Bloom

I love this time of year when everything is so pretty! For example:



This is on my kitchen table. I've decided that I love lilacs. They are so beautiful! And they smell good too:)

on to knitting... I finished the picot necktrim and thought it looked... Odd. Well that was because I forgot one purl row before it, and it was flipped down and backwards. Hard to explain but I ripped it out and did it all over. Now it looks much better. In between feeding the babe and dealing with the two year old...


(yes, they look sweet, but sometimes they can be a pain in the butoot:)

...I've been sewing in the stray ends. Hopefully by the end of the night I'll be blocking. But we'll see if that happens. Good news, I'm done using the #2's and I can start my socks!! yipee! Time to tackle one more project.

I'm waiting to get my SP5, this is my first SP and I'm super excited, it should be fun! I can't wait to gift and be gifted. In a few days I'll be posting my questionnaire. Did I mention I'm excited about this?! Little things make me happy... Speaking of little things, my son, finally said "mom" and its really cute, or at least I thought so until he kept saying it over and over, to get my attention for every little thing. I swear he has said it 100 times while I've been writing this post. Making me stop what I'm doing and go assist him in his play doh fun. I'm going to end with that, and go give him a bath while leah is sleeping, then off to the mabel dress!

happy knitting to all, and to all a knitting night!

I'm so close

yet so, so far. I'm almost done knitting the mable dress. All I have left is the neck trim and then I have to seam it together!!! Seaming seems to take the longest:) I can't wait to see it completed. Here is a picture of my progress, because everyone loves pictures... at least I do:)



Tuesday night I was starting on the sleeves and realized that I needed to get one more ball of yarn... bummer. So I went on Wednesday to get it. I think I could have finished the sleeves then, but I really needed to do some laundry. So the knitting had to wait. bummer, again. I'm just happy I'm this far with it. I had to move leah into 3-6 month stuff because she is getting so long... It was that or cut all the feet off of her outfits. Speaking of her...



It has been so beautiful out lately. I don't have to pile on the blankets. Just a hat to keep the sun off of her. I know what your thinking, its may. Don't forget I live in Wisconsin, near the lake. We just now have leaves on our trees. I was so excited this week when they appeared:) I love all the green, so pretty.

back to knitting... My mom wants me to make a baby hat for a friend of hers. There is a new granddaughter in her family... Also I really want to get started on my socks. Even though its getting warm out and I'll probably be wearing flip flops a good deal of the time. Also I need to pick out a yarn that I can make the peek-a-boob tank out of. So much to do. I better get going on that dress... happy knitting!

Mug

My mother went back to Indiana yesterday and picked up a few things that my sister (dawn) had been borrowing while she was in school. She is moving out to Colorado and doesn't want to take much with her. My mom took an empty van down and brought back a bed, a sewing machine, a bike, and some other stuff.

When we went down for the graduation dawn took my mom and I to a poetry painting place, for mothers day. It was a bunch of fun. I painted a mug for my daily coffee fix:) To get to the point... My mom brought back the mug today! I was so excited to see how it turned out...



Isn't it cool?! I thought so. I took my time with it, and I'm glad I did. Here is a picture of the inside:



I've been knit, knit, knitting away at the mabel dress. I still have a few more inches to go on the front panel. Its so hard to keep doing the same old thing... I want cables, I want yarn overs, I want so much more! Soon very soon... I've got knitting to do, so until next time... be good.

Banana bread

Alright... So I made banana bread so I could take it to church tomorrow. And to see some room in my freezer.(its completely full, sorry different story) you see I put really ripe bananas in a ziplock bag,and throw them in the freezer, so as not to let them go to waste. My mom always did that. Anyways, I put them in the oven and thankfully I set the timer, and then I plopped myself down on the computer. Just a minute ago the timer went off and scared the poop out of me. It was funnier when it happened, not so much now that I'm reading it. Oh well, I'm posting it anyways. gotta jet!

Llamas

Ok, I'm so excited to write about my day. It was shearing days at out at my lys Bahr Creek Llama & Fiber Studio. It was lots of fun... I got to see them sheer llamas(hence the shearing days) and see how cute they look afterwards. Here is a picture of MR.



Isn't he a cutie?! Here is one of him all trim and proper:) he he



What sweet animals! Here is a picture of them playing and frolicking in their field. Which is behind the shop. Aren't we (my knitting group) lucky to be able to see the creatures from which we are knitting:)?! I think so!



so pretty!And it was such a beautiful day out. It was almost prefect, not terribly hot and just warm enough to not have a sweatshirt on, it was great!

alright, so here is my news:

I learned how to spin! It was so cool! My teachers made it look so easy...It took some coordination. I must say that it is very relaxing. I told my hubby that I knew what I wanted for Christmas:) *grin* actually I don't think we will be able to afford one for quite a while ... But in my dreams I would buy one tomorrow!

So I think something else cool might have happened but i can't remember... maybe i will, and in that case i'll post again later... happy knitting

To clean.

last night I had my knitting friends over at my house. I had a blast! I cleaned too:)

why is it that when you are going to have company over you have the need to clean?! Why do I want my house to look nice for others? Is my family not good enough to clean for? No that's not it... I do clean on a regular basis, but this burst of cleaning energy seems to come out when I know someone is coming over. Very odd.

I got a lot of progress done on the mabel dress. Its about 5 inches now! I can't wait to see the final product! I have a 2 new projects that I think I want to start. First I need to find yarn and buy it, then I can get going on them. They are both from knitty.com . One is a nursing tank called peek a boob. Cleaver I know:) the other is a hoodie, called mariah. Well I need to get going on dinner.

