I finished another pair of kid socks:


Project Specs:
Rainbow-ish Socks (named by Little Man)
Yarn: Knitpicks Simple Stripes in Sweet Tarts, less than 1 ball
Pattern: My own

I like this yarn a lot. It's superwash so it's perfect to for kids' socks. Believe it or not, this is the first time I've knit with self striping yarn, and I had a lot of fun watching the stripes appear. The socks fit Little Man perfectly.

He hasn't taken them off since we put them on this morning. Witness the socks in action, worn with LM's new Crocs:


These pics were taken with my new camera, a Canon Powershot 540. The DSLR I use for work is too big to lug around in my purse so I've been researching compact digicams for a while and the 540 fit the bill. It's not too big and not too small, pretty lightweight and has full manual features (which is important to me as I hardly ever shoot on Auto). Plus at 6MP, it's a vast improvement over our last compact digicam. Here's a closeup of Monkey Boy:
Tech info:
Natural light
ISO 200
AV, 3.5, unknown shutter
No post processing

I think that's pretty good for a pocket camera! No sharpening or Photoshop work here, and it still looks great. In fact I zoomed in on MB's eyes and you can see me there! I'm quite happy with the overall feel of the camera, too. Since I'm planning on carrying it around in my purse, I'm going to knit a camera cozy for it to protect the body and LCD.

The camera arrived yesterday, along with all of this:

I hit this ebay seller and went a little crazy with the magazine subscriptions. She sells so many cool mags at such a good price that I couldn't resist. My mailman is going to hate me- there are at least four or five more magazines coming!

Not much knitting has been going on around here; I've been sick for the past week and today was the first day that I could actually hear out of both ears. Woot! How sick was I? Last Sunday I was supposed to get together with some friends to knit, but I had such a bad sinus headache from all the congestion that I went to bed at 8pm (my normal bedtime being around midnight). Thank goodness I'm starting to feel better.

Instead of knitting I've been doing this:




These are play silks that I handdyed for the boys. Little Man has been using one of my old, ugly satin scarves as a 'cape'- he asks me to tie it around his neck so he can jump off the bed like a superhero. A few weeks ago, I saw this and thought immediately of making the boys some play silks of their own. I got the raw silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company and soaked them in a bit of water/vinegar overnight. Yesterday I dyed them by loosely pressing each scarf into a small container, barely covering the scarf with water and then apply diluted dyes. After a brief zapping in the microwave, I let them cool and then rinsed them out. I think they turned out quite nicely!

Monkey Boy really enjoys pulling the scarves over his head and face. He laughs and laughs! This afternoon Little Man, Monkey Boy and I spent nearly half an hour chasing each other around the upstairs hall with the scarves tucked into our pants like tails. I think the play silks are a hit in our house. There are four more silks to dye and LM has suggsted "red, cuz that's my favorite color" and "orange because that's little brother's favorite color".

Last night I sat down with my wheel and started spinning some 50/50 merino/tussah silk. It's the first time I've spun with this particular blend and I have to say that I'm not very comfortable with it. Between the super crunchiness of the silk and the short staple of the merino, it's not very fun to spin. Some spinners spin to produce a certain yarn (project spinners) and some spin because they like the act of spinning (process spinners). I've found that I'm a process spinner and if I'm not having fun while spinning, it's hard for me to stay motivated. It's disappointing that I'm not enjoying this roving since I've been looking forward to spinning it for quite a while. :(

Evolution and other stuff

Six minutes of funniness! Evolution of Dance

fun with the boys

The boys and I have been pretty busy lately. The Dearest "took a week off" (meaning he was supposed to actually have some time to do home projects, but he ended up having to work nearly the whole week anyways. What *is* it with people who expect you to work during your vacation? /rant) and we went to Legoland. We've also been taking some Music Together classes, which Monkey Boy really loves. Today (Memorial Day) was spent playing in our new inflatable pool. Here are some shots from the past week:

click for a larger view

Since the Dearest was able to spend some quality time with the boys, I was able to dye these rovings:

"Sea & Sand"


"Cinnabon"

The second roving started out as "Copper Penny", but someone on Flickr commented that it looked like a cinnamon roll so I renamed it Cinnabon. LOL These are both 50/50 tussah silk and merino blends, about 4oz each. I used Jacquard and Cushing dyes to handpaint them with little spots of color. The Cinnabon roving is a little more saturated than I intended, but I still like it. When spun, these rovings produce a slightly heathered look due to the undyed parts.

