One more Halloween

I can't believe just two years ago gabe was a baby. It seemed like yesterday that we did the whole wizard of oz thing. And here he is with uncle Trevor at his first pumpkin farm:)



And now look at him, he is running and jumping like a little frog. I think i want to learn how to sew for next year and make our costumes. Who knows what for, but it would be cute to do a theme. If I can part with my precious knitting time...



So gabe was a frog and Leah was a ladybug. I didn't have to buy either of their costumes, they were both given/ borrowed to us! Super cool! Ii didn't have to drop $40 for on day of wearing and tearing. We didn't even go trick-or-treating. Gabe helped hand out candy (which he loved) and them we went to both grandparents house for a little visiting. All in all, it was nice. And oh yeah, we made sure to brush his teeth for an extra long time tonight:)



On the knitting front I'm almost finished with the wallet I'm making for my sister, Dawn's, roommate. I'm guesstamating that it will be finished tomorrow, and at the post office by Wednesday. Also I had been working on a hat for my niece. And I'm going to start a sweater once I finish the wallet. Joe also said that he wants a new winter hat and scarf, let me just say that i was a newbie when i made his last year:) And one more thing, i want to make gabe and Leah some mits. My list is starting to get a bit long.......

Take care, and happy halloknitting!

Newbie among us

Hi everyone! A good friend of mine just started a blog. I love it if you could stop by and welcome her to this wonderful world of blogging! She is one of the core members in our knitting group. She can always bring a smile to my face and I'd like to bring one to hers, so go and visit Toni! Here is a picture of her youngest with Leah, what a cutie!



So stop reading and go say hi!

Happy knitting!

"My Precious"

lord of the rings anyone?! That scary little voice pops into my head every once in a while... It seemed fitting. My computer if back!!! Woo hoo! I'm so excited. i can post again and read everyone's blogs... I'm sorry for not keeping up on all of your blogs, i felt bad spending more that half an hour on my parents blog. i will be trying to catch up and see what ya'll have been up to.

Ok well let me see. I have a lot of things that happened this past month or so, but i don't want to bombard you with too much info all at once so I'll post a little bit every day.

I told hubby to not expect the house to be anywhere near spotless these next few days, or weeks who am i kidding it wont be clean for at least a month.*grin* he said that he noticed that the house was generally cleaner since the computer was broke. i just hope he doesn't have a new standard of me now:)

I have a few FO's. First of all i finished my first pair of socks ever and i love them. i want all my socks to be hand knit... If only i had the time.



aren't they lovely, i tried to make identical twins, i think they are pretty close. No, that's not all my yarn, i wish*grin* i worked at a yarn show and my socks were on display. Just some eye candy.

I also made a hat for gabe, he loves it! he was always putting leah's on and its lavender with ruffles... This just not right. So feeling guilty i decided i needed to make him one. i do like making hats they knit up quickly. We went to an apple orchard/ pumpkin farm, they are the only pictures i have of him in the hat. i like the hat because it covers all of his ears, and i don't care if it doesn't match.



*i finished a surprise knit and will show you pictures when the giftee receives it.

These next items were a wedding gift. i did them last minute, but they went very quick. Last year i made 42 of them for gifts to family and friends. Never again. Seaming was the worst part.



I do love them though:)

*Alright by now i just can't seem to stop, so i will continue with all the pictures.*

I never showed a picture of Leah in her dress. I love it and it was worth all the time i put into it and even working on size 2 needles for that large of a project.



The pictures on the right are the first pictures i took of her in it. The last was taken at a wedding we attended.

speaking of leah she is getting so big now:



She is crawling and pulling herself up to a stand, she even kind of walks along the sofa. She got her first tooth a few weeks ago and loves biting the spoon while I'm feeding her:) I can't believe so much time has passed since having her come into out lives. I need to love on gabe too, i can't leave him out. he is talking more and getting tall. Poor little guy has a super tiny waist and he has to wear 24m pants, a lot of the 2T fall down to his knees. i should knit him a belt. Here is a picture of him at his uncle trevors soccer game(almost a month ago, while it was still warm).



What a boy, he was covering himself in dirt.

Now for the best part, i received two gifts in one week.

The first was from my sp5, it was a thank you gift from Diane. What a sweetie.



She sent some cotton chenille so i can make some face cloths, a little flower stick-it note pad, and some super cool knitting note cards(which I've always secretly wanted). Also she made a beautiful stamped card. Thanks so much Diane! Your too kind.

Secondly i received my first gift from my SP6!!! i was so excited to open it. i love getting anything in the mail, but even more when its knitting related!



