It was finished and then it was not finished.

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. I voted for it and then I voted against it. So close and yet so far.

I finished the Lady Eleanor portion of the baby blanket for my nephew Andy. Spread it out on the floor and noticed that the edges were wonky. The fancy fringe action probably takes care of it on the wrap. The blanket is scheduled to be fringe-free. So, I began picking up stitches for a garter stitch border. Man, is that tedious. I got one of the short sides done last night. Three more sides to go.

There was sewing today. I hemmed a few pajama pants for the kids. I cut out a pair of pajama pants for the monkey. Fire-print flannel. And I worked on a quilt-top that I've had going for several years. Actually it's been cut out for quite some time, but I only started sewing the blocks together in March. I inadvertently put the two halves of the quit together upside down from their intended join, but I like how it came out. I found some cotton batt and a piece of pink terry cloth to use for the back. I pieced the terrycloth together to get a piece the right shape. Now I need to figure out how to put it all together. This is the part of the directions that I never read. I hate reading directions. I also don't like getting out the iron, but I think that's going to be an integral part of the next step. OK. I have to go read about how to put together a quilt now.

Unphotographed FO's - Edited to add some photos

Lots of FO to speak of today. Lots of WIP to speak of too. And more work added to the pipeline. Cause that's how I roll.

First the FO's - I finished my socks in Lorna's Laces Pewter. The two socks are a little different, but not hugely so. I wore them to work today and my tootsies are toasty. The wool washes up to be really soft, too. Also finished the hat for LaLa's baby.

Did lots of sewing over the weekend. I really have to take pictures of these things cause they are fantabulous. I got caught up on my baby sewing for the summer babies - 3 flannel receiving blankets each, plus 3 more blankets I had on deck - I think those are going to my SIL.

In the box is the hat for my neighbor, and the flannel blankies I made for her. The swaddled baby doll is modeling the "big sister gift", and the blue baby is wearing the hat I made for LaLa's baby.



I also made a couple of tote bags. One in some striped Waverly fabric for me. I found the fabric as a remnant. It's very striped. Perhaps too striped. It could use a nice block of chocolate brown to tone it down a little - I'm thinking of adding a big patch pocket to the front. And the handles are a little floppy. Maybe I should have added interfacing to them. But I'm so pleased that my scheme for a self lining bag worked out. I did run into an edge that was hard to turn over, but not bad for a 1.0 attempt.

The second tote bag was for LaLa, made with Thomas the Tank Engine (a remnant from WalMart) and lined with some kind of woven nylon stuff in very bright yellow. She seemed darn pleased with it, and I think it's pretty sharp too. I need to add some fray-check stuff to the exposed edges to help ensure that the whole thing doesn't fall apart. Not bad for a couple of remnants. I think I must have spent $10 to make both bags, and that includes $6 for a yard (60" wide) of the yellow stuff. Also pleased that the scheme worked out pretty well, for a 1.0 idea. I was really having trouble visualizing how to sew these things together without sewing it together, if you know what I mean.

I also managed to get in another tier of the Lady Eleanor Baby Blanket for my nephew. And I restarted the socks for DH. I've finally made it through the toe on the first sock - and I'm at the straightaway heading for the heel. I ended up going with the "easy" method from Wendy's Knitty tutorial, which involves crocheting a chain a few stitches longer than what you need, picking up the little loops from the chain and knitting from there. I guess it boils down to a provisional cast-on. It seems to work pretty well. The socks ended up being 4x13=52 stitches around. I was thinking about adding a pattern to the top of the foot, but 13 is just so darn prime. As I'm going around the calf, there'll be more options. I've also cast on a baby hat for the other upcoming summer baby. In blue elann sock-it-to-me (fake cascade fixation), like I made for my nephew. Got a couple of inches of it done during the troop parent's meeting.

So....adding things to the pipe. You remember the two new pregnant ladies? My SIL and a friend of the family? SIL is due in mid-January, so I figure that the friend is due around the same time. Instead of knitting a baby blanket, I think I'm going to make a quilt for my SIL's baby. The gender neutral colors she likes are sage/minty green and baby duck yellow. I can't decide between a yellow/green checkerboard pattern or something like this (a Denyse Schmidt design.) I have an idea of how to cut out pieces that will fit together, based on how a friend of my mom's would make custom tiles and freezer paper piecing.

