do for that one.

But this one. well as I couldn't tell how bad the damage was, and my brain was screaming 'BLOOD! Blood, blood, blood!' combined with a fear that his eye might be involved I grabbed a towel to hold pressure on the wound and then the phone. Do you have any clue how hard it is to hear a 911 operator whilst holding a shrieking child? Yeah, it's hard. She kept yelling at me and I couldn't hear much of it, until I managed to locate a pacifier, then sudden quiet. I suddenly realized it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared if he calmed down with just the binky. But I needed someone to look at it before I was willing to transport him, I'd rather be safe than sorry with my kids!

Lil' Miss was very excited when the firetruck pulled up in front of the house, I was just glad to have someone to look at it. By then the bleeding had mostly stopped and they advised me to get him to the hospital for some stitches, but put on some steri-strips to hold it together until we got there. And once there, well, we waited for awhile, and then we waited some more. Did I mention I hate waiting? Of course when they were ready to see him he had just fallen asleep in my arms, figures.

For the examination and the eventual glueing procedure they swaddled him, mind you this kid didn't really like to be swaddled as an infant so he really wasn't having any of it now (especially not while being held on his back on top of me, who was also holding his legs in between mine, boy can that kid struggle!). I thought he was loud before but this volume was pretty hairy! So, they superglued it shut, as it turns out the cut was too shallow for stitches but too deep to be left as is, so glue to the rescue! Along with some more steri-strips to hold it all together. I just hope it doesn't scar too badly, I think hoping for no scar is a bit much, let's just keep it small okay powers that be? And no more ER visits for awhile too, I don't think my heart can take another one too soon!

Costumes for Halloween

2010-10-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

Why oh why did I decide to make them myself rather than just buying them?! Hmm, maybe because I am an idiot? Or maybe because I'd feel guilty being a stay at home mom if I didn't? Regardless of why, I decided to do it and boy am I sorry! It has probably ended up costing about the same to sew the costumes for the kids as it would to simply purchase them already done. Then besides the money spent is the vast amount of time involved, it takes quite a bit of time to cut out the fabric, sew it, press it, finish it... Although, the kids get something really personalized out of the deal.

Lil' Miss has decided she wants to be Super Girl for Halloween, now before you get all excited this is not the Super Girl of Superman fame, she came up with this idea independently. Here's the best part, when I asked her what her superpower was (because most heroes have special powers dont'cha know!) she informed me that Super Girl brings rainbows to people. Yes, rainbows. And what is special about that exactly, well it keeps changing. At first she brought rainbows to teach people their colors, but now it has morphed into being a kind of replicator (where the food comes from in Star Trek for you non-geeks) that pops out fruits and veggies with special rainbow dots on them. Does my kid have an imagination or what?!

Since every hero needs a nemesis (now imagine that word being used correctly by a 5 year old playing with her My Little Ponies and you have some insight into my world!) Super Girl is faced with the catastrophic powers of Destructo-boy! Yes, we the parental units are really imaginative, aren't we. Seriously, with a nickname like that how could he be called anything else? With the window rapidly closing on how many years we get to dress them in coordinating outfits I like to take advantage of it as I can.

Sadly, we the adults don't really get to play along this year as we have in years past. Lil' Miss has always had an entourage with her, Mister Vonkysmeed and I, Grumpy, Chatty-Cathy, and Kako Grikor all tag along with her on the special day, and after the first year we have all dressed up right along with her. I think her Alice in Wonderland year was a favorite of the neighborhood, I was the Cheshire Cat, The guys were all cards, and Chatty-Cathy dressed up as the Red Queen. I guess we'll all just be mild-mannered citizens according to Mister Vonkysmeed, at least the kids are happy, isn't that what really matters?

WIP: Pembroke vest

2010-10-26T18:47:00.000-07:00

This was a planned project, actually queued it quite some time ago that has ended up being a KAL (knit-a-long) in the Knitting For Boys group on Ravelry. A KAL that I somehow seem to be nominally in charge of, how did that happen exactly? Not sure, but I think it may have something to do with all of us interested in doing a project together but no one knowing quite how to begin. I made a few suggestions and ended up setting up the discussion thread that resulted in my personal choice winning. No, I did not cheat, I simply waited and hoped! Once we had picked out the pattern I happily set a discussion for us to all to support one another as we worked on our creations for our little guys. It is fun to see what others are doing, especially any solutions they may have found for any problems with the pattern or suggestions to improve it. Destructo-boy will be the lucky little guy to eventually wear this vest, hopefully by turkey day as that was my original plan.