She sent me a super sweet package. She apologized for not getting it out sooner, but i myself know how that goes, i didn't think it was late at all. She put together a few lace sock patterns for me and two skeins of pink sock yarn! Included was a pattern for baby lace socks, now leah and i can match! Also there was a very soft ball of baby alpaca brush, so So so soft! And i almost forgot to mention the chocolate, yummy yummy, it didn't even last 24 hours*grin* I let gabe help me eat some of the other candy, only a little bit, sorry to say but I'm a bit selfish when it comes to sweets!

Wow sorry about all of that, i probably even forgot a few things. Its just good to get it out of my system. I think this might be my longest post ever, and the one with the most pictures....

I really should be going, i work in the morning
Happy knitting to all!

I'm still here!

About three weeks ago my computer went out on me. I came home and went to check ye old e-mail, and it was off. The monitor power was on but the tower its self was off. ARGH! I tried plugging it into a different outlet, un-plugging and re-plugging things back in, but no luck. I still haven't gotten around to having someone come and check it out... I'm worried about the cost of it all.

Anyways I'm blogging from my parents computer and I have missed the blogging land a great deal:) I'm almost done with my second sock, and I finished Hubby's sleeve thing, but other than that I haven't been knitting much. Little bits here and there.

The reason for the non knitting... Leah is now crawling and getting into things. I find myself running around picking up things, like crayons and Mr. Potato head ears and arms, before she can potentially choke on them. I didn't realize how many things Gabe has that could be dangerous... Hopefully she will learn that not everything had to go into the mouth to know what it is:) The other morning I went to get her up and found her standing in her crib! AHHH! I really have two kids now, before it was like 1 and 1/2, now that she is mobile its a definite 2.

Ok I know that there isn't much to read about,but I promise I'll write Sooner than two weeks. Hopefully My computer will be better soon...

Happy Knitting everyone!

Lots of stuff

I've been going on spurts. What can i say, things get so crazy and i push my bloggin to the back burner. Its almost been 2 weeks since my last post... argh. And then when i am blogging on a regular basis i complain that i have no readers, ok, well i do have a few faithful readers. And you do mean a lot to me;)

I'm just always wanting more... Now on to all that has happened in the past few weeks...Let me see ... I'm going to try and go in order... But it will be backwards order. You know, a 10 to 1 type of thing. So here it goes.

10: I received my very first e-mail from my SP6 today! How exciting. Hi Secret Pal! I love these things! I'm going to be working on the SP6 questionare, if all goes well i'll have it posted by the weekend:) But please don't hold me to it.

9: My sister Allena, just received word that she will be coming home(to the states) on the 16th of October! Too Cool! I can't wait! Then they are coming to visit for 10 days! We haven't seen each other in over a year, i hope this month passes by quickly!

8: Tonight is knitting night! That's always a good thing;)

7: I FINALLY went to the chiropractor, and have another appointment for tomorrow. I had put if off for five months and I'm paying for it.

6: Over this past weekend I went to a Ladies Retreat (at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp) with the girls from my church:

It was a lot of fun. The president of ladies retreat has an on-going fun prank thing with rubber chickens. I don't really feel like explaining it right now, but its fun. So The girls and i decided to knit a rubber chicken. We had a pattern but it was in French. None of us can speak French let alone read it. So i took it upon myself to just knit it. We all contributed to the chicken, and finished it before the weekend was over.

(Click on Pictures)
My only regret was that i didn't knit on any of my other projects. But it was worth it to see Lucy's reaction! We called it a Prayer Chicken:) My favorite part of the chicken were its feet. I used an i-cord of 9 sts, then broke it into 3 i-cords of 3 sts. Very cute if i do say so myself. I think it turned out well for just going by a picture. Amy sewed it all together, since that is my least favorite part of everything. Thanks Amy!

5: I have been doing my not-so-little brothers paper route. When he put his two weeks notice in they told him that he needed a months notice... Whatever?! Anyways, because of soccer practice and school he is unable to do it. So being the nice sister that i am, i told him I'd help out! Its good exercise! Thanks Trevor!

4: We went to the fair on labor day. It was ummm, fun?! Fairs are just a reason to eat greasy food and spend way too much money on it. We mainly go because Gabe loves animals...

He had a lot of fun and can't wait until next year!

3: I was convinced to frog my progress on hubbys sleeve thing...I was using too small of needles, making me knit more for less inchage... i have now re-started it. He would like it finished by saturday... we will see.

2: I started a surprise item.

1: I'm almost done with the wallet I'm making/designing.

that's it for now, I'm sure I'll think of more later.... Happy knitting everyone!