And I've been thinking about a quilt or something for the monkey for quite a while now. I'm still really fascinated by the psychedelic squares, but that seems like a whole lot of knitting. So, we talked about it, and I think he likes a zig-zag configured Rail Fence design. We picked out some yellow, cream, and black fabrics for his quilt.

That leaves LaLa. All I could get out of her was blue. So we picked out a ton of blue fabrics, ranging from blue green to green blue to dark blue. I made a My Little Pony concession. It had a turquoise background. The actual pattern for this still needs some thinking. She ended up with a bunch of fat quarters, so I could (in theory) stack and slash the fat quarters to make fat-quarter sized blocks. Or I could make brick-shaped pieces and arrange them in running bond. But that might be too swimmy because I don't have a contrast color for the cement part. Or I saw a really pretty monochromatic rail fence. So, my big contenders are the monocrhomatic rail fence of a thousand little squares placed randomly. I'm leaning toward the little squares, in a monochromatic Kaffe Fassett moment.

Next on the agenda is: finishing the baby hat and baby blanket (for the sundry babies), pajama pants for me and the monkey, then other knitting WIP and the quilts. Also am thinking about vacation knitting.

A quick knitting update

Do you ever have those second thoughts? Where you have an FO and then you have an epiphany about what you should have done? I finished a little hat for my neighbor who's expecting. It's in baby stripes, and I tried doing a swirly pattern with a spiral rib. Then in the top decreases, went with stockinette and did a decrease that leaned in the same direction as the sprial. It's in a baby ombre, so it's kind of busy. And I'm not sure if it's too girly or not. I dunno. Then tonight, several days after finishing it, I realized I could have used some of the buttery soft superwash DH merino (in green) from Melissa. And it would have been fabulous. Like butter and gender neutral. I guess it's not too late.

I also finished a baby hat for the big-sister-to-be's baby doll. At least, I hope it fits her baby doll. It fit's LaLa's favorite doll pretty well. Turned into an umbilical hat by accident. Now I've started a similar hat for LaLa's doll.

I have a pile of sewing that I want to tackle this weekend - mostly flannel squares for recieving blankets for the upcoming babies and a tote bag (maybe two). Then, I think, after that I'm back to pajama bottoms for me and the monkey.

I've been working on the gray socks at work. They're coming along. I think I'm within a few rounds of starting the toe decreases. The stuff that I'm debugging takes a long time to get to the point where there's a problem, and it's hard to work on another bug while I'm waiting.

I need to have a "finishing party" and get my Dulaan projects ends woven and fringed and on their way. Shouldn't take too long, just don't feel like doing it yet.

Oh, and I have two more pregnant ladies in my life. My SIL and a friend. SIL is due January 11, and I would expect the friend is due around the same time. I'm thinking I'm going to attempt a baby sweater, since in January you could actually use a sweater here. I'm eyeballing Daisy and an EZ Surprise sweater perhaps. I think I'll go browse the stash to see what's in there. These might make good travel knitting. :^)

J is for Jump

We're on J, right? J was going to be for Joke. Here's an example of the caliber of our humor lately, "Knock. Knock. Who's there? Grandma!" Spoken as a one-liner, and to interrupt is rude. You can't buy that kind of humor.

But J is for jump. Our fence was, until recently, in sad shape. In 2004, we were hit by Charley-Frances-Jeanne (Jean?) and after that the fence was propped up by picnic benches and 2x4s. It survived Wilma like that. (there's a picture of the fence in that post). Our neighbor and us both thought we could use a fence, and our dog Tiger wormed his way in through the gaps once or twice, but neither of us ever got around to it.

Our neighbor sold the house to his cousin. Who has (I believe) 3 dogs (although I've only seen two). Two of them are pitbulls, or some other kind of terrier of a similar size. Not so much the scary pit-bulls, but the ones who are nice family dogs. (For the sake of full disclosure, I believe that our dog is a pit-boxer mix, and in his youth, I believed he had springs for ankles. He loves to play fetch, and he would play until he vomited, then bring you the ball for more.) I believe that our neighbor dogs are of the same school as Tiger, and in a normal, controlled context would not be scary dogs.

So, the neighbor dogs wiggled their way through the fence on a weekend afternoon. I think we were in the backyard anyway and Dh played fetch with the three dogs (1 ours + 2 neighbors) until the neighbor came and claimed them. Last week, the neighbor replaced the fence with one that is a Solid Dog Ear fence - we used to have Shadobox. (Man this is turning into a long story.) Now one of the dogs can jump over the 6' high fence. It was funny the first time. Friday night when she did it, it scared the bejeesus out of LaLa. She was looking for Dh to say that dinner was ready and next thing I know she's screaming through the house and then there's a whole train of dogs chasing her. (The neighbor dog followed by Tiger.) She knows how to come right in the doggy door too! She jumped the fence again tonight but luckily, I anticipated it and closed the doggy door beforehand. Pshew.

