alive and well

Just letting you know that I am still breathing!

I have found the answer to one of life's important questions:

How many times can a 2 year old ask "What's that"?

Answer:  Infinity

We (Bob and I) spent a wonderful long weekend with our 2 little grandsons.  And then collapsed!

There are many entertaining things to do when you are 2.

Ride on Grandpa's lawn tractor.

Look for toads.

Go to the apple orchard.

Help grandma cook something.

Build a fire with Grandpa.

Pull weeds.

Play outside with front end loaders and dump trucks in the sand.

And then there's baby brother, who likes his bottle many times a day.

And learning to eat cereal.

And work on rolling over.

And tummy time.

And holding onto rattles.

And jumping in the bouncer.

We all had a good time, and we were all glad to see mom and dad return from their trip.

Being grandparents is a good thing!

One of our weekly produce bags brought us these very pretty vegies, and I just had to take a picture.  I have never seen a purple cauliflower before!  It turned the water purple when I steamed it.  I should have used it for dying some yarn!

Remember the new yarns that I bought on vacation? I made myself leave them alone until I finished the little sweater that I had been working on.

Here it is after washing, all laid out to dry.  

The letter "B" stands for Burke, their last name.

And solves the problem of whether to put their first initial on it and then the other won't get to use it.

And now that that's done, I am figuring out my next project!

knit notes

I am suddenly in the process of knitting 3 things at once, after a dry spell with yarn.  This is partly due to the fact that I am looking forward to some vacation and holiday time over the next few weeks, and it is so easy to take along some easy knitting.  For the most part, these projects are mobile and do not demand constant attention, so I can even talk and knit at the same time!

First, a winter scarf (one can never have too many in MN!) much like some I have made before but with a different yarn.  So far, this yarn is working.  I really do prefer to buy my yarn at an actual yarn shop when I can, because the selection is great and the service is helpful.  But it's not always so convenient to do that, so sometimes I find myself wandering the yarn aisles at someplace like JoAnn's, and wondering if one of their yarns will serve the purpose I have in mind.  This pattern calls for 2 colors of variegated yarn to get the effect, and I am trying this yarn from Red Heart.  I have had a couple bad experiences with yarn that I thought was a good deal, but turned out to be a nasty texture to work on.  So let's hope this time I have it right!

I made a sweater for Ian last spring, and liked the result enough that I decided to do it again in a bigger size.  It's the letter sweater in this Debbie Bliss book--

The first sweater has a big "I" on the front.  With another little grandson coming along, Brita had the bright idea to just but a "B" on this sweater (B for Burke) and then both boys will one day wear it.  I changed to a different yarn this time, since I wasn't too happy with the amount of pilling that has sprung up all over Ian's sweater.  This time I am using Paton's Classic Wool in the DK weight.  It is washable and seems durable, both good qualities for little dude clothes!

This one will be a dark red body with gray trim on the edges and for the letter.

 And then last night over a delicious dinner with Debbie at Ingredients, our favorite spot in White Bear Lake, she showed me a cute little baby hat that she had made for her granddaughter.  As luck would have it, I happened to have the exact yarn needed here at home.  Plus the right size of needles!  So I did a test knit this morning, and have started the ribbing for this little project.  Now that I know that I have what is needed, I can zip this project into a travel bag and have it ready for a trip!  The yarn is Knitcol Trends by Adriafil.

A sure sign of winter at our house--

Bob keeps a bowl of walnuts ready to crack during a movie or tv show.  We have been working our way through the Friday Night Lights series, free on our Amazon channel via Roku.  We are now on season 5, the final season, so wondering how they are going to wrap it up with these interesting characters.  I just want to see Tim end successfully, and that McCoy kid and his dad get a comeuppance!

what's happening around here

A brief look at the photo below might make you wonder about my purpose in displaying it here.  Well, the fact is, that is one of the side seams on the little letter sweater that I made for Ian.  Apparently, if you read the directions and then follow the directions, you can get a pretty good result!

So good that the seam is nearly invisible on the right side!  And I did try mightily to get a nice picture of  Ian modeling sweater on Wednesday.  I have seen some great pictures by another blogger of the wonderful knits that she makes for her little guy of nearly the same age, so I wanted to give it a try.  I'm not sure what her secret is, but every single picture that I took of Ian was a blur.  He would not sit still long enough to click the camera, so you will have to see what he looks like with a jacket over the sweater!

We went out for a stroll Wednesday morning in his fun little wagon.  It was a good day for playtime, and we even went for an outing to my friend's house to see some of my quilting friends.  We stayed and helped them with their stitching for awhile, ate a little lunch, wowed them with "So Big" and then waved goodbye!  They seemed very impressed!

Then back on task with some quilting that is on a deadline.  This one has now been delivered to Debbie--

The next one, Sewing Scissors by Bee In My Bonnet, is on the frame and ready to be stitched.  The backing fabric is the next picture, perfect for the theme of the quilt.  And actually designed by the Lori Holt, the Bee In My Bonnet creator, for Riley Blake fabrics.

When I can grab a few minutes I am back at my sewing machine putting together the rest of the blocks for this--

22 rows of 12 blocks each.  I am actually really enjoying putting together these tumblers and will have them done before long!  Which is a good thing, since it has to be quilted soon, like this weekend, so it can be all finished up and hung at the quilt shop for the new class display.   So, I have my work cut out for me, and the fact that there is about a foot of new snow in the yard doesn't bother me one bit!  Too bad Bob's golf league had to be cancelled last night, it would have been hard to find those white balls in the snowbanks!

a little knitty

Over the past weekend, I had some free moments and a baby sweater to finish.  I started this earlier this year, and need to get it done while it will still fit my Ian.  The pattern is in a book by Debbie Bliss, and it is appropriately titled Letter Sweater.  I have all of the components finished now, and even got to try it out on Ian to make sure it would fit over his head.  He has been putting a lot of energy into growing that brain, and I already have had trouble getting a t-shirt to fit over that noggin!  I have clipped together the sleeve and sides.  Then I went looking for my trusty knitting bible--Knitting For Dummies.

And I learned a few important things.  I haven't made a sweater like this before, so didn't know that I should wet block it now, before making those final seams.  Wet blocking is pretty simple, I always do it for the other knits that I make.  I gave it a gentle handwash in cool water and a bit of detergent.  Then I laid it out on a spare bed on a towel, and used a measuring tape and some pins to "stake" it out into the correct shape.  As soon as it is dry, I will be back with my Dummies book learning how to correctly finish those seams.  I really do like this sweater, and have already been wondering how to convert it into a vest and make it a bigger size for next year.  So you may not have seen the last of this little knit!

I also wanted to share another idea with you that I put together for my hexie group at the store.  I always have a bonus project for them each month, and this is one of them.  I found this lidded plastic storage box in the $1 section at the Target entrance, and went to work with needle, thread and glue.  A little batting, four 1" hexagons on a background and a strip of ribbon for the edge made up into a nice little trinket or sewing box.  I love special little storage containers, whether re-purposed or scavenged or  discovered at a store.  Making them over with my own style brings a little feeling of accomplishment!

fancy pants sweater

I have been very bloggy lately over on the Bear Patch blog, so a bit absent from here. We are working on a 12 Days of Christmas promotion that involves daily emails, blogs, facebook posts and website updates. It is all a new venture for us and more successful than we had anticipated. Very good news, but keeping us scrambling to keep up. FYI, if you still want to get in on any of the deals, you can go back through the days on the blog and email or call us with your order. How fun to stuff your own stocking!

I encountered a very fun video that I have inserted for your viewing pleasure--

This looks like so much fun to make!