knitting and knitting related goods

::knitting::

In my last post I stated that my gardening neighbor gave me a tomato plant. Incidentally I had gone to the library earlier that day and loaned the book Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. I instantly fell in love with the Mitered Hanging Towel and began knitting away at it when I returned home; making it just for the sake of making something. Later that very evening was when my neighbor gave me the tomato plants and that was when I knew who I was making this very towel for. As a little “thank you” for her generousity.

 
*photo taken using the Instagram app……..love that app!

I managed to finish the Mitered Hanging Towel that evening after all was quiet in the house (i.e. the girlies are having a Harry Potter marathon in preparation for the big premier this coming Friday!) using Mirasol Yarn Samp’a in colorway #092 and Louisa Harding Nautical Cotton in colorway naut-18. Ironically, the Mirasol yarn looks as though it was dyed using tomatoes which I thought was fitting after I decided I would make this for my neighbor. All other details on my Ravelry page here. Oh, and the button, cannot remember where it came from. Probably from a thrift store/antique store bulk button purchase sometime ago but I thought it matched the finished project pretty well and I was happy with the overall outcome.

::knitting related goods::

Has anyone ever flipped through a Lion Brand catalog and fell in love with the little knitting displays they come up with?

Personally I love them! Then again, I love photos of knitting or people knitting (call me weird…its alright).

Flipping through the catalog a while ago I remembered I had some frames stored away. I picked these two photos from the catalog because they each had no advertising and very little wording. The girls thought it was pretty cool and even James said they look nice (after mocking me….with love….that our house is turning into a mod podge of ”grandma’s attic” and yarn shops….and the problem is!?) I have two more pieces of knitting related artwork that truly deserve their own post. I first need to find the perfect displaying spot.

And just recently I purchased a yarn bowl from a local pottery artist. I am in looove with it and it really does help when I unwind yarn. No more rolling across the floor gathering dog hair, playdough, or dirt!! (The yarn, not me….that would be awkward!)

And lastly, I am anxiously waiting for August/Fall 2011 to arrive so two awesome new patterns can be in my possession. Of course this all means I am capable of finding not only the time to knit myself to items but also the right yarn to fall into my lap.

The first piece (above) is the Hawkmoth Pullover by designer Debbie O’Neill (ravelry link) which is coming out in the Fall 2011 KnitScene magazine and the second item is the Pioneer Shawl by Kristin Spurkland of Hei There Krissy. I absolutely love this shawl and think it would be great for layering in those cold winter months or simply wearing it as part of your wardrobe. Also, make sure you check out some of Kristin’s other designs……beautiful! (ravelry link)

Whew! That was a lot for one post but there are so many good things to share I cannot keep it all in.

gardening

So much good stuff has been happening around here.

For a few years now, I have been wanting to start my own garden. But I was…..(ahem)……..too chicken! So this year, after a neighbor gave me a tomato plant, I decided I would start a very small container style garden because I do not really have the space for an actual garden.

Above is my small, low-to-no cost, did all the work myself, container garden. I say low-to-no cost because the tomato plants came from a neighbor/friends garden (this is their first year gardening and the husband/wife duo put in too much because they thought only half of it would sprout up).

The lattice is in place to keep out my pesky pup who loves to run through bushes and anything else that looks of importance in the yard. I found the lattice (for free!!) in our garage and supported it with (again free!!) bricks that the girls and I gathered around the yard. The “piece de resistance” in my garden is the beautiful concrete block(s) that I found underneath our porch. After cleaning it off, I could not believe how beautiful it is.

In my garden there is:

*the girls’ chamomile sitting atop the beautiful found-under-the-porch concrete block which also acts as the main support in holding the lattice in place

*my beautiful tomatoes

*a baby tomato that I discovered yesterday

*2 hot pepper plants

*sugar peas

*okra – which I am interested in trying. I have never had okra before but my Dad (who is from the south) says its delicious

*onion (the veteran gardening neighbor said to set the bulb half way into the ground, but I don’t think I did mine far enough. However, it is growing beautifully and managed to “bury” itself into place so to speak. The above photo is from a few weeks ago.)

And lastly, my very favorite flower:

*sunflower

If you take a look at this post here, you will see that last year I had 1 sunflower plant.  My veteran gardening neighbor also has these same sunflowers….but thanks to a little birdie who is careless with her seed collection, managed to drop a seed my way and gave me 1 beautiful sunflower last year. After my 1 lonely sunflower sprouted it managed to drop its seeds and now I have 5 sunflower plants growning beautifully!!

So to re-cap I have:

-4 tomato plants
-2 hot pepper plants
-1 okra plant
-4 sugar pea plants
-1 onion
-5 sunflowers
-numerous chamomile plants (the girlies don’t like chamomile tea but I do, so I’m super excited over producing my own chamomile tea!)

In other gardening related news, there is a mountain lion on the loose here in our county.

