Knitwith Homespun

I am on vacation. I am coming home on Monday night. I have a ton to post about and will get to it when I get there. I haven’t fallen off the earth. We are packing our trailer at the RV park and will be home before we know it. I have had internet the whole time but no time to blog or anything. Talk to y’all soon! Hi Sandi!

I don’t have a lot of time because I am packing up the trailer for BSG and getting food and clothing set up. I had such a great time at this event and met a lot of wonderful people. Bella played with June and these rats. There were men playing guitar and really creating a beautiful ambiance. I can’t imagine spending the day any better way. I really really enjoyed myself. Bella stole my fish so I don’t have a picture but the mystery project was a great time too. I was three stitches away from finishing when I was killed! It was very irritating.

Check this out! This is Bella’s second grade class.  Bella is on the far left.  Mrs. Gallo is the dark haired teacher.  Thanks so much Carol! Totally awesome!

Ok, ok ok! I am going to have to come back to Natalie. I have decided to try the Susie Hoodie from More Big Girl Knits. I am going to try to get gauge with the yarn that I have for the Natalie. Label gauge says 20 stitches is 4 inches and pattern gauge is 17 stitches is 4 inches. I’m going to see how close I can get to gauge and see which way I will go with this pattern.

Ok, frogging the Natalie Coat again cause apparently, I can’t measure 13.5 inches at all!

Since I am not feeling 100%, I have been knitting and spinning like crazy. I can’t do my normal stuff, like hiking and housework. David is very understanding about it all but it drives me nuts! So here’s my stuff:

1. Natalie Coat: I have frogged what I had to date and now I am restarting this from Big Girl Knits. As it turns out, if you don’t pick up a sweater or project for a very long time, you tend to forget where you are in the pattern. I wasn’t too far so I thought I would frog and get a good momentum going again. It’s going well and I am further in this pattern than I was before. There is a lot of “At the same time” stuff in here that if you aren’t paying attention could throw you for a loop.
2. Mrs. Gallo’s Ruffled Edge Scarf: This is for Isabella’s teacher. She is a very nice lady and will totally appreciate a gift like this for the end of the year. Bella has learned so much in school this year and I believe it’s due to the attention and kindness of her teacher. Mrs. Gallo taught her about enthusiasm, determination, success, and strength. This was done in a series of poems that were learned all year long and then performed in a play at the end of the year by her class. The concepts learned in these poems have been echoed back to me by Bella for a while now and I believe they are long term, lifelong lessons and I love her for teaching them to my girl. The yarn I used was handspun Hanks in the Hood Merino Bamboo. The scarf is a short one with pretty ruffled edges and I love how it turned out. It only took a day to knit and I am very happy with it.
3. I got some fiber in the mail today. I bought enough of this stuff to make a sweater for Bella. it’s called Sweet and Sour and so far I love it. It should be fun to spin. I’ll keep you posted!

This weekend was busy and wonderful and unpleasant all at the same time.  These are David’s parents.  We celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend and had a great party at their house.  It was a great celebration and a wonderful example for all us married folk to follow.  They have 5 children, of which David is the youngest.  Typically, I would help coordinate this party and cook a huge portion of it.  This party was catered!  We never do that!  It was awesome and completely delicious.  There were 75 people and it was a great party.

The unpleasantness comes from my medical problems.  I was given a shot a couple of weeks ago to help with my issues and it causes my estrogen to surge for a couple of weeks and then dip down very low for a significant period of time.  Therefore, I had a migraine on this wonderful and big day.  I was very upset about it but tried to have a good time anyway.   Here I am with my beautiful girl.  I am so proud of her she makes me cry with pride and joy almost daily.  What a gift!  We had a house guest during the last few days and she cooked him breakfast yesterday!   This is Gene and he is one of David’s cousins.  He had other options to stay but chose to stay with us so he could get to know me and Bella and David a little better.  He lives in Arizona and helps with the Montessori school that the family runs in Tempe.  He is very nice and it was  a joy to have him with us.

Now let’s talk about this cake.  What can you say and what should be said about this cake.  It was delicious.  It was beautiful.  It was slightly flawed. Enough said.

This is Bill.  He is David’s next brother in line; the second youngest.  He lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son.

This next picture is a beautiful little girl named Kadence.  She is the daughter of David’s second cousin libby.  Not only is David the youngest of his family, but Jerry, David’s father, is the youngest of his family.  So David’s cousins are all somewhat older than him and his brothers and sisters.  So David’s cousin, Mary, is this beautiful girl’s grandmother.  She is such a joy and almost never gets fussy.  She loves to have her picture taken and is drawn to me like a magnet when my camera comes out.  Here is a picture of Kadence when she was teeny tiny!

I still have my migraine but it’s more manageable on this second day.  They usually last three days for me.  I am supposed to be at the mud run today.  I feel flakey and lazy because I am not there.  Nuf said!

Here is a link to the full set of photos from the party.

I love memes and this is only my second one. Thanks Kyle!

What was I doing 10 years ago?

I was working for my father-in-law part time and trying to start a web design business. Back then, not many people did it but I couldn’t keep up. Technology moves too fast and if you don’t have the people or resources for marketing, you don’t have time to do the work, get the work and finish the work and stay in business. It was fun and gave me good internet background but it’s over. It did give me this domain name that works well now for spinning and knitting!