Garden Update

For those of you who don't care to read about my garden adventures, sorry, but this is the "my life" part of my blog:-) Read it anyways, there's lots of pictures, it will be good for ya.*grin*

I took this picture after we went-a-picking... I always do that:( I really need to take a picture with all the ripe tomatoes, then it would really be a pretty picture.


Here is my lil helper:



He sure does love his tomatoes! He was eating them as fast as he could pick them:) This was a shot of our findings today:



Up in the left is out first yellow pepper. We've had some green ones already. I wish we would have planted red ones. I love red peppers, they are so sweet.



This is a combined shot of today's pickings and the pickings from two days ago. Looks like we have another batch of tomato sauce to make. And for those cherry tomatoes:



My favorite, caprese! Yummy Yummy!

Ok ok, on to knitting. I'm starting a project for hubby. He is a hunter, and recently just bought a bow. He wants me to knit him a sleeve/glove but without fingers. He just wants a hole for his thumb and one for all the other fingers. It will go down past his elbow. The reason he wants this thing: it will be the outer-most layer to hold all his clothing tight against his arm, therefore not hitting the string upon release. He's a bit excited about it and wants me to knit that and only that. I guess that can work, it will motivate me to finish it. Plus I need those needles to complete my first pair of socks:) And hey, if it makes him happy about me knitting why not?! It can only be a good thing.

Thanks Tena!

Today I heard someone on the front porch... could it be... Is it the... It is! Its the Mail Man!! He delivered my final SP5 gift! Hubby was almost as excited as I was...Sometimes our excitement for things rubs off on one another! Anyways...I opened it up to see all these goodies!



My pal gave me a skein of Cascade 220 and Classic Elite la Gran Mohair, and the Knit one Felt Two book by Kathleen Taylor. She (Tena) even included things for my kiddos! how sweet is that! Thank you Tena! While taking the picture Gabe was very interested in what I was doing... Right after the picture was taken, he grabbed the lion and tigger rattle, ran and gave the rattle to Leah, and than hugged and cuddled the lion. It was too cute. He knew that those things were meant for him and his sister! I managed to get a picture:



Let me just say that this package came at a perfect time! As you know, if you have been reading, I'm doing some felting projects. Too cool! I had so much fun in this SP event, giving and receiving! I can't wait to start SP6! Thank you again,Tena, for everything! You were a great secret pal!

On a side note, I'm dogie sitting for Amy over the long weekend. Here is the cute little guy we get to have fun with:

Our little Tommy isn't too happy about our new house guest... He's keeping a close eye on Nigel:)

Ta-da

Here it is! My very first sock! I am now, officially, a sock knitter!



I love it! I think I did pretty well. It wasn't too hard, and I can't wait to finish the second one. I'll show you some close ups of the toe and the short row shaping.

Not to shabby for my first time, eh?! I love the colors and can't wait until I can wear them as a pair! Socks Rock!

Alright lest talk about this wallet. I've never made one before, never seen a pattern for one, so I'm kinda flyin by the seat of my pants! I did the swatch and came up with a design (with some insight from Amy). Today I did the math, I sure hope I did it correctly. Its been a while since having a math class:-) If it comes out half the way I'd like it to, I think it is going to look really cool! I'm writing the pattern down as I go, so if it actually does turn out, I might be sharing a pattern with you all! Or maybe even sending it to knitty.com or a magazine. But I don't want to get my hopes up, so I'm just rooting for my sisters roommate, Laura to like it. I love making others happy! Anyways here is what I have so far:



nothing much... I think I'll wait to show you any more pictures of it until its finished.

Felting

I made up a swatch yesterday so I can make a wallet that is the correct size.(that would be a good thing;) Have I ever said how I hate making swatches?! Its almost as bad as sewing in the ends. And with this one I can't even frog and re-use the yarn, because its felted. But wait... I can use it for something, a rattle! I bought some cheap cat toys, the plastic ones with the balls inside. Then I put one of them inside with some stuffing and stitched it together. Now let me just say I didn't try to make it pretty. I just didn't want the swatch to go to waste.

Leah isn't too interested in it though. (She looks like she likes it in the picture but really she just likes the camera, what a ham!)I think its not bright enough for her. Oh well, I tried:)

I felted the bag yesterday too! I'm pretty happy with it. Now I just need to get going on the wallet. I hope it turns out well.

Today I'm on a cleaning frenzy. I've just been so sick of all the clutter. Hopefully we'll be able to maintain the cleanliness for a little while.

I'm soo close to finishing my first sock! all I have to do yet is the kitchener stitch, then its all finished... Wait a second, I'll need to knit one more to have a pair... Like my husband says, there is always something else to knit. While that is a negative thing for him it is definitely a positive thing for me! *grin*

happy knitting everyone!