As I was out in the garden watering/checking on things I heard rustling from the nearby bush. Not sure what it was I carefully approached the area; taking caution in case it was the mountain lion. Then I saw it, that recognizable color of a mountain lion.

Could it be? A mountain lion in my yard?

Nope! Just my dog who likes to hide in the bushes.

Edited to add:
In all seriousness though, there really is a loose mountain lion roaming Stark County; mainly up where my Mom, brother, sis-in-law, and little nephew live. And we live about 25 minutes south of them but still Thing 2 will not go outside even for a second!! I really hope they capture this mountain lion and return it back to the zoo……for safety reasons as well as the sake of my 6 year old babe who is terrified of outside now! 

completely random

Complete randomness from my week…..

Spring flowers arranged on the kitchen table

A few library books…..not pictured is L.’s new favorite book “A Surprise For Rosie” (she truely thinks that the book is about her lil’ bunny Rosie)

New Spring/Summer purse for myself.  I had ordered some fabric from Fabritopia (more on that later, I couldn’t help myself when I saw this Heather Bailey’s Freshcut) a while back and they sent lil’ fabric swatches in the package.  I had been planning this bag for a little while and when these little swatches came in the mail, it was just what I needed.  Completely made up as I went along, with only one thing in mind……..the strap had to be long enough to cross over my chest.  Everything else is from my stash.

Then lastly L. and I made our own bubble soap the other day.  We go through so much of that stuff, and when you’re in the habit of spilling it or having it all used up in a matter of minutes, just go make some more.

(don’t mind her frizzy hair, she had used a different shampoo the night before in the bath. Her hair does some silly things sometimes)

Hope everyone has a very blessed week!!!

quick post

I’m not quite up to blogging lately, mainly because that gorgeous weather is calling all of us outside and I have this weird sinus-spring-flem-gunk going on right now.

So just a few quick snapshots of our days lately

My beautiful lilac bush (is it a bush or a tree, ours is freakin huge and shades the whole front yard) is almost in full bloom.  It smells so sweet when we sit out on our front porch.

Azaleas starting to peek out here and there.

Handmade hair fobs are my new love lately, and a definite must for 3 girls (myself being included) who have decided to let our hair grow out.  We’ll see just how long mine will last, I usually chop it off mid-summer (as seen in this picture here).

Summer clothing coming out of my sewing machine, more on that later, as well as my new love with F.O.E., and that my serger is fixed and I won’t go into detail exactly what was wrong with it, other than it was 100% user error.

Little sproutlets

The flowers that the girls and I planted back on Earth Day are starting to peek out of the soil.

K.’s flowers

L.’s flower (picture is clickable to get a better view of the itty bitty little flower)

And my flower (again, picture is clickable)

Hope every enjoys their week!!!

Flea Market Finds

We had such of a beautiful weekend, that sun finally came around and warmed up the earth to 87 degrees!  We haven’t seen that temperature since, well, I can’t remember when.

It seems to be a tradition now that the first beautiful weekend we have, we play till that sun goes down, every meal is ate outside (as well as cooked outside), and make our way down to the flea market.  It’s offically at the point now that I know just which tables to go to, as well as which vendors remember me (and what I’ve purchased from them).

New clock and bookshelf, perfect for the little reading corner I set up for the girls and I (as well as my late night knitting spot).

Yes, notice that little yellow basket by the chair, that would be my new favorite find!  There were 2 sewing baskets sitting beside each other, the one that I now have in my possession, and another one very similar to this one here only plain.  Both $15 bucks, one ticket said “everything inside included” and the other was empty.  Gee, that didn’t make my decision to hard for me now did it!?

It’s a smidge damaged as you can see in the bottom of the photo above, but overall in pretty decent shape, sturdy, and very roomy.  Plus I’m in love with the buttery yellow color and the decopaged flowers (both on the lid and on the inside).

Wooden spools (still filled with sewing thread), vintage buttons, old tomatoe pincushion, 2 large buttons to be covered with fabric, tons of hand sewing needles, a few machine sewing needles, and the list goes on.  While everything is now officially put away in it’s spot (while I may not be able to organize the rest of my house, I’m pretty anal about my craft crap and knit shit being pretty organized), the sewing basket is empty, but I have plans for it that I’ll get into later.

around our house

Since the weather here has sorda taken a turn for the worse (everything is covered in ice, although there was that one day last week when it got up to 40 degrees and I took L. sled riding) we’ve found ourselves mostly staying in.  And with staying in comes the good ol’ question “What do we do?”

 

Reading books from the library (no fines! woohoo!).  A few of our favorites right now-which I seem to think fit- are In the Snow, Snowbaby Could Not Sleep (adorable story), and Sugar Free Toddlers (awesome recipes).

 

Getting laundry caught up while the girls play card matching games/52 pick up which ever seems more fun for the time being and Chutes and Ladders with L. (K. has vowed never to play that game ever again as she cries everytime, it has a little something to do with the big slide).