Here it goes....

I spent a couple of hours over the weekend dyeing yarn for my DyeORama secret pal and came up with these:

"Sargasso Sea"

"The Ocean Blue"

She wanted "blues and greens and purples", so hopefully she likes the finished product. We're only supposed to be sending one skein, but I can't make up my mind which one is better so she'll get both. :) The skeins are 350+yds each, superwash yarn in a fingering weight. I was a little concerned at first since the yarn seemed really thin (even for fingering). But after dyeing and hanging to dry, it's softened & plumped up quite nicely.

More adventures in dyeing:

"Violas" on the left, "Pansies" on the right


"Cherry Blossoms"
350yds of DK weight superwash


"Parfait"
150yds of fingering weight superwash...colors are a bit washed out here.

Dyeing is so much fun! However, I think I"m going to have to start selling all this yarn- there's no way in the world that I will be able to use every thing that I dye. And I know that the Dearest is getting tired of tripping over all the yarn. : )

It's May, right?

I ask because for some reason I "lost" April. This morning I woke up and was surprised to realize that it's already May 20th. What happened to April and the first 20 days of May???

Anyhew....My Project Spectrum spinning for April is finally done:

Nearly 400 yards of handdyed BFL I got from ebay (can't remember the seller). Light worsted weight and probably destined for socks (for me!).

And I was finally able to take pics of my Mother's Day present from the Dearest:

Isn't it cute? The lining can be extended upward and it has a drawstring so the Dearest thought it would make a good small project bag for knitting. I've actually been using it as a purse since it's so Spring-y.

Last night I spent about 2 hours working on my Green Gable sweater. Some of the ladies on the GG KAL said that their sweaters grew a lot during blocking, so despite my having a 39 inch bust, I'm making the 38inch size sweater. But now I'm worried that the sweater will be too tight over the girls. After trying my sweater on, I decided to attempt some short rows to make the bust less tight. An hour (and much ripping) later, the short rows were out and I just threw in three sets of increases around the bust. I'm going to decrease them away and hopefully that will do. If not, my Sis would love a Green Gable!

I'm alive, I really am

Yes, I know it's been *awhile* since I posted. I could give the usual blogger excuses ("too busy" "lost my camera" "nothing interesting going on"), but honestly I just didn't feel like blogging. But the blog bug has bitten again, so here I am with much randomness:

Mother's Day: Mine was great! DH washed my car for me, then we went to lunch with my mom and stepdad, where yummy Chinese food was had by all. I got to take a relaxing afternoon nap while DH & Little Man went to the hardware store. Later that night DH presented me with the cutest little basketweave purse full of yummy Bath and Body Works stuff. Very sweet, especially since he said that he picked the basket/purse because he thought I could use it for a knitting carryall.

WIP Roll Call:
Step Socks for Sis: One down, the second is about 1/2 the way down the cuff.

DH's Sandy Socks: I thought I had a pic of this, but it turns out I don't. Anyways, I'm done with one sock and am starting the instep of the second sock.

Project Spectrum Socks: First one done, 2 inches into the cuff of the second one.

(does anyone sense a sock theme? I didn't realize that I had so many socks going right now!)

I just finished these cuties for Monkey Boy out of my own handspun:


I'm still knitting on the Tshirt Sweater from Ella Rae. The back is about 10 rows from being finished. I had a scare when I realized that I didn't have enough yarn to finish the front. I'd bought four skeins of Malabrigo "Red Pearl", which should have been more than enough- I had over 800yds of worsted and the pattern calls for only 650yds of a DK weight yarn. Luckily one of the ladies at LPK (where I'd bought the original skeins) was willing to part with one of her skeins so I'll actually be able to finish the sweater.

As for Veste Evereste, I had to spin this up before I could start on the back.

All of my stalled sweater projects meant that I had to start something I could actually finish. Plus I didn't have a project in mind for May's Project Spectrum color of green. So I decided to try Green Gable:

I'm using Cotton Fleece in "Rue". I've tried it on and so far it fits pretty well. The neckline doesn't flop over when I'm wearing it, thank goodness. GG is just flying along (good TV sweeps knitting)- maybe I'll actually finish it sometime soon!