For my Pembroke I decided to mirror the cables, I think it is just so much nicer looking that way. This involved some white out to redraw some symbols on the chart, but it is coming out beautifully. Unfortunately I didn't really pay attention to one of the most common comments/notations on the pattern, that it runs small. Meaning even if you attain gauge as noted, the finished garment will be smaller than that indicated in the pattern. I realized it was coming out a little short after I did the cast off stitches for the armholes. Since for ths pattern you need to start on a particular row for the cables to line up properly with the v-neck, I couldn't just add more rows. To make the body longer I would have to tear it all out and begin over. Yeah, not happening. Instead I added on 1/4" to the length of the armhole and consigned myself to the fact that it may be a one year garment. Oh well, at least I already have a worthy little one that hand me downs can go to!

Then I had a little problem at the armhole cast off for the shoulders, they came out totally uneven, in the way of six stitches uneven. So I adjusted the cast off for the shoulders so they would be even, on the neckline shaping row, I cast off 4 stitches as in the pattern and then knit 12 stitches (13 live stitches now) put these 13 stitches on a stitch holder, cast off to 16 stitches from the end with 1 stitch on the right needle, total 17 stitches live. Pretty much followed the pattern from there and the two shoulders are now even.

Next to cast on the front and hope it goes as well!

Growing Pains

2010-10-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

They are more than just physical aches. My lovely neighbor, The Child Whisperer, clued me into the simple fact that when a child is going through a growth spurt they start acting out at the same time. I just realized after seeing how Lil' Miss has almost outgrown her leggings purchased for her at the start of summer that the major attitude problems we were experiencing over the past two weeks must have been due to a little growth spurt.

In spite of realizing the why, the simple existence of the 'tude is beyond aggravating. Ever have a cute little blonde blue eyed 5 year old talk back at you? Doesn't matter how cute that child may be, you still want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and pitch them out the nearest window. The fun is multiplied when you realize that elements of the 'tude are your own annoying habits being reflected back at you (yes, I really regret some of the choice phrases I have popped out with now that it's too late!). Thankfully it only last a few weeks and then she gets back to her normal self, but nw we get the fun new tricks she is learning from her friends at school to deal with!

Not to be left out Destucto-boy has entered the terrible twos. Lil' Miss didn't get there until she turned three, but the boy is already there. It is completely normal for the age, but sometimes it is just so incredibly tiresome, especially when you are trying to get somewhere and he insists on doing everything himself. Then when he doesn't get his way he starts screaming at such a volume as to put a Howler monkey to shame. Some days I wonder why it ever occurred to me that having children was a good idea, then one of them gives me a hug or kiss and I remember.

Mister Vonkysmeed and I are not looking forward to the teen years, I don't know how we will survive!

FO: Tomten

2010-10-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

My very first EZ (for the uninitiated this is an abbreviation for Elizabeth Zimmermann, a very famous knitter and writer about knitting) pattern is this Tomten jacket for Destructo boy. It was both easy and difficult for me. The easy part was the stitch pattern, I mean, what's easier than garter stitch? Having to figure out my own stitch counts based on my gauge and deciding how many ridges to do, well, that was more difficult for me. I am used to using patterns which practically hold your hand whilst you knit so having to figure it out for myself was terrifying (you could say I am a bit insecure about my own design abilities!).

It took quite awhile for me to get started, I was literally staring at the web for hours, perusing all the projects on Raverly and looking all over the web for sizing guidelines before I finally cast on, about 6 hours later (yes, it really took me that long to work up the gumption to just do it). I really wish it didn't take me so long to actually get projects started but it often does, remember my battle with the socks? Once I got it started it moved pretty quickly though taking only 3 weeks to finish, for me that's pretty good as I usually have 3 projects going and of course am often busy keeping the little ankle biters mollified. Of course I had to restart the hood 3 times as the armholes were too deep and it took a couple of tries to get it right. Let me say this, attempting to fit a sweater in progress on the 5 year old is difficult enough, on the almost 2 year old it is nigh impossible!

Once I got the hood done I looked at my radically diminished ball of oats colored yarn and said a little prayer that I would actually have enough to finish the sleeves. This is where my recently purchased scale came in really handy! Mister Vonkysmeed thought I was silly, but hey, I wanted my sleeves even so the scale helped my figure out how much was left and then helped my to calculate how many ridges I could get out of it by multiple weighings (I was weighing after almost every ridge, overkill? maybe). In the end it came out just fine, if a bit slim on the oat color, oh well it's probably better to have lots of a darker color on the sleeve hem to hide all the inevitable dirt and food stains that will happen with this sweater.