  
(pictures above are clickable, I just couldn’t figure out how to make them a proper size without taking up to much room)

Creating pictures with the girls using Coraline.com (I had a Coraline one for K. but it wasn’t letting me save it to my computer) (we want to see that movie and it comes out in 2 weeks I believe), and Obamiconme.  And yes, even my brother’s dog had to have one.

ETA:  We have a nice wintry mix hitting us right now.  It keeps changing from ice to rain and back and forth.

Hope your’s was

as merry as mine!  We had a wonderful Christmas, and I’m only taking time to share pics from the last couple of days.

Made cookies for Santa (this was the first batch, ahem)

Tried to get a nice Christmas picture (note to self, take photo first then give cookies)

Spent time with family and friends (L. was in the picture but I only got the top half of her noggin, so I had to crop her out)

Wrote a letter to Santa (cookies in the photo are from the second batch, sweets DO NOT last long in our house)

Cried because L. learned how to write more letters than just those in her name (those are cherry A’s)

Wrapped presents

Played all day long

Ate dinner with my favorite wine glasses (gift from my Mom 2 years ago, they are beautiful!)

And am currently trying to teach an 8 year old how to play a guitar.

finally

Finally our tree is up and it’s really starting to feel like the Christmas season.  The girls are so excited and we spent the majority of the day decorating the house for Christmas.  While we don’t have a chimney, we had to explain to L. that Santa will still come into our house.  We hang a little stocking on the front door with a “key” to our house that will let Santa in.  K., on the other hand, I have a feeling that this will be the last year for Santa.  L. is just getting into all of it and it’s fun to watch her eyes light up with excitement from everything.

Ornaments consist of ones collected over the years whether they have been bought, handmade by the girls, or thrifted.  But the ornaments I’m really excited about our the ones that came from our good friend and glassblower K.C.  Beautiful orbs that hang from the tree.  Not one is like the other and all picked out with much help from K.  12 of them to be exact (was 13 but I gave one to my Mom last night).

 

 

This one above is my favorite.  You can’t tell exactly from the picture (it’s hard to capture the “true color” of things) but it’s mostly clear with color blobs (that’s what K. calls them) of white and green.  Very very pretty.

Last night then we took the girls on the Polar Express.  K. had been on it once before when she was 3 years old.  It’s so much fun, you get to wear your pj’s (which is right up my girls alley), drink hot chocolate, visit the North Pole, and best part is, you get to do it all on a train ride.

My cousin’s little girls got to go with us this year which made it all the more special for my girls.  They had a ton of fun, laughing, giggling, and enjoying each other’s company.  The train left Canton then traveled all the way up to the North Pole (in only a matter of 45 minutes, never knew the North Pole was that close).

Now that I’m officially in the holiday spirit, I have some Christmas presents that need finishing, 1 that needs started, cookies to bake, and lots and lots of Christmas stories to read about.

Confessions of Motherhood

Yes, I need to confess.  Something that actually happened back at the beginning of summer.  See, when we first moved into this house, I was to have my own craft room.  Down in the basement, not a big deal, not a finished basement but I could make do.  Then when we moved into the house, the basement felt cold, damp (literally), and creepy.  James was worried that all my fabric and yarn would get mold on it.  I still shutter at the fact of going down there with spiders waiting at the bottom of the steps for me. 

So, we decided that since the room that was K.’s was plenty big enough (her room is bigger than ours), that her and L. could share a room.  After all they are 1. sisters and 2. we were going to get them bunk beds.  This lasted from the time we moved in, till about 2 weeks after summer vacation hit.  The weekly argument of “I don’t want your baby toys on my side of the room” “Why do I need a Miley Cyrus poster in my room, I don’t even like her” (consider yourself very lucky if you don’t know who she is) got a little more than I could handle.  Plus K. is at that age where privacy is a major issue.

I finally caved and said that enough was enough and moved L. out of K.’s room.  Plus it didn’t help that I felt guilty of having my very own space and L. was being kicked out of her room any chance K. got.  Well, when you live in a 3 bedroom house, there is only one spot for my little babe to move into.  Yes, I lost my craft room.  James and I’s room is plenty big enough that I moved my craft books, fabric, and yarn into there.  As for the rest of my stuff, luckily we have a big enough hallway (we consider it a room) that I moved my sewing desk out there.  Plus, any time that I really do want to knit, I’m always on the couch or outside, or anywhere besides my “craft room” so really, it was just my fabric, yarn, and books that were taking up so much damn space.

Scene from this evening after a desperate cry to my Mom to help me cut fabric and get (semi) caught up on my crafting “to-do” list.

At first it took some getting use to, not being able to sew after everyone went to bed.  Having to clean up any mess I make and not being able to leave projects out.  But now, it has made me become more organized and useful of the spaces around us.  Trust me, I miss having my own space, and while I thought that the new arrangement would stop the argueing, it hasn’t (eh, their sisters, and while they will fight, they will always love and support each other).  But now I fell into a system that seems to work just fine for us.