Monday, December 20, 2010

The boy's sweater = DONE!

I am very happy with how this turned out. More...I am really happy I am NOT knitting this anymore. I do not enjoy knitting with acrylic yarn. It is fake feeling and a little squeaky. This particular yarn is 80% acrylic, 20% wool, and machine washable. Next time, I am just getting some superwash wool. :) The bonus, of course, is that this sweater cost me...wait for it....$10 to make. Ten. Dollars. And he **LOVES** it. He loves everything about it, the color, the feel, the warm, the style, all of it.

There are lots and lots of details on my ravelry project page.







Now I have to finish knitting the Man's sweater. Then I can focus on mine! Mwahahaahaa!
In other knitting news (yes, this has totally become a knitting blog, for now):
My yarn from the Speshul Snowflakes Yarn Club is arriving today. I am totally excited. I would highly recommend joining this yarn club. You get two color choices and YOU pick the base yarn (sock, worsted, bulky, DK, etc.) each shipment. You can order extra skeins too, and you can even choose to get both colors if you want. I *love* it. This time, I got both colors in sweater quantities (because I loved them soooo much and couldn't choose just one). Pictures this week. (Yarn is not here yet.....mail comes at 12.)
I also decided last minute to knit a few Christmas gifts. Great idea, right? Especially since Christmas is in 5 days. Uh-huh.
I actually purchased some fun-fur, on purpose, to make one of these gifts. I hate it, but my mom thinks it's the bees knees. I am making her a scarf. I am holding the fun fur with a strand of some Caron Simply Soft acrylic (at least it's not squeaky) and knitting a garter stitch scarf on size 10.5 needles. Should be done soon.
I am also going to make my brother (I hope, may not get it done in time) a Green Bay Packers hat our of Cascade 220 wool. It will be warm and wonderful and he will like it.
Don't tell them what they're getting. I am talking to you, Aunt Sandy. :)

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Seekrit Christmas Knitting

I am not a Christmas knitter. People in my family and friends have not received knitted gifts from me for Christmas and I don't know that they ever will. I do knit for them. But, I am not so disillusioned as to think that I would be able to hit a deadline, let alone Christmas, and have knitted items for everyone.

This year, however, I entered a swap on Ravelry. It's part of the "Super Swappers" group. You have to include yarn and the rest is up to you....value $30. The yarn is on it's way (to be sent out again, of course).

In the mean time, I knit up these Candy Cane Mitts. My own "made up as I went" pattern, and I like it.



The woman I am swapping with (it's a Secret Santa swap, so she doesn't know it's me) cannot actually eat candy canes, so I thought this would be a nice substitute.



Yes, there are two.

They came out pretty nice. I like the striping/spirally pattern. You just cast one less than [an even number] (in this case 6) x [your stripe repeat] (in this case 6, 3 red + 3 white)....35. Knit in the round, you will have a cute little spiral going up the arm/wrist/head/whatever you knit it for. I saw this originally on Ruth's blog in a hat (where she did a 4 one color, 4 another color repeat on 87 stitches I believe for a hat). Ruth is knittingbloggyblog. Can't link, but it's on the sidebar.





Tuesday, December 7, 2010

One Word Meme

I saw this (somewhere) and it looked like fun. A break from the regular, and a little about me.

Answer each with just one word

1. Yourself: mom
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): husband
3. Your hair: brown
4. Your kids: loved
5. Your house: messy
6. Your Favorite Item: yarn
7. Your dream last night: weird
8. Your Favorite drink: milk
9. Your Dream Car: suburbuan
10. The room you are in: living
11. Yarn: wool
12. Your socks: missing
13. What you want to be in 10 years? mama
14. Who you hung out with last night? kids
15. What You're Not? passive
16. Muffins: blueberry
17. One of Your Wish List Items: maid
18. Time: flies
19. The Last Thing You Did: knit
20. What You Are Wearing: sweatpants
21. Your Favorite Weather: fall
22. Your Favorite Color: blue
23. The Last Thing You Ate: pizza
24. Your Life: crazyfun
25. Your Mood: crabby
26. Your best friend: Cassie
27. What are you thinking about right now? knitting
28. Your car: van
29. What are you doing at the moment? typing
30. Your summer: pregnant
31. Outside your window: dark
32. What is on your TV? Dora
33. What is the weather like? cold
34. When is the last time you laughed? today

Consider yourself tagged!