Can you believe those buttons I found?! They seem like they were made to go with this sweater, I almost squealed out loud in JoAnn's when I spotted them, the boy sure did when I handed them to him to hold until we checked out (he squealed a little differently when I had to pry them out of his hands to be rung up though). Once I got the buttons and loops on I tried the sweater on Destructo-boy and he would not take it off. He even yanked on the hood until I helped him get it up and wore his new tomten for the next 2 days straight, mind, I hadn't even had a chance to wash it yet! It is terribly nice though to have my work appreciated, so much nicer than all the sob story postings on Ravelry about gifted sweaters ending cut up in dog bed. Best of all, it fits the boy well now, and he still has some room to grow. Hopefully we will get another two years of wear out of this sucker before I need to make him a replacement (unless he wears it out first!).

Tomten specs:

Used pattern recipe from Knitting Without Tears, Elizabeth Zimmermann

needle: US 7

yarn: Berocco Vintage in the oats, dungaree, and fennel colorways

details:

cast on 120 stitches
worked for 30 rows before beginning hood
made 9 increases on hood which is 44 ridges total
for sleeves after 20 ridges changed decreases to every 5th ridge rather than every 4th
65 ridges total on sleeves
3 stitch applied i-cord all around opening, also used i-cord for button loops

Apples, apples, apples!

2010-10-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

It is officially fall in spite of the heat we have been enduring! And what is a classic fall fruit? Yup, that would be apples, and we are lucky enough to live close enough to two different apple picking locales that we made a trip out this past weekend to Oak Glen to go apple picking. In spite of the 40% chance of rain from thunderstorms (our local weather systems have been rather manic depressive the past few weeks!) it was a beautiful sunny day, almost too hot, note my sunburnt shoulders, sigh...

The apples available for picking this first weekend in October were Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Rome Beauty. Since I detest Red Delicious apples we got a peck sized bag and filled it up with Granny Smiths and Rome Beauties. The trees were all around 6-7 feet tall, plenty low enough for a little girl to reach the lower limbs to pick off ripe worm-free apples. I was expecting apple trees more the size of what were depicted in The Wizard of Oz, but these were great. After seeing myself and Mister Vonkysmeed pick apples from the trees Lil' Miss was eager to do it herself, taking hold of the branch in one hand and grasping the apple in the other she gave an expert twist and off popped an apple, quickly followed by another and another. Thankfully she did understand about checking the apples for wormholes first so we seem to have gathered a clean batch. Destructo boy didn't really understand what we were up to as he kept picking up half rotten apples from the ground, we finally gave up and had him ride on Daddy's shoulders (which may have been his plan all along!) while we filled up the bag.

I foresee some srious baking in my not too distant future, we like apples here but I fear will not eat them all up as is before they go bad. I have not counted but suspect there are at lease 20 apples in our little bag. I am planning to make a yummy German Apple cake that I have successfully made before and may even try my hand at an apple pie. Anyone know of any really delectable recipes?!

There were even some raspberries still available so Lil' Miss and I went in search of some amongst the rows of vines. We managed to fill our little tray fairly quickly, much more were there than I thought would be. Lil' Miss even caught on pretty quickly about what is ripe versus what isn't quite ready with her instructing me as to what to pick by the end of our last row. I am so looking forward to next spring when we are planning on putting in a little vegetable garden in our sideyard, what fun we'll have then!

Funnily enough Lil' Misses kindergarten class is studying apples this week. They all have to bring in an apple to school and will be painting with them, tasting them, and making applesauce with them. I honestly had no idea when I set up the date for the apple picking expedition that her class was doing this, but it worked out great! She even got called on to tell her class and another kindergarten class at the school about her experience of going apple picking over the weekend, I am such a proud and happy mama!

it's.too.hot.to.knit

2010-09-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

Or blog, or think for that matter! My town's average temps are in the low 70's so we don't have things like central air conditioning. We are currently in the midst of a pretty nasty heatwave, yesterday it got up to 97 in my home and at 6:30 am this morning my thermostat read 80. The thought of knitting makes me weep with misery, and the kids barely have the energy to annoy me. So, I shall return when I can manage to sit in front of the heat producing computer for more than 5 minutes at a time. I hope all of you are getting the fall weather I wish I had!

WIP: Wine Rib Scarf

2010-09-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you recall my brief post about a gifted yarn that I received right around when I had my wisdom teeth out? It's a lovely skein of Fleece Artist baby alpaca in the wine/burgundy colorway, a boucle yarn that really had me stumped as what to do with it. I was practically tearing my hair out trying to figure out what to do with this yarn, as it is a boucle yarn it really would not work for a complex stitch pattern but I did not want to do some basic pattern, I wanted something with a bit of interest to it. I fell in love with the Truffle cowl, but after giving it a go the stitch pattern just wasn't showing up through the fluff of the yarn. Then I found the Short Rib Row scarf and it is working beautifully!