Fresh air and fresh eggs

One of the Dearest's clients has a little avocado farm near San Diego, and every time the Dearest has to go down there to do work, the client says "You should bring your family down and play on the farm."

Today we did just that. The boys were wowed by all the avocados (Monkey Boy kept trying to pick up green ones and eat them). There was a whole henhouse full of beautiful chickens, a mini vinyard, 40+ acres of avocado trees, bee hives and (the biggest hit of all with the boys) a golf-cart/atv to ride around in. The caretaker, Juan, has four kids of his own so he was great with Little Man. LM was super excited to actually get the chance to "drive" the "jeep"- Juan let LM sit in his lap and help him steer. Best of all was Abraham, Juan's 5yr old son, who led LM all over the place and told him the names of all the chickens, and where to watch for snakes (!), and which oranges were the best to pick.

We came home with two huge boxes of lemons, avocados, oranges and pummelos. They also had some macadamia nut trees. LM and Abraham crawled all under the trees and came out with their hands and pockets full of nuts. Later Juan showed us to how crack them open using a hammer. I don't actually like macadamia nuts, but they taste very different when they're raw. It's a coconut-y taste and texture that agrees with me.

Unfortunately I didn't take my camera with me around the farm because I already had my hands full with Monkey Boy. So here are some pics of the stuff we brought home:

*really* fresh eggs....I love the green one on top


cracking the macadamias with a hammer

picking them out of the shell

LM shows off his macadamia

Geek Ahoy!!!

My poor poor poor children. They are doomed to be geeks. It's in their DNA, after all. The Dearest is a computer consultant who grew up around 'puters and loves to work on them. My own exposure to computers started when my mom's boyfriend brought home a Texas Insturments/TI99. It was a little keyboard that didn't even come with its own monitor; you had to hook it up to a TV. I spent a whole, hot summer between fourth and fifth grades learning how to make a white ball bounce up and down on the tv screen using Basic.

The Dearest and I met through the precursor to the Internet: a local BBS (Bulletin Board System). There were *so* few women online at that time that the SysOp who owned the board would call to make sure you were actually a live person (cuz lots of guys would log on, pretending to be female just to play jokes on the other users). The BBS was all text and ran at 1200bps over a regular phone line. Looking back, it was sooooo slow and clunky compared to the 'net!

Anyhew, I think with all the backstory, you can see how doomed the boys are to be geeks. And if their background isn't enough, I'm doing my best to geek them out. Like so:

click for larger pic

Yes, that's right, Monkey Boy has his very own freezer paper stenciled shirt, proclaiming our status as BSG geeks. I think the shirt is especially appropriate for MB and his evil little grins.
BTW here's the back of the shirt, which I did with an iron on transfer:


Devinemom asked me in the last post what ink I used for my stenciling. I got the original idea from a tutorial on Craftster.org (I would link to the post, but Craftster is soooo slow lately. Just search for 'freezer paper' and it'll come up). I use the cheapy acrylic craft paint from the local hobby store. It's the stuff that is 89cents a bottle and comes in about a gazzillion colors. I also use the "extender" stuff, which is sold in the same aisle. You add the paint to the extender (2parts paint to 1part extender), mix them up and go to town. I use a cheap sponge brush to apply the paint, and I've found that it's better to use a really thin coat & add more later than try to goop it all on right at the beginning. Less chance of bleeding if you do the thin coats vs. the thick application.

Oh, on the knitting front, I'm almost completely done with Sis's sock. All I have to do is sew up the toe and weave in the ends. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pics tonight.

Finally, for those SAHMs out there, check out Cheeky Lotus's Manic Momday post. So true!

Little Man the Artiste

Little Man loves to draw and recently he's been really fascinated with robots. I love his drawings, they are so sweet. The robots always have happy faces with big eyes, and LM usually has a story to tell me about each one.

I wanted to make a bag or Tshirt with one of his drawings on it, and yesterday I finally did it. I used freezer paper, traced one of his drawings onto it and used that as a stencil. Here's the original drawing (sorry for the darkness of the photo- it was *dark* today):


And here's the new shirt, a Little Man Original:


Freezer paper stenciling is sooo easy and fun, I'm getting hooked. I spent over an hour today looking at different images for more stencils. Monkey Boy is getting a new shirt tomorrow and I want to stencil on a couple of my old T-shirts (hopefully covering some stains! LOL).