After looking at the fence diagrams, the new fence has a right side and a wrong side. On her side of the fence, there's a bar that runs across, and I think the dog is using that as a paw-hold and is clambering her way over the top.

More knitting content soon....

Updates from Saturday. Better pictures. Knitting report.

First, here's a better picture of the yarn that Melissa sent me. Plus some other miscellaneous that just happened to end up in the picture. Isn't it pretty!?!

Second, here are photos from the Angry Chicken Freezer Paper T-Shirt craft project. We wrapped pieces of cardboard in waxed paper to put between the front and back of the shirts.


These are the three pictures we used for the onesies. For some there was a little tiny shape that you had to cut out and re-place for whitespace (see the bus and ship for examples). I tried taping them in place, but maybe just using a paper clip to attach the little piece to the big piece while waiting to use it would have been fine.

Here are the pieces of freezer paper ironed on. If I were to do this again, I'd make sure the freezer paper was cut generously, so that as much of the shirt was masked off as possible because LaLa and I are just a tad drippy with our paint. Also, since I'm not so good at eyeballing symmetry, it might be helpful to ensure that the picture is printed in the center of the freezer paper to make centering it on the shirt less tricky. Otherwise, I just ironed them at a medium setting, and it seemed to work best without a dishtowel in between.


Here is a shirt with paint on it and the freezer paper. LaLa was a vigorous painter, and at the end, I think she forgot what she was supposed to be painting and really only painted the paper on the last couple.

And finally, you can see LaLa's shirt in action. She wore it to school on Monday and reports that "it worked good."

Other FO progress, I finished a pair of pajama pants for DH. They are super snazzy, if I do say so myself. I started on socks for DH, but they seemed really wide so I ripped them out and haven't been able to successfully restart them. I also started on a baby hat for my neighbor (these neighbors are having babies all just silly with babies, I tell you!) They don't know the gender so I'm making it out of some kind of acrylic baby-ombre. I was going to make it out of Knit Picks Shine in cherry red, but DH looked at me with a raised eyebrow. Hey. I thought it would be fine for either gender and it's a nice lucky color. But she seems "tasteful" in a way that's a little intimidating to me, so I went with the baby colors.

I brought this baby hat project with me to the dentist this morning. It was a good thing too - I was there from 9 - 11:50 getting two crowns and a filling. Turns out the dentist learned to crochet when he was in the hospital with appendicitis. The knitting was a real conversation starter at the office.

I think the hat is going to be 2x2 rib all the way up, just for a better guarantee of fit. I had done a 2x2 rib for an inch then stockinette generic hat, but it seemed kind of wide. And when I got up from the couch, LaLa tried her hand at knitting and one of my DPNs was out of the knitting and on the couch when I got back. She was knitting, she says.

How bout a Random Saturday?

1. The boys are camping this weekend. LaLa and I had a fun day - no chores. We had breakfast at McDonalds, looked for treasures at a new thrift store (LaLa got stuff for her baby, I got a few scarves and sheets to use for craft projects), went to Home Depot (got some projects for DH), went to the library, had a picnic lunch at the playground, did a major craft project (freezer paper painted shirts), played in the sprinkler, started a knitting project, checked in with work, and now I'm here.

2. As I get older, I've found that there are more and more movies that I just can't watch, or will only watch with DH. Not when I'm the only adult in the house. Actually, I have trouble watching CSI when I'm the only one home. Stuff that's potentially scary or disturbing, I need to have DH watching with me. Disturbing is a category that is broadening all of the time. I have no idea if this is a normal phenomenon. I worked for 10 years for a defense contractor. At about year 5 or so, I stopped being able to watch military movies, because of the Marines I worked with - I could imagine too much, I think. Then, after having a baby, I have a lot of trouble watching anything where a kid is hurt. So, it turns out that Ray is on that list too. Maybe I should have read a review or something. But I shut it off right before it looked like he was going to try heroin and stuffed it back in the Netflix envelope. And sat down next to LaLa until I was afraid she'd wake up.