As much as I love the colors of this yarn, a wine red and purple blend, it is not really my color, I am more of a spring colors kind of girl so to someone else it shall go. Thus it will be a Christmas present for the lovely Missus Gordon, for whom I had originally purchased another yarn but after showing the freebie yarn to Chatty-Cathy and Auntie T was persuaded that this would be much more to her liking (which turns out great for me because guess who gets to keep the tropical sunset colored Araucania Itata I bought with her in mind? That's right, me, me, me!). I certainly hopes she likes it, even though it isn't really my colors, I do love how the handpainted yarn is looking with the patterning in the scarf, so are the kids as they keep stopping to pet it as I am knitting this project.

Starting school

2010-09-17T19:17:00.000-07:00

For us it's not so much Back to School, as it is starting school. Lil' Miss has begun Kindergarten and boy do I miss her during her time at school. I managed to not cry the first day though, yea me! She was perfectly fine with it all, telling me to go watch her from behind the fence to the Kindergarten recess yard rather than wait next to her for the teacher to take them into their classroom. Such a self-confident little person, amazing! We did go to the orientation the day before school started so knew where to go and the basics of what her room looked like and who her teacher was going to be, so that may have added to the confidence of Lil' Miss. Apparently our school has had a little surge in enrollment as they had to hire on a teacher just four days before school started due to needing three classes for Kindergarten instead of two. Guess which teacher we got? I don't mind getting the new teacher, I am not such a fan of Lil' Miss being in the portable classroom though, it would be a bit nicer to be in a permanent room.

We are now into our second week and in spite of any reservations that I may have she is loving school so far. She enjoys getting up to get ready for school and eagerly tells me about her day on the way home. Luckily enough we live close enough to the school that it's an easy walk there and back for everyone. We are even starting to see friends on their way home so are learning where in the neighborhood her new friends live. We'll see how well our walk goes once it starts to rain though! I plan on investing in some rain boots and rain jackets for both rugrats to keep them dry for that walk back and forth, we'll see if I need some rain boots too after the first couple of times walking in the rain.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with myself, how to rearrange my schedule with this change. I am a bit of a creature of habit so will be much happier once I get it figured out and know what I am doing and when. On the plus side, since I have to be up and ready earlier than I have gotten used to I am already adding in one good routine to my day, Destructo-boy and I are taking the looong way home from school so I can get in a little exercise every day. Then once we get home I do my daily cleaning and then do my consultant work, and before lunch I have cleared all my "must do's" from the days schedule. It is truly strange to have all afternoon to knit/scrapbook/sew before heading back out to pick up Lil'Miss at the end of the day. I am sure we will all get comfortable once we settle in our new routine and I can only hope Lil' Miss continues to love school as much as she does now. I still miss her every day though!

Popping the sock cherry, part 2

2010-09-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

So now I am working my way down to the toe and decided to check my gauge just for giggles, yup, you knew this was coming didn't you? It has changed, I am now getting 8 stitches per inch just as indicated in the pattern, and that makes for a sock too small for my colossal feet. Apparently working with the yarn and needles has changed my gauge, well crap, are the socks still going to fit? Thank goodness for stretchy yarn, I ~~tugged, pulled, yanked,~~ slipped it on and can still get my foot into the sock, thank heaven for small favors!

Continuing on, I completed 7 repeats of the lace pattern from the heel flap break before starting to decrease for the toe. I decreased down to only 34 stitches before grafting, but it looks kind of funky, really long, and the toe is rather blunt (okay, comments on my Yeti sized feet aside, this darn sock looks weird!). I think on sock number two I may see how only 6 repeats of the pattern goes before starting to decrease, and decreasing for more rounds. Yes, that would mean redoing the toe on sock 1, oh joy, feel my enthusiasm!

weird looking too big sock

Now why don't I just rip out the toe of sock #1 and redo that you ask? Well, what if I'm wrong, what if only 6 repeats is not enough? Yes, with my luck that is what would happen. So on to sock #2, which will fit a little differently anyway due to my gauge changing as I knit and get more acclimated to these really tiny needles.

Yup it is definitely tighter to get over the damn arch, but the length is perfect! Doing just six repeats of the lace pattern after working the heel before starting the toe is just right, so I will definitely be reworking sock #1. Before I even finished sock #2 I was trolling the patterns on Ravelry looking for other sock patterns to knit. I have some self striping felici in my stash I have to work with and am thinking the stroll tonal I have will get used for socks too (mind you I still have to redo the toe on sock #1 when I finish the second sock). That's it, I am officially hooked! I haven't even worn these socks but it was a fairly quick project, easy pattern, and it is an item that will definitely be worn. Now I finally 'get' all the groups devoted to socks on Ravelry, I can see how knitting them can become an obsession.