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Pirate’s Booty
2. Nachos (homemade of course)
3. Apple
4. Homemade smoothie. Right now I have blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pineapple, and mango in the freezer. I buy em at Costco and freeze em myself. Bella loves a good smoothie but I just broke my hand blender and now I have to just look at my beautiful frozen berries.
5. Krinkle Twists. Another Costco snack but it’s low fat and probably totally fabricated. It says it’s got no transfat, no gluten, no msg, no this, no that, but they sure taste yummy. Bella hates em.

Five things on my to-do list today:

Boring boring housewife stuff:

1. laundry
2. dinner
3. Finish knitting scarf for Bella’s second grade teacher. School isn’t out til the 17th so I have time.
4. Cleaning for house guests. My in laws are having a 50th anniversary party this weekend so we have some family staying here.
5. Go to Costco (didn’t say that coming, did ya?)

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Pay off all my families houses.
2. Pay off all my families credit card bills.
3. Start a family scholarship fund.
4. Set aside a bunch of money for Bella.
5. Fix my house. It’s 40 years old and falling apart.

Five jobs I have had:

1. Burger flipper
2. Volunteer at the animal hospital
3. Fish fryer
4. Telemarketer
5. Secretary

Five of my bad habits:

1. Don’t make my bed.
2. Bad eating habits.
3. Very messy.
4. I spend too much time on the computer.
5. I yell at drivers on the road. They can’t hear me!

Five places I have lived:

1. Philadelphia, PA (born there)
2. Southampton, PA
3. Tustin, CA
4. My in-laws back room
5. That’s it cause I’m sedentary

Five people I want to get to know better (yes, this means you are tagged!)

1. I’m not tagging cause last time, only two people did it.
2. If you want to do this meme, let me know and I’ll put your name here.
3. Angela
4. Zuleika
5. Jocelyn

Five random things

1. I just ate a bunch of lemon iced lemonade cookies.
2. I am watching The Deadliest Catch right now.
3. I don’t have a plan for dinner tonight.
4. I am not getting anything done this week. I don’t feel well and it’s not getting better.
5. Bella is in a talent show this weekend too. Lookout for a deluge of pictures and videos of a teeny girl singing and dancing.

Thanks for reading and I hope you play along!

I just have to get this out so I’m sorry for the double post today. I am soooooooooo proud of my girl today. She is just 7 years old. That’s so young. I have discussed here before about how I am not a good housekeeper. This is a fact. I have been told though, that I have a homey house. People love to come over and I always have enough dinner. It’s cluttery and dusty. There’s the foundation.

I don’t harp on Isabella to clean her room. I don’t have a clean room so I don’t feel like I have a place where I can call that kettle black. However, I try to have her pick up her laundry and trash from her room. I help her clean it when it’s necessary and we do it together. It’s a messy, messy room, to say the least.

Today, Isabella spent hours in her room, listening to Michael Jackson (her new favorite artist) and straightening up her toys and animals, making her bed, cleaning her sink (she has a sink in her bedroom) which was dirty from toothpaste and stuff, and arranging everything as neatly as she could. I didn’t ask her to. She had already finished her homework. She wasn’t trying to get something from me (she does that sometimes if she thinks it will help her with something else).

I am so so pleased and proud of her. I love her to the end of the earth and she is growing up before my very eyes.

Isabella has been learning about success during her year in second grade. One of the concepts that she was learning about was determination. I was determined not to let my one sidewinder be an orphan so I decided to knit another better, more appropriate sidewinder.  In this blog post, I will outline the differences between my two sidewinders.

The top sidewinder is the first one.  It is far too big for me.  That’s the first problem.  Next, you can see in this photo, my grafting needed some work.  I was really bad at kitchener stitch waaaaaaaaaaay back then a couple of months ago.  However, after tackling 118 stitches of grafting, you get a little less afraid of getting it done.  On that first sock, you can see where it’s a bit off and irregular.  I have adopted a method of grafting that I will demonstrate later on a video.  During that process, you do the grafting on the front needle with one needle motion and then go to the back and maintain that one needle motion.  It’s hard to explain but I don’t lose track of what I am doing if I do it this way.  I think you can tell the difference between these two socks and which is the more well done graft.  I am pretty darn proud of myself and even enjoyed getting this done.

This second sock fits much much better.  It’s not obvious from these photos, but the second one fits like a handknit sock should.  It’s still not perfect, but it’s only my second attempt at socks for my own feet.  I need to make them more for narrow feet now that I have the length nailed down.  I love how the color pooled a bit better in the smaller size (with smaller needles too).  The first sock, let’s call it Sock A, has bad grafting which left a hole in the center of the arch.  This is one of the many reasons I couldn’t call this a successful sock from a pair.  This is an orphan with a fraternal twin orphan.  I love them both.  (I  like Sock B better but don’t tell Sock A).

The heel increases were also new for me.  I have done increases and decreases before but this was a new technique for me.  One of the lessons learned from Sock A was that I needed to hold my yarn a little tighter to keep from making a hole at the increase location.  I successfully accomplished this goal with Sock B as seen in the photo to the left.

I really enjoyed these socks.  I would be happy to knit another one, but I don’t have the yarn!  Can you believe it?  Of course you can!  So, that’s the end of my Sidewinders saga.  I will knit them again, but not with this yarn.  Thanks Nonaknits!