Central Coast on a Saturday

We escaped! Just for a day, and not very far. Far enough to see grapes growing in the sun (okay, you can see that at home too) but these grapes will be turned into Chardonnay.

Grace saw two lizards. Cool.

I saw some johnny-jump-ups. So pretty.

Then my camera battery died.

I went to the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay. EXCELLENT, in the quilting/fabric-a-holic realm, which I reacquainted myself with. Ahem, don't tell anyone. I sort of found a little silk wall hanging kit that invites further exploration. More on that another time. I actually exercised self-restraint, mostly because Carey was freezing her buns off with my girls at the rock/beach and I was on borrowed time.

Made the rounds in Cambria, including the Ball and Skein and More, which has lots of potential, but wastes it all by keeping the yarn in the bags it was shipped to them in. The store looks like a storeroom, not yarn-purchase-encouraging at all. Plus, hardly anything was priced. I hate having to guess at the price. You sort of had to guess at what they had too, since in the bag it is all squished. I still managed to eek out a souvenir, in the form of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. They had a dog behind the counter which growled at Grace. Not very customer friendly.

In the car I worked on my new project, a chevron scarf that I have been seeing on lots of blogs lately. I am using Noro Kureyon, so the colors are interesting while the yarn feels like you could scour pots with it. I'm being optimistic that it will soften with blocking. A lot. I hope. Otherwise it will be an interesting scarf that I can't even give away in good conscience. If I felted it it would make a multicolored snake. Hmmm....let's send good thoughts for the softening. I wonder if anyone could stand a sweater out of the stuff?

Makes for an interesting photo.

It's Still May!!

And the socks are done! Yay me!

But first, here is why the knitting/blogging is slow this month --

Two graduations. The first, my firstborn graduating from eighth grade--

Here she is with two classmates (one of whom is her BFF Karley) at the pre-graduation brunch. Each graduate was given a very nice silver cross and a cute cookie that looked just like themselves!

Cute!

After the ceremony we lunched and gifted the new highschool bound teenager-

That was Saturday. Today was Grace's turn. My kindergartener graduated. My little baby girl is almost 6 and in first grade. Yikes.

It is almost impossible not to tear up in the presence of all this cuteness--

Grace is the one in blue in the front row. When they sat down Grace flashed the entire congregation. I'm so proud.

Here she is with her teacher.

Grace and Brianna -- who happens to be Emily's BFF's sister.

In Knitting news, (you thought I forgot, didn't you?) the socks for May were finished after graduation today, but before dance class.

These were my Magic Loop socks. Love the loop. Used Tofutsies, the same kind of yarn tried once before, but abandoned after they pooled incredibly and horribly. I gave it another shot, and the first socks looks very nice, doesn't it?

The second sock started going all crazy like and looks more like tiger stripes or something. Not good. I have two more balls of this yarn and I'm not so excited about it. I would have to say they are the least exciting and satisfying socks I have knit. The yarn feels good, if that is any consolation.

This ball of yarn was originally meant for Project Spectrum several months ago. I get distracted easily.

Next month (three hours from now) the colors turn to black, red, and metallic. Not my colors, more Nolamom's cup o'tea. I will try to make a token project to show I can get with the program.

Tomorrow is also the last day of school. Hooray! Only "non-graduating" Alex has to go to school tomorrow. He's so excited.

Hooray for summer!

Chicken Alert!

Tillie the Hen is finished!

What a fun knit. I enjoyed creating her from start to finish. She turned out almost exactly like the pattern.

Specs: Simply Knitting Magazine, Spring issue, Sublime merino dk yarn, size 3 needles, babies made from fuzzy mohair blend yarn. I stuffed the base body with doll bead pellet things, and she has a good weight to her. She has bloomers on under sher skirt, as seen better in the previous post.

I could seriously become addicted to knitting "things" now. This was fun. I don't exactly know what to do with her now that she's done, but I had to knit her.




Does Carey need a bride and groom chicken?





Close up of Tillie the Hen.