It was very quick work to get the toe on sock #1 taken apart and redone, I was able to complete most of it before walking Lil' Miss to her first day of Kindergarten (more on that another time, sniff-sniff). Now they are done, washed and laid out to dry. I can't wait to get started on my next pair, but have some holiday gift knitting to work on first, sigh...

Garden Enhancement

2010-09-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

I spent my Friday digging in the dirt to get all my new plants in the ground instead of updating my blog. Sorry about that, if it makes you feel any better my hips are killing me after kneeling all morning bent over to get the plant holes dug. This has it's roots in me wanting to not have to pull weeds anymore and grew to a pathway from the sidewalk to the top of the driveway with a new planter. I just think it make for a much nicer approach to the house to walk up a path rather than up the driveway, I think it's called "curb appeal." So my loving and sweet Mister Vonkysmeed spent a few weeks digging out sod to make room for this grand idea of mine.

To start with I had asked him to help me out with the grass weediness by our water spigot by the front door. I just couldn't keep up with the damn weeds so asked if he could help me out with digging out some dirt, putting down some plastic and then lay pavers and river stones on top. I liked it, a lot, and the project grew. Next I asked for the evil vinca from heck on the other side of the front steps to be ripped out and the pavers and rocks put over there too. With that change I would have a place for some pretty potted plants and a seating area, what fun! Then I dropped the bomb on the poor man, I wanted a walkway, a new planting bed, and an arbor cut into the front lawn. He sighed but agreed to the project.

After lots of measuring and figuring out the project on paper, and using his construction calculator he was off to the home improvement store to get the supplies and wow what a lot of supplies! Who know we would need so much sand, or mulch, or an entire pallet of pavers, really!? He really wanted the pavers set right next to each other but I just didn't like that look, I was going for a very specific feel, I wanted a little bit of the Mediterranean in my yard. I have a couple of books on Mediterranean gardening and all the patios shown are either gravel surfaced, or a mix of pavers and gravel or stones. Since solid gravel just doesn't do it for me a mix of the pavers and rocks it is.

Need I say the man worked his ash off? He even managed to get his part of the project done before I had my wisdom teeth removed so he could devote his time to watching the ankle biters for me while I recovered. So for about 3 weeks we have had about an acre and a half of mulch staring at us daring me to do something with it. I already had an idea of what to plant as I have another planter nearby that was all finished, I just needed to settle on the arrangement. Sometimes that seems to be the hardest for me, I like the instant jungle look so I tend to over-plant. I learned this lesson the had way after having to remove 3 lavender, 2 rosemary, and a Mexican sage form my backyard that ended up in the pots by the front door. Once I had finally settled on a layout we went out got the plants and put them in the ground the next day (I have finally learned about planting quickly too, after a few dead plants).

In case you are wondering the plants we ended up with are French lavender, dusty miller, English thyme, santolina, and two grapes, a Flame seedless and a Thompson seedless. In the pots are roses, a Sunset Celebration and a Black Magic. The big concrete pavers in the middle of the planter will eventually have a pot with a geranium and a large pot with a fruitless olive tree. The geranium will go in within the next week or two but the olive will be awhile, those suckers are expensive, not to mention the pot to put it in!

Popping the sock cherry, part 1

2010-09-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

neener, neener, nee-ner!

They have been staring at me, I tell you they have, that stinkin' sock yarn and tiny little 2.5mm needles just daring me to do something with them. Every time I go look in my box of fingering/dk yarn it stared up at me, taunting me to actually do something with it, I really hate cheeky yarn so I'd close it back up in the box and forget about it for awhile. So I have been avoiding, avoiding, avoiding working with it, but since I just got a new box of smooshy yarn goodness I decided to finally use up the last remains from my last large order in April.

After much dithering and hemming & hawing I finally picked out a pattern, Monkey by Cookie A. from the winter 2006 issue of Knitty. After seeing that there are over 12,000 projects using this pattern I thought it wouldn't hurt to use it for my very first pair of socks. Plus there are lots of discussions about it in the Ravelry forums so adjusting it to fit my 'How the legend of Sasquatch was born' feet shouldn't be that much of a problem.

After fortifying myself with a large dose of chocolate I made my gauge swatch, okay, that wasn't so hard. I then ran it through the washer and dryer and realized I won't be running my handknit socks through the dryer, the washer maybe, but definitely not the dryer. The hanging ends of the yarn from the cast on and bind off felted somewhat and I fear what would happen with socks that actually get worn by my Amazonish feet (no worries, I have no desire to cut off my right breast, but I can tell you I understand why they did that, bowstrings snapping across really hurt!). So according to the gauge swatch my stitch count is 7 stitches/inch but the pattern is 8stitches/inch.

