Day: June 5, 2009

HPIM3642

Originally uploaded by chauntelandreasen

Here we are at Sadie’s 6th Grade Promotion ceremony.
I can’t believe how old my kids are!

I am so proud of Sadie. She is beautiful, super smart, funny, quick witted, somewhat brilliant really!
Sadie is a loyal friend and I think Junior High is where she is going to blossom into an amazing young woman.

I am one proud Mom!

Awww, isn’t it so fun?

This one has a square bottom so her sandwich container can rest on the bottom and have the other things on top.

I used a green corduroy to line it, green is her favorite color. I was shocked she chose the pink peacock print for the outside. It’s never been her color of choice.

I added a button to close it. I need to add a name tag on there. Not that there will be another like it but Sadie is a drop & run kid. I rounded up 3 sweaters & sweatshirts on the ground and in the bushes outside her class yesterday afternoon. Nice.

I have been working on the Gedifra sweater mostly. I am finished with the back and front, the first sleeve is about half done.

I love this sweater. The color is exact in that picture. It’s so green & perfect! Perfect for St. Patty’s day.

I took 4 days off of the sweater knitting to make some socks.

I forced myself to find a pattern for Tracy’s Silkie Socks that Rock yarn in Gingerbread Dude. I love the simplicity of the pattern and the fit is great. It’s the Fanny sock pattern, here it is on ravelry and here it is on her website.

This is the first pair. The second pair are just about identical.

I made 2 pair out of one ball. Same pattern but with these changes for a better fit:

1) I cast on and did the ribbing on size 0’s instead of 2’s like the rest of the sock so they fit tighter & hopefully stay better on the ankle.

2) I did the ribbing on the arch and anterior of the foot only, not all the way around like in the pattern.

3) The second pair of socks have different colored toes because I ran out of the Gingerbread Dude yarn during the toe decreasing.

Overall I am very happy with the simplicity and quickness of the pattern. I will for sure be whippin’ more of these babies out. I always have leftovers of sock yarn that aren’t quite enough for another pair of full socks but this just may be the way to go. They took between 22 & 24grams of yarn. Not shabby!

I took the time to kind of try on my venezia sweater to make sure the bodice won’t be too tight. It went onto my shoulders & over my head fine so that is good enough for me to keep going on it! When it’s hanging off the needles it looks so ridiculously tiny. Well, it stretches nicely. Good to know! Now that I am back to 100% health I will be picking it up and loving it like I should.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth!

We spent the day from 9am-5pm at East Beach in SB, playing in the sand & surf. A bit of volleyball (though not much because the physical therapist has told George it’s too high impact) but mostly just boogie-boarding in the water. It was a perfect beach day, warm enough to be in the water but a nice breeze to keep cool on the sand.

After the beach, we went to see Ratatouille with the kids. It was much funnier than I expected it to be. That could also be that there was a man in the audience that had one of those catching laughs. He liked it a lot too. Tyler & Sadie enjoyed it but Trevor really didn’t care. He sat through it happy enough but came out saying he didn’t even like it a little bit. Odd considering it was geared more at his age, 6, than the other 2, almost 9 & 10.

Once the movie was done, 8:20pm, we started our walk from the theatres down to the pier for front row seats of the fireworks. It is about 1.25miles downhill the whole way. It was an easy walk, especially considering we were in a crowd of huge proportions. Nothing compared to after the fireworks though. It was an expected crowd of over 100,000. I could safely hazard a guess that when we walked off the sand & back onto State St to walk our way back up to the car, we were in a crowd of over 10,000. We filled up the sidewalks plus the 4 lanes (and a suicide lane) of State St that was closed down just for this reason. It was insane! Once we got past the freeway underpass we could move over one street and avoid the crowd completely.

When we got home we had ourselves some ice cream cones & turned on the History Channel to give a little perspective to the events of our day. We had a Birthday Party for our Nation. I will say this, meaning no disrespect to anyone, we sat next to people during the fireworks that spoke perfect english but referred to the day as ‘their independence day’ and couldn’t believe the band was playing a song about ‘America’. That disturbed me to my core! They live here, work here, probably have legal citizenship here, yet it’s not their county too. I am not sorry that I want my kids to have a full respect for our Nations history, that does include the Mexican American War & we won. I want our Independence Day to be ‘Our’ Independence Day, all living here included. Respect it, if not then don’t go take part in the celebration.

Off my high horse now, of which I fall face first rather often, I love this country. I love the people here, I love the capitalism (we own our own small business), I love freedom. Even if I don’t like what people do with their freedom I still love it. And respect it. That is what makes us a nation that hasn’t fallen apart, we are a self-leveling community for the most part. 2 sides to everything with a little mixed in. I love my Party, that would be the Republican party. I love the freedom to disagree with my party & vote differently if I want to. In all honesty, that doesn’t happen very often ;o) I just am so grateful & blessed to be an American. We are privileged beyond belief to have the society and nation we have.

And most of all, thank you to all of our Heroes, troops now & in the past, that fight for our freedoms!

Yay to being 231 years old!