Fun with Fowl and Fiber

Here she is--

Isn't she beautiful?

Okay, yes, she could use some clothes. And some eyes, wings, claws, and a beak. And eyes. But, hey, she's lookin' good so far! Sort of like a bowling pin with legs.

Poultry production continues....

On the sock front, I have now made a sock using the magic loop method. I like it. It opens up a lot of possibilities for other things too. I will take a picture when the second one is done. I haven't figured out how to do two at the same time, and I decided to do cuff down for the first shot at "looping." So I have a ways to go in the "learning new things" department, but so far so good.

Seven Random Facts About Cindy

I was tagged to do this meme and I've never done one before so here goes -

1. I'm left handed, my sister is left handed, but no one else, not my mom or dad or my kids is left-handed. I'm very proud of my left handedness, but am sort of sad I did not pass it on to my kids.
2. I hate apples. The entire universe loves apples, and I can't stand them. It's the texture. Ick.
3. I skipped first grade. Instead of branding me a genius for life, it has resulted in me not learning my left from my right very well. It took me learning to drive for that to click. (Watching Blue's Clues with Grace helped too)
4. I love the Brady Bunch. Gilligan's Island and I Dream of Jeannie aren't bad either. I can't stand Leave It to Beaver.
5. I could watch the movie Elf and the newer Parent Trap over and over again. I realize they are cheesy. When Lindsay Lohan realizes she's a twin I tear up every time.
6. I think dimples on guys are very cute. (Mario Lopez! Jeff Probst!) I didn't really notice them until Alex was born with the deepest dimples ever.
7. My favorite food in the world is Rocky Road ice cream from Rite Aid/Thrifty. If they discontinue it I will be very, very sad.

Knit in Public Day

Okay Knotty Knitters June 9 is national Knit in Public Day. We must organize and go somewhere like River Park or Fig Garden (Carey could put us in the Villager) and knit together, even if it is only for a little while. Who's game?

Chicken-in-Progress

I'm in chicken production. I placed the order for some hopefully appropriate chicken foot yarn. Paid extra for shipping, because I'm an impatient chicken-foot-yarn-waiter. I couldn't even wait for Tuesday to go to the LYS to look for chicken foot yarn there. My goal is to have all the other pieces knitted and sewn up when the foot yarn arrives. I don't know why I'm in such a hurry, the word obsession comes to mind. Hmmm....


Here are the exploded chicken parts in progress -

In other news, I swatched a little of the purple watercolory yarn. I know watercolory is not a word, but I don't know how else to describe it. I like the yarn, I like the color. I'm not too crazy about the yardage-99 yards a ball, and the price-around 8 dollars. To make a sweater it would take lots of balls, and therefore, lots of dollars. I've been known to spend money on yarn before (really?) but I have a lot in the stash that I could work on, and so I am therefore being "good" and passing up the purply watercolory yarn. Unless a Irish Hiking scarf or whatever it is called might be good. Hmmm..... don't know.

The mailman brought me a little tubular package. At first, I thought "What could it be?" then the lightbulb went on. My needle! My replacement Brittany Birch short size 1 dpn! Yay! I already finished up the sock I was knitting when it broke, but hey, I'm happy anyway. And I got to get a cute little package in the mail. I amuse easily.

Edited later: After I posted this post, I actually opened the little tubular package and it contained not one, but TWO replacement needles. How fabulous! Thank you Brittany Birch People!


I work tomorrow (second grade) so chicken production will have to wait until recess. I can already hear the kids asking me what I'm making and then looking at me like I'm a crazy lady when I answer them. Ha.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to the best mom ever!

Love, Cindy and Carey

Craving for Chicken

Sometimes I see something and immediately want to make it, even if it is the silliest thing. If I don't give in to the urge it haunts me. I can hear it calling. Yes, patterns talk to me. Yarn talks to me too. Housework cries to me, but that I block better than patterns and yarn. Selective listening.