3. Has anyone knit with Knit Picks Essential sock yarn? This is what DH's socks are. It feels a lot like burlap and was making the inside folds of my knuckles itch. I will say that I'm pretty fussy about "hand". I'm hoping that they soften up nicely when they're washed. I'm working them toe-up, so I can use up the whole ball of yarn, starting with a figure-eight cast on (is that what it's really called?) The color, I think, is grass.

4. The craft that LaLa and I did was inspired by this post at Angry Chicken. Now, she is a person who is not afraid to wield an exacto-knife and frames her own pictures. I, however, am pretty clumsy about anything that takes fine motor skills. No real talent for drawing free hand and hardly any ability to modify something digitally. But, still, I needed to try this! I bought a pack of onesies for my new nephew (I had room in a package that I was sending anyway) and a t-shirt each for my old nephew and LaLa to personalize. I was going to do something with a fish profile and hole-punch bubbles. About 2 minutes with the monkey's sketch pad put the kibosh on that idea. Instead, I found these icons from AIGA and printed them onto freezer paper. The good pictures are on my film camera. Here's a phone photo of one of the finished shirts. The onesies have the airplane, a big ship, and a suitcase. The older nephew gets the big ship, and LaLa gets the "city bus". I do have some lessons learned and I think I'll share them with my "good photos" later.

5. Last but not least, I got a prize from Melissa. Wonderful, wonderful stuff, and of course, the good pictures are in the camera still. I got 4 skeins of K1C2 Creme Brulee, a DK weight superwash Merino that is like butter, 4 skeins of Berroco Duo, I think it's in burgundy and am really curious to see how it knits up, and 3 skeins of novelty yarns in very pretty colors, each intriguing in it's own right. The package was the best piece of mail I got all week.

6. The other thing I'm thinking about is how the weekends when DH is camping, I've been doing much more stuff than I normally would to "take care of" him. For instance, during the April camping trip, I ordered a weeks worth of pants for him (found them online for $12/pair, and his old ones all had frayed hems). Also took LaLa all through the mall, on a quest to replace his treasured Rockports. Rockports that he got before we got married. Rockports that have been discontinued. Rockports that lasted longer than our Rockport store. Ended up finding them at RackRoom, but not his size, so we got a different style, but they just weren't the same. But, it got him to get around to getting ones he liked. Ended up with the ones I had scoped out, but he had to truck down to another shopping center to get them in his size. This weekend, I found him an enamel pot with lid for camping for $4 on our "treasure hunt", started the socks from the yarn I bought about a year ago for him (he picked out the color), and got the pajama pants that I started for him a while ago back to being ready to sew (the crotch seam had gone awry, so I had to rip it back to the intersection.)

And now for some actual knitting content

I have some nearly FO's!

The first FO completes the purple stripe set. The last item was the scarf, done garter-stitch, the long way. I like how it all turned out, co-ordinated, but not matchy-matchy. Sort of like home made striped socks. The yarn is TLC that I got on clearance at Michael's. I think I'm going to add some fringe to the scarf, and the ends need to be woven in, but it's otherwise done. No specific patterns were used.


This blue set needs a pom-pom on the hat and fringes on the scarf, and some ends woven in but is otherwise done. The yarn is LionBrand Wool Ease Thick N Quick, on clearance from Hancock Fabrics. I've probably used 1 1/2 to 1 2/3 skeins so far. The scarf is a basic garter stitch scarf on #13's, and the hat was inspired by CrazyAuntPurl's Brangelina hat, although not strictly adhered to. (I'm not so good at following directions.) This set also fits LaLa pretty well.

Also started my second Lorna's Laces Pewter sock. I really want to run to Joann's at lunch tomorrow and see if I can pick up a 2nd set of sock-size needles. There is something soothing lately about stockinette in the round, but I think I'll either stick to a UFO or start Wavy for my mom.

ETA: The two scarf/hat combos are going to the Dulaan Project.

I is for Ice Pops

We've entered Ice Pop season, here at Chez Monkey. Frankly, it's always ice pop season here. We picked up an ice pop mold at Tar-Jay over the weekend and already tried it out. These photos are from the second batch of pops. Orange-tangerine flavored Juicy Juice. The first batch were Simply Lemonade. They were delicious.





We've also got several boxes of store-bought ice-pops in the freezer. Starbucks, Breyer's PureFruit bars (in Lemon-Lime and Strawberry), Breyer's Light Rocky Road bars, Scooby Doo ice pops, and finally, some good old Fla-Vor-Ice.