Scary Lace...

Is not so scary anymore!  I finally have cast on the lace project that inspired me to learn to knit lace in the first place, Shipwreck Shawl from the Spring 2009 issue of Knitty.  I admired it way back then but thought I would never be able to do something that complicated.  So I started smaller and kept learning about how to follow charts and that lace is essentially just making increases and decreases.  I am currently about 30 rows into it as of writing this blog entry and am sailing along quite nicely.

The trickiest part thus far was the cast on, I had to watch Fleegle's video of the cast on repeatedly before I finally realized what she was doing and got it done myself.  Normally it doesn't take that long for something to 'click' but for some reason this technique took awhile.  Once I had that done it was pretty easy sailing since I have already mastered working the magic loop (although dpn's could be used for this project just as easily, but who would want to!) and all the first rows required were knitting and yarn overs.  I already did the strawberry chart and it was a breeze, I am beginning to suspect that I am quite capable of knitting this project with little to no difficulty since I have been making lace shawls for over a year now and seem to do pretty well with them.

Admittedly I have no idea what I will do with this shawl once it is completed, I have never worn a circular shawl and don't know that I ever would.  This is one of those projects that I am attempting to do just for the challenge and the fact that the finished object is gorgeous.  Maybe I'll need to buy a piano just to put this shawl on for display!  Just kidding, because seriously, where would I put a piano, and I don't even play!

Success!

He is potty trained!  Destructo-boy that is, Mister Vonkysmeed came to me that way.  It was so much easier this time around than it was with Lil' Miss.  Maybe because I learned that pushing ended disastrously with her so I backed off this time and let the boy take the lead.  I showed him what to do, set up a sticker reward system and then let him have at it.

Don't get me wrong, there were quite a few mistakes made along the way, on both sides, but after 8 weeks he is going days at a time with no accidents, it has been a few weeks since his last oops.  I think the last one was when he was away from home and didn't know where the potty was, can't really blame him too much on that one.  Amazingly enough he is usually waking up dry too and it took the girl well over a year to be trained at night after we started her potty training.  Although on those nights he falls asleep early and we don't bother to put on the night time diaper are of course the nights he wets himself.

He was so excited to pick out his new underpants choosing Toy Story and Cars 2 when I laid them all out for him.  Then he wanted to show them off, to the point that he dropped his pants in the quad of Lil' Misses school to show them to a neighbor.  I haven't laughed that hard in awhile!  Now that he has been wearing them for a few days he isn't dropping his pants to show them all the time, but he is getting particular about which one he wears on a given day.

Next I'll let Mister Vonkysmeed demonstrate how big boys pee in the potty (I don't really have the equipment to do that for the boy!), I see Cheerios kept in a bowl in the bathroom in our near future.