Anyway, I bought the over priced Simply Knitting British magazine because they included a free zipper bag with balls of yarn printed on it. Sucker. Being the "I'm not a beginner anymore" snob that I am I thought the magazine would be rather dull, sort of like Knit Simple and that type of magazine. This one actually had a lot of cute patterns, including many that American magazines would not consider simple. I liked the layout of the magazine too. The free gift lured me into finding a good magazine that I would buy again.


That leads me to the chicken. I couldn't resist it. I went to Janna's looking for the yarn and they had the exact yarn it calls for, Sublime, a DK weight merino by Sirdir. They had just gotten it in, and they had all the colors. The knitting cosmos almost NEVER works that well. They didn't have the different mustard color yarn that the feet are made from, but that is minor. After spending a bizallon dollars on six skeins of British extra fine merino to make this chicken I am dying to get started.

















While I was at the yarn store, I saw this:


The photo obviously does not do it justice. The colors are very watercolor, and it is just beautiful. It is expensive, and I don't know exactly what I would make with it, but it is beautiful! I bought a skein just to play with.

i8i8i8i8

Computer's back! Hooray! Much love to HP for fixing my keyboard so quickly. I finally parted with it last Thursday around lunch time (after taking it out of the box a few times for "one last email check") and Monday when we got home from school the tag was on the door that they tried to deliver it. One trip to the FedEx place, and it was mine. After opening the box, it really was mine! With an 8! and an i!

Can you tell I'm happy? As Lisa would agree, computers are addictive!

Cuppy in a Mirror

I have been sort of dancing around the "wanting to sew" feeling for awhile now. Hemming the flower girl dress didn't send that feeling away, nor did sewing the Ramses costume. I really didn't want to drag out a big production, and most of my fabric is packed away temporarily as a part of the Alex's room project, so I hadn't been acting on the urge except to let it brew in my head.

I still subscribe to Quiltmaker Magazine, a leftover from my quilt magazine-a-holic phase. You know how they send you the notice your subscription is almost over so you pay it, only to realize "almost" means 11 months from now? Well, that happened, and so I will be getting Quiltmaker for a few more months, even though the Interweave Knits is what sends my heart a flutter now.
Quiltmaker came in the mail around a week ago, and it happened. I saw a project that I wanted to make.

Can you tell what it is?

How about now?

Any better?

It is not finished, but will most likely be a little pillow. It is based on Emily's cat, Cuppy, and since I forgot that foundation pieced patterns turn out reversed from how the patterns appear, it is entitled "Cuppy in a Mirror." I had doubts while I was sewing it whether or not it would actually look like anything when it was done, but I think it looks okay now that it is together. It was rather complicated to do, it has very tiny pieces (181 of them!) and 12 sections. It went together without too much headache, now I just have to put the borders on.

On the knitting front, the cables are back to making me smile, and my plain sock for May is getting a gusset. My computer is away in Tennessee, and I'm here, so blogging is complicated.

Rock, paper, scissors

OK... First, the rock. I'm engaged! To a wonderful man. Hooray! (And you guys thought it would never happen...)

Second, do you realize what this means? This opens up a whole new world of scrapbooking possibilities! Party favors! Invitations! I don't yet know how I will use all the nifty wedding things that are out there, but heavens, I've got the ring. That's practically an invitation to go shopping, don't you think? Golly... there's so much to do.

My son the Egyptian

Fourth Grade was the prospector with the knitted fun fur beard. Fifth was Ben Franklin with the ruffled shirt made from paper doilies. And now, I present Ramses, made from the finest felt and gold rick rack--

Sometimes you are thankful you can sew.

For all you moms out there...

How would you like to see these washing instructions????

Socks for April

It is hot here. Not exactly wool sock weather, more like 98 degrees on a Saturday in April. Crazy. A stomach bug caught Grace, so the poor kid has been feverish and sick when it is hot. When she is sick she likes to be up close to Mom, so I have been living with 98 degrees and a 102 degree heating pad snuggled up to me. Fun.