WIP catch ya up

TShirt Sweater: Two sleeves done, working on this...

It's supposed to be the front, but can you see the lovely color pooling? Right where my b00bs would be? Niiiiiice, eh? The color pooled despite the fact that I alternated two balls of yarn every two rows. And one ball had already been partly used for a sleeve. I think there's some kinda of statistical anomaly involved, since I cut the yarn four times and rejoined on opposite ends twice and STILL got pooling. Finally I had to cut one ball and pull from the outside, making sure that the colors weren't going to match. Sheesh. Needless to say, this is no longer the front of my sweater- it's the back. :)


Project Spectrum Socks:

One down, one to go.

Those are the only WIPs worth mentioning right now.

But I did cast on for this:

It's a sock in Austermann Step, a yarn that I've never used before. Sis picked this yarn out when we were at a LYS. It's got a nice color repeat and is super soft...AND it has aloe and jojoba in it! See?

Drill Box Spotting!

Guess what came in the mail today?


I'm the next recipient of the drill box from Yarn Aboard! Woot! The box came all the way from Catherine in Texas and was disguised in the cute wrapping paper above. Wanna see what was in it? I know you do:


*coconut wash (mmmmm smells gooood)
*fun knitty themed note cards
*sock yarn...closeup:

Cherry Tree Hill on the left and Joselyn's Fiber Farm on the right

*two fun sock patterns that I don't have:


I LOVE the colors of the sock yarn! I think the pink-y yarn will be next up on the needles. Thanks so much for the lovely package, Catherine!

Now I'm off to repack the drill box and send it on its way....

***ETA: The Dearest came home from work and stopped in his tracks when he saw the Drill Box on the kitchen table. I was busy cooking dinner so I was a little surprised when he asked me if I'd gotten a new drill.

Me: "New what?" (while simultaneously cutting up some meat, divyying out the veggies and flipping potatoes)
The Dearest: "When did you buy a new drill?"
Me: "I didn't!" (not realizing what he's talking about)
The Dearest: "Then what's that?" (pointing at the box)
Me: (lightbulb moment) "Ohhhhhh...I didn't buy a drill..."
The Dearest: (opening the box and looking perplexed) "Why is there yarn in here?!?"

So then I had to 'splain the whole blogger penchent for swapping and yarn and...well...*you* all know what I'm talking about! He is still a little bemused by my explaination, but I think he's just glad I didn't *buy* more yarn. *grin*

Wot! More Posting?

Sewing is SO MUCH FASTER than knitting. Behold:

click images for a bigger view

Inspired by Kathleen and Hillary, I decided to make Little Man some new play pants. He recently went thru a major growth spurt and now most of his pants are too short. I tried to buy new pants, but if they're long enough to cover his ankles, they're too big in the waist. So I took some quick measurements and went to town with some clearance fabric and the sewing machine. An hour and half later: new pants! I thought they'd be too long, but they fit him perfectly. The next pair will have to be longer and wider in the leg. I'll also put pockets on both sides (per his request).

And on the knitting front, remember my cursed Jaywalkers? The ones I thought I'd never finish? Well, finish them I did (despite the fact they didn't fit). A week or so ago, I was hanging out with Michelle and she tried one on- it turns out that they fit her perfectly! So now Michelle has a new pair of socks and I'm finally DONE with them!!!

More Joining...

Dye-O-Rama, baby! Something I can do with all the dyes and yarn I've got laying around. Woot!

Wee !

I'm a big fan of Hillary's blog and her work, which always has a sense of whimsy about it. Since I've been hooked on sewing lately, I printed out the free "Wee Bunny" pattern to make a softie for Monkey Boy (who hasn't gotten one yet). I went searching thru my fabric stash, which I found exceptionally uninspiring. It's been *a long time* since I bought any fabric (I've been too busy acquiring yarn). Then I received an email from Michelle about a sale at the local quilt shop....dumped the kiddos on the Dearest and went shopping. Here are the spoils (click for bigger images):

sale fabrics, $3 and $4 a yard
Love that middle pink one, very Amy Butler-ish


some fun, retro fabrics...check out the 'spirograph' one!(2nd from the left)


some chenille for more softies

Then I came home and made this:



ETA: The web addy for the quilt shop. :) Did I mention that I signed up for a class on Log Cabin quilting? I used to quilt years ago and recently decided that I needed to make a quilt (like this) out of the boys' baby clothes. The class will be a good refersher course for me, and hopefully I don't start hoarding fabric the way I hoard yarn.