They left out the one semi-celebrity that I am a dead ringer for…

Idina Menzel

If you know me & have not seen the movie Rent, get it just to compare how freaky the likeness is. I have actually been stopped twice here in town, once in a parking garage & once on State St. by people thinking I am her. Odd, that. But it is a star studded town, Santa Barbara.

Have you noticed that I am actually blogging??? Words & everything. This morning I am going to share the soap socks that Tracy & (she has a pictorial of hers on her blog as well) I did with pictures!! A few words on the soap socks. Tracy really got me going on these things. We tried Euroflax linen, SWTC Bamboo and various leftover wools, mostly from HPY. Don’t worry ladies, we didn’t harm any crack yarn in the making of these soap socks.

I made myself 2, 1 using the Bamboo and 1 using some of my scrap yarn. As I mentioned in a previous post, we found some yummy soap bars at Ross. In the bamboo I used one of the large Goat’s milk bars (from Scotland, that is why I truly bought them) and in the wool I used an acne soap bar that is about half gone. Just enough so that if I hate it I can toss it without the guilt of the cost of a bar. I am cheap like that.

Here they are being knit, midway, using magic loop. THey are on separate needles, I didn’t knit them at the same time seeing as how they are 2 totally different gauge needles.

Here is the bamboo, in color Azul. I did some sections of garter as well as stockinette to give it some more exfoliating power.

And here is the wool/acne soap bar. The colors are fun, like a circus.

Now, to compare the two.

In the shower, the bamboo soap sock kinda just moved around the soap, even though it’s knit on there tightly. I had to really work it around to get the lather going & coming through the bamboo. And, it didn’t exfoliate quite the way I would have liked.

The wool, on the other hand, lathered up nicely and exfoliated much more than I expected. It’s a singlespun wool so it will felt faster than if it were plyed. But what a great use of scrap yarns!

Yesterday afternoon I decided that some ideas for baby gifts I had just weren’t cutting it. So I went ahead & started something new. A reader is the recipient so mum’s the word until it’s done & gifted. Then I can share.

I have been working on dads socks a little here & there. 6 weeks should be enough time to not have to focus solely (hehe, no pun intended) on them.

And here is a picture of the Bea Ellis Knitwear Horse Hat. It was really hard to get the colors at night with no flash. Once I get cast on I will get some good natural light photos. I love how they send the wools for the hat & then the cotton for the forehead liner. I really can’t wait to get this started (and finished) so as soon as the mystery baby gift is done I will for sure start it.

How much stockinette stitch can one person take before they need a break? Well I will tell you, 13″ on size 6 needles. Last night I took it upon myself, after hours of knitting stockinette, to take a break from the cashmere vest and swatch (or start, depending on how you look at it) the maroon cashmere, from Colourmart of course,  for the Karabella Yarns Spiral Hexagon Shawl. I have been wanting to crochet that shawl for well over a year and didn’t seem to have the right yarn. Well, duh! It was sitting there in the drawer calling out to me, but until last night the pattern & yarn didn’t meet in my brain.

So here is the six inch hexagon (there needs to be 15 to make the shawl) washed, dryed and blocked.

It took me about an hour and a half to make. Not bad. And 15 isn’t too overwhelming of a number so I do believe I will make one whenever the fancy strikes me.

 

Mel Clark, author of Knit 2 Together, will be at Knit & Pearl (5 E. Figueroa St.) in Santa Barbara on Sunday, December 10th from 1-3pm to sign books. Julie, owner of Knit & Pearl, is very excited to have a guest at the shop. There will be display projects from the book at the shop today through Sunday. It’s nice to have a hands on experience with patterns before you knit them & this is the perfect opportunity.

I have knit one item from the book and have plans for many more, it’s one of my new favorite books. I will have my copy with me to have it signed! I don’t normally do the whole starstruck thing (especially since we live in SB, little hollywood) but this sounds like too much fun to pass up. And helloooo….knitting is involved! What could be better??

 

The grass is always greener, isn’t it? I have no real love for any projects I am working on. I am only working on them out of guilt for not having finished them yet. Isn’t that a terrible thing to do with your hobby/obsession? I think so.

So, I will finish up some of the faster projects and just not worry about the guilt if I decide to start something new. The something new may just be vests for the kids. Crochetme has a new issue out and the Summit Hill pattern is the perfect thing for my kids. They all like active clothes. Pieces that layer well are exactly what we need here on the coast where it’s chilly in the morning but not cold enough for a coat.  And I can pretty much guarantee you that I have yarn on hand to make the vests too. I hope I do. A few years ago all I had in my stash was washable yarn. Now it’s mostly handwash wools of some blend or another. I will have to do some digging.

So, my new goals…. finish the clapotis scarf, finish the November socks of the month, finish the Filatura Di Crosa sweater (the back is done and the front half done) and copy a pattern from the Holiday JCrew catalog, that of course is not online so I can’t show you the picture. Oh, maybe it was JJill. Gimme a sec….

There it is! Cabled ribs. Simple & simply fantastic! If I can get it just right I will offer it as a free pattern on the sidebar. How many times have I promised that? Too many I think ;o)