She is better this Sunday afternoon, thank God, and while I'm sleep deprived and every towel in the house is being laundered, the pink socks are done.



The official view --

and the view on the feet (standing on Alex's new carpet).

I really like these socks. The pattern was fun to knit, and breaking a needle just taught me a lesson that pointier needles really make the k2tog work a lot easier. This is a Nancy Bush pattern, and like a lot of her socks in Vintage Socks, they don't have kitchener stitch on the toe. You just decrease until there are 9 stitches left and poof, pull through and finish. It kind of makes a little swirl on the toe. A peppermint colored swirl.

As I may have mentioned before, this is Sophie's Toes Lipstick sock yarn, on #1 needles. I got the yarn on Etsy.com and I enjoyed knitting with it.


I pulled out my Magic Loop instructions, and think I may need a longer circular needle. May socks may have to be on two circulars, or maybe I'll do something completely different. Don't know yet.

I will probably go back to my cables. I have punished them appropriately, not having touched them since they betrayed me. I'll give them another chance, it's only fair to accept my part of the blame.

The laptop goes away tomorrow. I will try to "visit" someone's computer and sneak in a peek or two at the blog while mine gets all its keys in order.

What is Wrong with This Picture?

Oops!

It snapped. I've almost snapped. Fortunately, they come with a guarantee. Great company, that Brittany Birch.

Too bad everything else doesn't come with the same guarantee.

Speaking of which, my laptop has two keys that popped off. Compaq will fix it because it is under warranty, except I have to ship it to them to fix. That means I will have to be without my computer for a while. Sob.

Pink socks

What a crazy week. Our family is back to normal size, but this time of year gets crazy with the start of cherry season. I become a produce widow, or temporary single parent, while Maurice is busy selling and shipping cherries all over the world. It hasn't officially started yet, but it seems like every night someone has some activity that keeps us hopping.

Last night it was my turn to take Alex to two basketball games. When I got there my pink sock looked like this --

and by the end of the game it was at the last repeat before the toe. Yes, I did watch my kid play basketball, I was practicing my "knitting with out looking" skill. Okay, yes, I did have to look down to do the k2tog and left cross 2's. But I did get a lot done. Hooray!

This morning was blissfully peaceful. Birds chirping outside, and with my two girls keeping Carey company overnight, very quiet. I finished the toe! I like how this sock fits. The pattern is interesting to knit, this is the first time I have done a sock which has the decreases in three spots on the toe. I don't feel it when I walk on them but with one of the decreases on the bottom of the foot, I thought I would. No worries!

I need to hurry on the second sock because I am already looking forward to the next sock I knit. I think I'm going to try the magic loop thing. I haven't done that before, but I like the idea of doing both socks at the same time. I also want to do my Cookie A. sock patterns I got at Stitches. We'll see what I decide to do for my May socks.

I was thinking this morning how much I like my tin I hold my double pointed needles in. It is a pencil tin from Paperchase that I got at Borders. It is the perfect size to hold about half of my dpn collection. I wish I could find other more in other patterns. I saw one on the internet that had pirates but it was only available in England, and not here. sad.

We Interrupt this Knitting....

for a lot of family activity. We had a major family wedding this weekend. Maurice's sister Lori got married to a very nice man Emilio. Starting Thursday we wined and dined with out of town family who came in for the wedding. We were still wining and dining last night, and for the next 4 days our family gains a kid while Lori is on her honeymoon.

Add being a mother of 4 with getting new carpet bright and early Monday morning, and you come up with a lot of stress. Not much time for knitting, and several times during the weekend I felt myself longing for the needles and unable to satisfy the craving.

This morning while the carpet was being installed I slipped in a few rows on the pink sock. I really like this pattern - it is the first Nancy Bush pattern I have done (it is the Anniversary Sock from Favorite Socks). I don't know how many more pattern repeats I should do before I start the heal - the Sophie's Toes yarn I am using doesn't have a overabundance of yardage, so I'm not sure how much yarn I have to spare. Any opinions? I have three so far.