*snort*

New softies

Not knitting, but cute anyhow....
Front view:

Back view:


These were soooo easy to make! The smaller one was a prototype. I handstitched the eye and mouth on, then cut it out, sewed it together on my machine and stuffed it. The bigger one was based on a drawing by Little Man. I added the little fang, tho.

LM really likes his softies and has pretty much carried them everywhere since I made them. He even took them for a ride in his toy Jeep last night.

Easter fun

We had an Easter Egg hunt on Sunday, along with a real live Easter Bunny (see him in the pic?). All the kids on our block had fun running through the cul-de-sac and getting 'bunny faces'. I wish I could have taken more pictures, but it's hard to watch a 16mo old and actually get good photos. But in case you're intesterested, there are more here.

Little Man was really into the egg hunt this year. He got quite the haul of eggs. Monkey Boy got four once he realized that he was supposed to actually put the eggs in his basket and not throw them. After the Egg Hunt, my mom and stepdad stopped by for a quick brunch and some grandkid spoiling. Once the grandparents left, we all had a short nap and headed off to the local park to fly a kite and work off some of the sugar. All in all, it was a great day.

As for knitting, not much has been going on here at Chez Shizzknits. Monkey Boy has been really sick for the past week with some kind of viral thing. He's up pretty much every hour at night- it's almost like having a newborn again because all he wants to do is nurse! I'm exhausted! Luckily he's started feeling better over the last day or so and is on the mend. Of course, he's such a share-er that he passed his sickies onto big brother so Little Man has the same fever and mouth sores. His immune system seems to be doing much better than MB's, as he's pretty much ok during the day. As long as I give him some childrens' Motrin at night to keep the fever down, he sleeps ok.

Since I haven't been knitting much, I decided to pull out my sewing machine and play around with some felt. I saw this thread on Craftster.org about making stuffies out of felt and gave it a try. I made two really cute little "softies" as Little Man calls them. Youl'll have to wait for pics, tho, since he took them to bed with him tonight. Hopefully I can post some images in the morning.

Happy Easter!

teeeny tiny worm

There is a planter box in our backyard that, pre-kids, had lots of flowers and veggies growing it. When I had to start nurturing children instead of plants, the garden and planter box took a big hit. Nothing's grown in the box in the last few years except for some exceptionally delicious renengade tomato plants and a very hardy tree rose that refuses to die.

Every so often I stare out the back window and think "I should really fix up that planter box with some flowers or a pond or sumfin." Considering that the planter is a focal point in our backyard and is visible from every window on the back of our house, it would be wonderful to fix it up. The Dearest is pushing to install a small pond & waterfall back there to give us some soft water noise.

Unfortunately, I think Little Man would object to any project we start. Despite the fact that he has a perfectly good sandbox, he prefers playing in the dirt of the planter box. His favorite thing to do is get water out of the hose and make a huge muddy puddle to play in. He can spend an hour or more just pushing the dirt around with his child-sized gardening tools, burying and digging up whatever buried treasure a nearly-four-year-old can come up with.

Here's what he found a few days ago, after some heavy rains:

"Momma, I found a little teeeny tiny worm friend!"

classic headbanger

Little Man is currently having "quiet time" in his room. I just walked by there and heard him singing to himself. What was he singing? Not his A-B-Cs, not 'Starlight, Starbright', not some other cutesy preschooler song.

He's singing "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap" by the original and classic headbangers, AC/DC.

That's mah boy!

inspiration!

Lookee what the mailman brought me:


Everyone in blogland is raving about Mason-Dixon Knitting, and I'm going to join them. This book is *great*. The projects really are inspirational- when was the last time you thought about knitting a little handtowel out of linen? How about plain ol' dishclothes? And I think the idea of log cabin knitting is amazingly ingenious! I was so blown over by the knitted 'quilts' in M-D Knitting that I've already started one.

Most knitting books don't live up to the hype surrounding them, but M-D is a must-have IMO. Head on over to your LYS or Amazon and pick up a copy. You won't be sorry.