Check out the wildlife...

Look what I found, poised to snack on some leaves....

Bronty the knitted dino in his natural habitat.

Did he see our hidden camera?

He emerges from the jungle!

Little Man has claimed Bronty as his own, since "Mr. Stegs needs a friend". I love knitting up these dinos, they are so cute and such quick projects. Bronty took about 2 hrs to knit and another 45 min to seam up.

I've also been spinning here and there. This is some BFL I dyed myself using a crockpot. I think I might have felted it somewhat, since there are parts that are really hard to draft.

Still working on my Flower Basket Shawl as well. I would post a pic, but honestly if you've seen one unblocked shawl on the needles, you've seen them all. Same with my Pinwheel Blanket....it just grows and grows but it doesn't look like much.

Monkey Boy enjoys his first teething bisquit

I need another project....

...like I need a hole in the head.

So why am I looking at learning to crochet? Probably because I was stupid enough to pick up Candy Blankies, which has the cutest, most lovely baby blankets I've seen in a long time. I've heard that crochet is faster than knitting. That means it's ok to pick up another fabric hobby and start another project, right?

(You may lie to me. I don't have a problem with that.)

Warning- random stuff ahead:
Did you hear about the Giant Melting Popsicle?

And look at the GORGEOUS stick pins that Cassi made. I so want to make some of these. It looks like fun: shrinky dink plastic and colored pencils....I think even Little Man might have fun helping me.

Still plugging away on my FBS. I'm on repeat #6 of the 7 repeats and it doesn't look big enough. I think I'll do at least one more set of repeats....Hopefully I will have time to post a pic tomorrow.

Guess who's got his first tooth????

I'm just as surprised as he is.

Your Public Service Announcement....

PSA for today: Do NOT drop a can of beans on top of your foot.
Why?
Cuz it HURTS and your foot will look like this:

Let's just say that I'm wearing flip flops for a while.

Ouch.

The start of my Flower Basket Shawl. I'm using some silk/merino that I handpainted. The pattern calls for double stranded alpaca, but I had this stuff laying around so there you go. I cast on for the FBS Saturday and had a heck of a time figuring out the strange crocheted cast on. Then I did all of the first chart and made a huge mistake at the very beginning of the second chart. So I ended up ripping out everything and starting over. This is the second try.

I am really liking the way this looks so far. Becky had some great tips for getting started with the FBS and keeping track of the repeats. I found her advice was wonderful for figuring out the weird crocheted cast on.

Baby Toes

Why are they so cute?

I guess this part is cute too.

We found a volunteer tomato plant in our planter box last month. The last time I planted tomatoes was well over 2 yrs ago, so I have no idea what kind of tomato this was. Then Little Man pointed out the 'tennis ball'- which turned out to be a yellow tomato! I remember planting these at some point, but I can't remember the name. Oh well- we'll let this one ripen and then we'll try it (if the bugs don't get to it first).

Found....

I had totally forgotten about these two Asian soup spoons until Little Man found them in the cutlery drawer.

Aren't they the cutest? It cracks me up tho, wondering who in the world thought that little Asian boys playing ping pong look good on spoons. I mean really, was the guy at the Asian Spoon Company sitting at his desk going "I'm tired of flowers on my spoons. Everyone has flowery soup spoons. What would be different? Wait! I know! Little boys playing ping pong would look so cool!"

I dunno, but Little Man loves these spoons and every time we have pho he asks for his "pwing pon pwayer spoon". I've looked high and low in different Asian markets and never come across another set of spoons like this. If I did, I would buy a bunch....and maybe plates if they had them!

The Artiste

Little Man wanted green paint- this is what resulted when I told him to mix yellow and blue together to make green.

"My art is Serious Work"

Little Man got tired of painting on his paper and decided to do some body painting instead. You should have seen his other arm when he was done!

Yikes-

Another quake.

I just about jumped out of my skin once I realized that it *was* a quake and not Little Man jumping off the couch. It was a 5.3, centered in Yuciapa/Big Bear (high desert). Not as strong as the quake we felt on Sunday (5.2), and this one didn't shake as long for us.

At least everyone here is ok. Earthquakes freak me out alot more now that I have little ones to worry about!

FOs...

My Lace Up Cami from the Spring issue of Vogue Knitting.

It was actually a pretty easy knit, but the pattern was horrendous. I've talked to other knitters and the general agreement seems to be that Vogue patterns SUCK. I found a mistake in the very first row of the Cami pattern, and math was off for the armholes. I also had to single crochet around all the upper edges because the 1x1 ribbing was way floppy. The tank wears well, tho!

A closeup of the pattern over the bust. I actually added 2 repeats to this part because I'm *alot* bustier than the model and the original would have barely covered me up.