Considering my gigantor feet and looking at adjustments to the pattern that were made for bigger feet I realized being off gauge actually worked to my advantage, I would have a sock of 9" instead of 8" as in the pattern, perfect for me! You know what they say about the best laid plans though, but more on that later.

Casting on was a total pain in the ash, I am doing this with the magic loop method rather than with double pointed needles. I have a set of US 4's that are sock needles, but hey are so short it is really uncomfortable to knit with, so circular it is. I used the cable cast on (I lurve this method, use it for just about everything) and boy do those stitches love to twist around the cable. So I got it cast on, did the ribbing for the top and then onto the pattern. The pattern itself wasn't really hard, it's just like the lace I've been knitting, up til the heel flap, eek! But I read through the pattern a few times and found some KnitPicks videos of Kelley's Sock Class on YouTube, and then got started. Hey, this isn't so hard I even added in one more slipped stitch along the side as not only do I have Godzilla feet but I have an extraordinarily high instep/arch as well (remember those tight jeans that zipped up the calf from the 80's? I couldn't get my feet in them cause my arch was so high). Uh oh, now I have the heel turn! More videos and repeated reading, then woohoo, conquered that little devil too. Then I just had to do the gusset, but now that I have wrapped my mind around what it is I am supposed to be doing it doesn't really seem that hard, yea me!

To be continued...

Boxes of Happiness: part 2

2010-08-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Remember when I complained about that awful Impeccable yarn and said Mister Vonkysmeed agreed for me to order some new yarn? Well, it got here the same day we returned from our mini vacation to the mountains, hooray for WEBS! I think the box may have been handled by Ace Ventura however as the top and side were completely crushed, so bad the UPS delivery person asked me to open it to verify the contents were alright before he would leave. Upon opening it the dear Mister Vonkysmeed informed the hapless delivery person he thought one of the skeins of yarn was broken, showing the guy the contents of the box who actually broke into a smile for us.

Almost the entirety of this box is intended for others, but I get to knit with it so it's all good. Starting at the left and moving clockwise here's what I got:

Sugarloaf by Valley Yarns, rose pink
Encore Tweed by Plymouth, hunter green
Soya by Sublime, ginseng
Amity by Elle Rae, aquamarine
Lamb's Pride Superwash by Brown Sheep, shane's red
Itata Multy by Araucania, tropical sunset
Itata Solid by Araucania, light orange
Select Worsted Merino Superwash by Plymouth, lichen
Itata Multy by Araucani, green/gold

Best of just about everything was on sale so I got it all for almost half of the regular price, yea! I just couldn't resist the Itata being half off so got enough to make two small shawls for gifts and two shawls for myself. I'm thinking Aeolian for me with some of the tropical sunset Multy (and beads, must have beads!), and Saroyan with some for Missus Gordon, Annis with the solid for the Momster, Gail for me of course with the green/gold Multy, they are all gorgeous patterns. You have no idea how hard it was to stop there, the colorways of this stuff is gorgeous! And it feels lovely too, can definitely feel the crisp dryness of the silk even though there isn't much in there.

The Amity will make a cardigan for Lil' Miss, probably the Mi Escuelita by Rosi Garmendi from Knitty: Fall 2009. The color is lovely, it does have a bit of a scratchy feel, the 25% wool content coming through I guess. I hope it washes up a bit softer, but the price is great, and I may be ordering more to make a Tomten (Mister V just ordered Knitting Without Tears for me so he could get free shipping from Amazon, hooray!) for Destructo-boy. Lest you think he got the short end of the stick he did get something out of the box, the Encore Tweed will be used for a Pembroke vest by Kristen Kapur from Petite Purls: Summer 2009 that I intend to have ready for Thanksgiving. I just love that pattern and think he will look adorable in it! The Soya is also for him, I am thinking the Gentleman's polo by Kate Oates for next summer would be prefect out of it. I will wait a bit before starting this one to verify his size a little closer to the season.

The Select Worsted, Lamb's Pride, and Sugarloaf are all to make hats for family members this Christmas. I have not completely decided on the patterns yet, but am leaning towards the 3AM cable hat for the Barbarian Lord, Palindrome for the StepPops-in-law, and Brattleboro for the Momster-in-law. Boy have I got a lot of knitting to do to be ready for the holidays!

Weekend away

2010-08-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to have the use of the Pops in law's condo up in the mountains this past weekend for a little time away from home. It was a much needed break that we all enjoyed. We spent our time with some short hikes, 0.5 and 0.7 miles, relaxing at the condo, and playing at the lake (yes, even though there are no pictures we did go swimming!). Both munchkins did very well on the hikes although Destructo-boy fell down on both, scraping up his knees all to heck and getting a nice faceful of dirt in the process.

walking the Interpretive trail in the Children's National Forest

Lil' Miss finds her Christmas tree

awww...