Comment on comments

Oh how I wish blogger made it easier to reply to comments. (I also wish I could *open* a blogger comment page on my phone, but that's another post.)

I do read every comment and appreciate then all. :) If I don't comment back, know that it's a combination of blogger's poor format and my newborn's ability to need me exactly at the moment when I think it may be appropriate to sit down with the laptop and respond to emails.

Seems I have a few new followers. Welcome! I am now up to 14. That's pretty cool that 14 of you think it's worthwhile to stop by here on a (semi) regular basis. Thank you.

Knitting content to resume shortly - as well as quirky mom bytes and crazy children shenanegans.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Keep on trying.....

I have seriously sat down with the laptop about six times this week to write a post. Everytime, somebody needs me -loudly.

It's ok. I can handle that.

I figure God has a plan. And that plan is for me to sit down.

So many wonderful ideas have zipped through my brain for me to share with you. And - as I sit here in bed, with my blackberry, watching my little girl sleep in my lap her tummy all full of milk - I can't for the life of me remember a single one.

I have found some very interesting blogs as of late and will (hopefull) be updating the blogroll soon.

My friend, Papa K, would really like me to send him a picture for his fanroll. So I may have to do that this week.

Advent has not seen any activities around here. But I have been saying a Hail Mary and an Our Father with the kids each night. :)

I also decided (amoungst my thousands of other projects) that I'd like to knit 27 or so wee tiny socks to make an Advent Calandar. I'll start that in the new year.

I started a sweater for ME It's damn cold outside and everyone else around here has handknit wooly goodness, except me.

And - there is yarn on the way for me to knit 2 more sweaters for myslef. All 3 I have planned so far are cardigans, but the are the more versitile for me and do not require me to think to hard about accomodating my rather large breasts in the pattern. I will cross that obstacle sometime because my dream knitting project is a fitted, v-neck, long sleeved pullover for me. I just don't know exactly how to do that with my bust size yet.

I think I figured out what makes the baby puke. I hadn't made my absolute favorite meal in about 2 weeks - enchilada casserole. She also had not puked on me for a few weeks. Well, I made it and munched it for 2 days. She also puked on me for about 3 days. Bummer for me and my favorite meal.

Do any of my blogger friends do Facebook? (I do.)What do you think of it? Do you use it as a place to promote your blog? (I don't.) Do you use it to connect with family and close friends? (I do.) Or do you see it as more of a "networking site" and have tons of friends whom you don't actually know outside of FB? (I have lots of real friends who use FB as such.) I am just curious. I don't think there is a wrong or right way to do FB. I just wonder what everyone else does. I have a few "friends" on there whom I I only met either in blogland or as mutual friends on FB. But most of my "friends" are people I actually know and want to "connect" with more than I am able to in person. I only have about 60 or 70 "friends" and I regularly go through and edit out people I don't need or really want to be "friends" with - like the shy introvert nerdy friend I had in high school who I hung out with all the time that has since become a, ahem, $exual freak (as in talks about $ex all the time on FB!! Details too!!). I had to unfriend her after I viewed her wall and realized I was neither interested nor willing to read about her exploits on a daily basis. Ew. It was "nice" to connect or whatever, but not worth keeping her around since we obviously had nothing in common anymore. (Yuck.)

And now, I must sleep. Today will be a long day. Homeschool group followed by lunch and a walmart run, pick up the teenager from school, and then run to a friend's house to get some yarn (acryllic for doll clothes) and a movie we left there (Barbie: Fairytopia....can't live without it), and home to get a fire going as I am sure the house will be in the 50's by then.

Tomorrow is First Friday Mass in the "big city" followed by the insane-Friday-afternoon grocery run (because we'll be there anyway for Mass, save gas).

Saturday is Chop Down A Christmas Tree Day, Get Out The Ornaments And Lights Day, and Go A Little Crazy Day.

Sunday - the second Sunday of Advent. Advent music at church is the *best* I love "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel". The. Best.

Have a great day my friends. :)