I'm feeling guilty about my lack of blogging lately. No knitting means nothing to show or talk about. While I was cleaning out the back room (formerly the family/craft room, currently Alex's bedroom with some of Mom's junk stashed in there) I found a experimental little quilt I made a few years ago.

This was a painting Emily did when she was in 6th grade (I think) that I scanned and printed on fabric. Then I added some bright border strips and did a wild amount of free motion quilting around the whole thing.

I have always wanted to play more with the printing photos on fabric thing. I think it has a lot of potential to be a lot of fun.

Add it to the list.

And now for the wedding photo shoot --

Betrayed

I was zooming along with the cables, almost to the end of the second pattern repeat when I looked down and noticed I had crossed the cables wrong about 6 rows back. AAACK! I ripped, telling myself it wasn't that bad, only around an hours worth of knitting, and as I have heard it be said, that just means you get to knit more, and isn't knitting what we enjoy doing?

Then I noticed after ripping the 6 rows, I had done it again around another 10 rows back! After cursing to myself (I was at Grace's dance class, and cursing aloud at my knitting would just be the nail in the "Isn't she weird" coffin) I got to rip some more.

I was feeling very smug about my cable skills. I was thinking of tackling something really hard after this. Now I feel very not-smug. I have been put in my place, and I'm feeling a little betrayed by my knitting. I now have to figure out where I am on the chart after ripping, and try to figure out why I went wrong. And then not do it again.

I chickened out this morning at "knit while your hair gets done" time. I worked on my pink sock. I'm thinking I will wait to resume the cables until after the family wedding is done and life resumes normal chaos instead of super stress chaos. I don't need any more stress.

No photos of the disappearing cables. That would just be too sad. You'll have to imagine the pain.

I Love Green!

After putting it off way too long, I got with the program today and finished up a few things. One thing I was dreading, hemming Grace's flowergirl dress (wedding Saturday), and one thing I wasn't exactly dreading, but more like waiting for the appropriate time to drag out the sewing machine.

Today was the day. Out came the machine and the raw purse materials--

I was going to use the small light green polka dot fabric for the lining, but spotted the wild green squares in my fabric stash and decided to go with it for the lining.

Looks pretty good, huh?

I made my usual zipper pocket on one side, but this time I made two large pouches on the other side to hold my cell phone and perhaps a sock-in-progress. I added the magnetic closure and handles and very stiff interfacing between the lining and bag body to give it some substance.

Then I made a "rope" of many lengths of Squiggle and sewed it to the top. I had to then pull out the fuzzy bits and fluff a little, but then I was done.

The base of the purse was two colors of Cascade 220 held together using the Noni Bobble Bag pattern. The handles I purchased at Hancock Fabrics.

I'm so happy to have finished! I was getting really tired of lugging my gigantic brown leather bag around but didn't want to buy another bag when I knew this one was waiting for me.

The cable pillow project has been neglected today in favor of the sewing machine, but I am finished with one pattern repeat. The pattern calls for four, but I may do more if it doesn't end up a square.

Edit: I deleted the photos and then reloaded them. Blogger is so irritating at times! If you can't see the photos, let me know.

Carrots and Cables

I have started a new project because I came across the new Cotton Ease yarn from Lion Brand. I'm usually too much of a yarn snob for Lion Brand (I have used my share of fun fur I do admit, but not lately) but this new re-release of yarn had me intrigued. I like cotton, and adding a little acrylic makes it less string-like and more yarn like. I had read on other blogs that the colors it comes in this go around were nice, and when I saw the green, I loved it.

I took home a skein, and started looking through the books for a project. I settled on Entwined Cables Pillow from Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman. I started in and it looks really nice. It is much wider than the 18 inches the pattern indicates but I want to make 2 floor pillows so that's fine. I had really wanted to do a complicated cable project, and this one is really fun. I love cables, they make me feel like I'm doing something "fancy" as Grace would say.

I had to take a breather to get ready for Easter. I like decorating with the carrot theme, since I made the carrot quilted table runners last year. It is fun finding carrot stuff to add to the lot.