Keller Peak Fire Lookout, 7882 ft

Why do I always choose to go to whatever building is the tallest in the area when I am afraid of heights? It took a good ten minutes for me to climb up there, I had to stop halfway because my legs just got so weak I had to take a few minutes to gird myself for the final climb. Then once up there I couldn't stop shaking. I wasn't even able to go outside to take pictures of the incredible view. I did get a card certifying me as a member of the Honorable Order of Squirrels for managing to get up there!

Although Lil' Miss found the acorn in the middle of the path I did make her put it back down. We had a nice little discussion about how if everyone took a little of the forest with them then there would be none left for anyone else to enjoy. I explained we would take our memories and our pictures with us but no actual objects. She understood too well as the 'Mommy, please take a picture of insert object here' began!

view of the high desert

Yes, Lil' Miss is sniffing that tree. The trail guide suggested we do so, so the entire family leaned in for a good whiff to find out what it smelled like. Of all things it smelled just like vanilla, yum!

requisite arty photo of a Mantilija poppy

See, I even got some knitting in! I finished off the second skein of my Woodland shawl, finished Grumpy's Christmas present and started on one for my niece, surprisingly productive weekend as knitting goes. The rugrats were happy to get back home but definitely want to go back. Hopefully we will get up there this winter while there is still snow on the ground for some wintertime fun!

Impeccable is not flawless

2010-08-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

As a matter of fact this yarn has made me veer directly into yarn snob territory. The yarn I speak of is the newish Impeccable line by Michael's craft stores sold under their Loops & Threads label. I am using this crap yarn to make a Fresh Picked Color cardigan for Lil' Miss to have for her first day of school in a few weeks. We picked this yarn (I say we meaning I pointed out colors I liked and she hugged those she liked as well) because it was the best color in a worsted weight yarn that Michael's had in stock the day we went shopping. I don't think I can quite find the words to express my dismay at using this to make an actual garment but I shall try. Don't get me wrong, each yarn has it's purpose in life, I have used it successfully for a hat and a few amigurumi toys (most notably my crochet fortune cookies), I just don't think this yarn is a good match for clothing.

the buttons are my favorite part of the sweater

It is so stiff and unyielding it is like knitting with crafters cotton which I normally only use for crochet work as it is just so hard on my hands. There is no give to it as there is with wools, blends, or even the nicer cottons I have used, it doesn't seem to stretch at all when you hold the yarn between your fingers and give a little pull. Thankfully it isn't 'squeaky' for me as other Raveler's have complained of, I think because I use only wood needles (the clicking of metal needles is kinds like nails on a chalkboard to me, not soothing at all!). The fabric coming off of my needles seems rather stiff as well, not the soft, flowy feel of a little girl cardigan I was going for. Here is to hoping this softens up a LOT after washing. One positive thing I can say about this yarn is that the stitch definition is quite nice so far.

Someone is happy with it at least!

After getting only about 2 inches knit over a few days (I kept abandoning it in favor of other wips just so I didn't have to touch that yarn) I decided to put on my big girl panties and just work on the darn thing to get the misery over with. Lil' Miss wanted her sweater done in time for school so I better get cracking right? Much to my surprise I got it done in just a few more days, apparently using yarn I don't like makes me work faster, who would have guessed? Happily after being run through the washer and dryer it has softened up considerably, I am actually rather surprised at how soft it came out. Now the garment flows and moves like I had imagined the fabric for her finished cardigan should. I still will not use it again for garments due to the experience of knitting with it. I knit to relax, so I don't kill people or yell at my rugrats so using distasteful yarn doesn't really augment the experience of knitting for me.

Working with it did convince me of one thing, the act of knitting should be fun and enjoyable for me so even if I am making something for the kids I will no longer buy the cheapest stuff I can find. I realized that my favorite sweater for Lil' Miss cost $25 from Carters three years ago, so it would make sense for that to be a guideline for the cost of the yarn to make them something (we won't even go into labor costs as that would just be silly!). Thus I won't get the uber fancy stuff like say, Madelinetosh Tosh dk (will drool damage my keyboard?) but I can afford to purchase good quality yarns from Knit Picks or fancier yarns that are on sale or clearance instead of the bargain yarns at the local craft superstore. The best part of this decision is that Mister Vonkysmeed is on board with the idea and already approved my recent spending spree at WEBS (ooh, can a virtual credit card melt!?).