:)

While I was knitting the second half of the back to my mabel dress I realized that I forgot to knit the first stitch of every purl row...I guess it is going to make the edge look nicer, after its blocked I assume. I was pretty upset but luckily Amy has shown me how to rip out stitches and already have the needle where you need it to be. As you can see above it was more than just a few rows that needed to be corrected, needless to say I was bummin. Here I thought I was going to be done with the back of the dress that night, but no me and my horrible memory had to kick in.


here is a bigger picture of it.

oh well that was two nights ago... Now I'm finished with that and have a little more than an inch done on the front panel. I'm pretty happy with my progress so far. I'm thinking I'll be done with it completely in a week or so. Give or take a couple of days. We'll see.

Last night was knitting night! I love going knitting! My hubby had off so I left both the kids with him. I felt a little guilty leaving Leah but I have been pumping and had extra milk in the freezer. Who better to leave her with than her daddy?! It was really nice not to have to worry about her and be free to knit and socialize all by myself. Is that bad?! a mom needs her time too, right? In any case I had a good time out at the shop... I love it there! Down the road I hope to own a place like that. a girl can dream, can't she? :)

Oh I almost forgot... I got some sock yarn... And a book, so I can make them into socks;) I'm excited! I've almost been knitting for a year and haven't made one sock. Isn't that horrible?! I feel its my knitting duty to make a pair. Here's the thing... I need to use size 2 needles but that's what my dress is on. I guess I'll just have to finish the dress as fast as I can so I can start my socks. Hopefully this is as complicated as life can get :)



One more thing. I also bought At Knit's End, by stehanie, the yarn harlot. Its too funny! I'm loving it so far! I'll end on that note... happy knitting!

On the knitting front

I forgot to mention that I had finished leah's hat. The first thing I did when we got in the van to go to Indiana was weave in the ends. I wasn't completely happy with it, but it was good enough for me not to rip it out and do it all over:) I did however re-do the decreases several times... Here is the finished product:



I made it pretty big so that she can wear it for a long time. After I took a bunch of pictures of her in it, which is very hard to do with only two hands, gabe thought he would try it on:



what a cutie! As you can see it almost fits a 2 year olds head... We're going to get a lot of wear and tear out of this one! Just because I love pictures here is one more of leah:


She has been such a smiley little girl lately. Its amassing how fast they develop, and how fast they grow... She is getting so chubby:)

sorry... I'll get back to knitting. The mabel dress is coming along but I still didn't take any pictures of it because its just St st, I'll be sure to post pictures when it has a bit more to it. I'm ready to start a project that is complicated. I'm getting tired of the same old thing. I would really like to have to pay attention to a pattern. Maybe a sweater with cables or whatever... But I need more! I'd like to knit myself something, that i could wear and be proud of... we'll see what I can come up with.

happy knitting to all!

Indiana

Over the weekend we took a trip down to Indiana. My oldest sister, Dawn, graduated with a master of arts in counseling, from Grace College. Here is a picture of the fam:



From left to right: Leah, Jessica (me), Joe, my mother Dorinda, my sister Dawn, my little brother Trevor, my dad Allen and Gabe

It was beautiful there, well into the 70's. I was kicking myself for not wearing a dress, it would have been much cooler. Here in WI its warm one day and snowing the next. You never do know what the weather is going to be like. But in Indiana all the trees had leaves and it was so pretty... I was jealous when we drove back to see bare trees and cold windy days. Oh well I'm over it now... I know our day will come when its nice out, someday:)

it was so nice there that leah wore her dress and didn't even need a blanket



She was soo cute!

We stayed at a hotel with a pool, and gabe loved it! This was his first experience with a real pool. I say "real" because last year he did play in his kiddie pool in the back yard, but that doesn't compare.



here he is getting ready to go in the pool. He was such a dare devil... He loved "jumping"(stepping off of the edge) in to daddies arms. I think he is going to be a little fish this summer.

On the knitting front I made a good amount of progress on the mabel dress. I was able to knit in the van, my parents drove the whole way down. I have a good 6 inches done, which is a lot when your knitting on size 2 needles. Tonight is knitting at the lys, so I'll post pictures of my progress later tonight or tomorrow.

until then... happy knitting:)

This and that

I did it! I started the mabel dress. And I now have two whole projects going at one time! Hooray for me! Here is a picture of what I have so far...



it is being done on size 2 needles. They're so tiny. Before this I've only used size 3 and I thought they were small. I think I'm in over my head:) this is going to take me forever. But that's good..Right?!, more bang for your buck, I get to knit longer. We'll see how I feel about it in a week of two. So far so good.

today is Gabes 2nd birthday. Those two years went by so quickly. We celebrated it yesterday with both sets of grandparents. ( by the way, he is feeling better today, but still not 100%) he had a good time, not like you really know what your b-day is when your two. But he is good at opening presents... He got a bubble gun which he loves, I'm only mentioning it so I can post a picture:



must I say that he loves bubbles?! In the picture with him is cousin Mika, whom he loves! Sorry but I have to post a few more pictures... I can't help it:) we had to re-light the candles so he could blow them out again... But he kept trying to grab them. So then he thought we were yelling at him when really we just didn't want him to hurt himself.



so here he is, red eyed, with grandpa! I really like this picture... So cute.

ok now these next ones are of me and my little brother(sorry, not pictured) being creative with some m&m's.



and here is the finished product:



I know we went a little too far:) we are thinking of sending it in to the company maybe we'll get something out of it. Probably not, but its worth a try.

next time I promise more about knitting... Until then, happy knitting!