We had a barbecue for Easter this year. We sat outside by the pool and enjoyed the spring weather. I'm excited because we are on vacation from school this next week. I'm hoping to settle that sewing itch I have been plagued with, and finish my felted purse.

Yes I Knit!

In between the paper/canvas thing and the egg decorating, I have been knitting. Yes, I have. I finished Clapotis! What a fun knit. It was almost the perfect project. Easy enough to knit while having a conversation or watching tv, speedy, little goals (dropping the stitch every 12th row), an interesting directional slant, and I didn't get bored.

Here it is in full and up close-

I used Interlacements rayon/linen yarn and size 8 KnitPicks Options needles.

While I was outside trying to capture better light, I noticed my rose blooming. Pretty, huh?

Edit: Yes, I noticed that my foot is in the picture. Great photographer, yes I am.

Eggs Eggs Eggs

Tracy wanted to play with eggs. We got together yesterday and painted, dyed, glued and generally made a mess in the name of making some pretty eggs.

Wouldn't Martha be proud?

I think they turned out nicely!

Visiting the Other Side

I have a secret. Contrary to my reputation, I do like paper too. I even dabble in paint now and then. When I was a kid I had a sticker collection that I kept in an album. It is only recently that I have been trying to specialize, more because I realize my time on earth is limited and I can't do it all. Nor do I have room for all of it. So I had to make a decision, and fabric won. Then fabric had to move aside while I first flirted with yarn, then fabric had to completely step aside while my true passion took over. Yep. I was powerless to resist.

Anyway, the point of this story is that I have made a photo canvas collage thing to hang in the bathroom. That sounds kind of like a strange place to hang something like this but it is the guest bathroom and it gives you something to look at while you're visiting :0). This project started with three 10x10 canvases that I painted with several colors of teal and green, kind of mixing it up. When it was dry I stamped lighter green in spots with this nice foam stamp I found. Then I sponged gold in spots and painted the metal words, and added the photos and buttons. Pretty easy, and I think it looks good. They are supposed to hang side by side -- they won't fit together in the post.

Putting PAPER back into Yarn Paper Scissors

So...I have just returned from a weekend in LA. We were there to go see Josh Groban in concert and what a FANTASTIC concert it was. I cannot say just how wonderful it was. His voice was superb and he's as funny as can be. And, a highlight was him walking down the aisle where we were sitting. I can now say I've touched Josh Groban's shoulder. How cool is that? Check out this horrible picture I took with my phone.


Anyway... boy, I seem to be lacking in focus at the moment. This is supposed to be about paper.

Before the concert, Shelly, her sister LeAnn and I attacked the scrapbook stores. We went to Claremont, San Dimas and Ontario and, wow. What fun stuff in these stores. Mom and I just came back from the scrapbook expo and have recently seen a ton of scrapbooking stuff, but it really seemed that these stores had new stuff, stuff I've never seen before. Truly, I believed I had really seen it all. If I'm anything at all, I'm able to find my way around a scrapbooking store, you know? (Again, with the focus!)

I bought mostly papers and embellishments for mom's cooking scrapbooking project, but what I found that I just loved were new papers that had the most rich and fun colors and were embellished with doodling. That doodling thing is B-I-G big now. I picked up three new books, too. One on simple scrapbooking of theme books about yourself, one on mini books and the fifth in my most favorite quote book series.

I just love the new quote book because the theme fo Quote, Unquote 5 is Spiritual quotes for Inspired Moments! How cool is that? I just know I'm going to love, love, love this book.

We ended our trip with a fun breakfast at Rosco's Chickn' n' Waffles in Pasadena (ask Shelly!) and then we said goodbye to LeAnn and Shelly and I were off, headed home. The only problem with that plan is that the day was young. What were we to do? Go home right away? No way. One more stop, to a scrabook store in Bakersfield. Again, I was surprised at the size of this place and the fact it had fun, unique stuff. More money down, and we had to get out of town.