Tiny Dancer

2010-08-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

What is it about little girls and ballet? Like many little girls her age Lil' Miss loves ballerinas, in fact at her preschool graduation being a ballerina is what she proclaimed was her future profession. I think it may have started with the Angelina Ballerina cartoons that air on PBS. We watched them every day for at least 2 years, and there aren't that many episodes, only 39 fifteen minute episodes according to Wikipedia. Yes dear reader, I know most of them by heart as does Lil' Miss of course! She may have moved on in her viewing choices but she still loves ballet.

Her summer ballet class at the community center just ended and all the parents were invited to watch the final class. This class is not a parent participation class (like the one we took while I was pregnant with Destructo-boy, nothing like a heavily pregnant woman dancing ballet let me tell you!), we adults get the fun of waiting in the lobby while the girls dance except for the final day. They were unbelievably cute, about 18 little girls in leotards and tights, almost every one had on some sort of flowy skirt, a few with tulle skirts, and all running around like little terriers hopped up on espresso. It was quite a sight to see, and damn if my camera battery didn't die after 5 minutes!

They all showed us they had learned how to do first position, and displayed some other basic moves. I love how the teacher, Miss Kim, gets them to do some of the basic ballet movements including running, jumping, galloping, (don't know the proper terms, I never got to take ballet) by turning it into something fun. All the girls in the class had so much fun showing off what they had learned for their parents, and the paparazzi were in full force as they did so. The best part was at the end of the class when each dancer was given a chiffon scarf to dance with and they all went running around the room waving their scarves in the air. Amazingly there was only one crash accompanied by tears, it wasn't the only crash, a few others made impact but they got up and just kept on running. I didn't notice if anyone other parents were quite as amused as I, but I chuckled away through the whole song.

I think we really lucked out in finding Miss Kim, and best of all she actually owns a local studio that teaches dancers up to the high school level so if Lil' Misses interest continues we have someplace local with a supportive environment for her to go. As long as she has an interest I will find a way to pay for her lessons, she deserves nothing less. Plus something about seeing her all dressed for class with her hair pulled up in a sweet little bun just pulls on my heartstrings, I actually teared up the first time I got her ready for her class. Good gracious, when did I become such a softie!?

Having wisdom teeth pulled is...

2010-08-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

great for my knitting time! While hiding out from my at times exuberantly loving kids (really didn't want any head-jaw impact you understand!) I was able to make some really great progress on my current wip. The Central Park Hoodie is complete and has already been worn. I had been obsessively knitting on it prior to the surgery but just wasn't able to get it done, I had this deep seated fear that I wouldn't wake up from the anaesthesia, weird I know but there it is. I spent the day of surgery (we were home by 11am) knitting all afternoon on the sleeve, finishing it on Thursday and then finished the buttonhole and button bands on Friday. I washed up the sweater on Saturday morning and laid it out on a towel to dry, enduring the wet dog smell in my room for two days, blech.

I wasn't sure how much I'd like the Peruvian wool, but after being washed the yarn has bloomed (check out my newly learned yarny term!) beautifully and doesn't seem as scratchy and dense. Although it will be great for outer wear I don't think I'd want to use it for anything against the skin, I'll stick with the merino wool fibers for that. We'll see how it holds up to me and my kids long term, but for the cost of $22 I was able to make a cozy, warm cardigan for myself in time for fall, even though I am wearing it now with the morning chill in the air (welcome to the summer that wasn't!).

I even got my first semi-compliment on it at Lil' Misses ballet recital. After the baby seated next to me kept poking her finger through my sleeve cables the following exchange occurred with her mother:

"That isn't what you've been knitting is it?" (I worked on it at every class while we waited in the lobby of the community center for the girls to be done with class)
"Why yes, it is."
"Wow, that was quick!"

So at least I know my knitting speed is impressive to non-knitters! Not that impressive to me, but hey, you take what you can get right? Now that my cardigan is done I am working on one for Lil' Miss for her first day of Kindergarten. I am making her the Fresh Picked cardigan by Lion Brand, but I will make it with full length sleeves and full length body instead of cropped as in the pattern. She is terribly excited about it (I so love knitting for an appreciative audience!) and hopefully I will have this ready for her to wear on her first day of school next month, in 3 1/2 weeks yikes!

While I recuperate...

2010-08-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

from having a pair of wisdom teeth pulled on Wednesday ( thank gawd Mister Vonkysmeed can stay home to help with the ankle-biters!) why don't you enjoy some yarn p*rn! This was a pleasant surprise from The Momster who won it at her Bible study group last week and gifted it to me. Thanks Momster!

This is a skein by Fleece Artist of hand dyed baby alpaca, in the wine colorway I do believe, it is a 50/50 blend of alpaca and merino wool fibers. Now what to do with 360 yards of bulky weight boucle yarn?! Hmmm...