Oh Portland, Silly Portland. Why must you freak out over a little snow? We are supposed to be socked in with snow today. It is early, granted, but all I see so far is slush and lots of rain. Phooey. In any case, I am prepared with my recently finished hat/mitten combo. I knit them for running in cold weather, but the timing is good if the promised snowpocalypse materializes. These are knit in Berroco Ultra Alpaca and I used Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Patterns. Quick and easy.
We are perfect examples of how to be simultaneously very cool and lame. The cool part – in an effort to stem the flow of, well, junk, into the house at birthday and holiday time, we are trying to give experiences instead of stuff. Pumpkin would love nothing better than to be buried up to her eyeballs in plushies, but her dust allergy provides us with nearly daily exercises in cost-benefit analysis in this department. Most of the time, I fold like a fan. I blame it on being a believer in allowances and living four blocks from this place.
So, experiences it is! (are?) Grandma gave her a trip to Build-a-Bear. So much for the plushie accumulation. They had their trip back in November.
We gave her a family trip to My Masterpiece Art Studio. We finally cashed in on SATURDAY. Oy. Surely we could have made this happen sooner for a Halloween baby, but alas, it did not. It was worth the wait.
Dad was quite engrossed with his commuter mug glazing project, while Pumpkin worked on a wood sculpture.
The whole family indulged in glazing projects. Here are the masterpieces, all ready for the kiln. We’ll get them back in a week or so. For now, enjoy the “before”:
I thought this would be a good place for a joint birthday party, which saying something for a 10 and 15 year old. Art is very satisfying.
To start a new year, I bring you my Christmas gift to my family. The artist is Chris Haberman. We each filled out a commission questionnaire and submitted a photo.
The genesis of this idea can be laid at the door of my dear Grandma Rosie. My paternal grandparents had caricatures painted of them and all five children in 1960. I grew up seeing those photos in the hallway and as time went on, they grew more and more meaningful. I felt as if I had some sort of access to my father’s life before I was even a twinkle in his eye. I thought about how the moments of “us” are so fleeting, impossible to capture and hold. I felt this was a way to capture the “us” of my family we were in 2011. 2011? That was so last week!
Time will inevitably march on. My daughter will no longer wear that Girl Scout Vest, my son may stop smiling the big happy smile. Walter the Wonder Dog will get old and leave us some day. I will have the pictures to remind me of when we were all under one roof, happy, and healthy.
Here’s a bit of background on the artist:
We do! Despite our efforts to keep a lid on purchases, and frequent trips to the public library, books still seem to flood our shelves. All four of us are avid readers, and every room in our house has its own book shelf, often more than one. We are fortunate to have the kind of access we do to books of all kinds. Others are not so fortunate. Here are some sobering statistics:
In homes in middle income neighborhoods, the ratio of books to children is 13 books for every child.
I often find myself with surplus produce, as I subscribe to an organic produce delivery service and I grow a garden. I try to find a balance between the deliveries and the garden but inevitably I end up with surplus. I have been know to drop a huge zucchini on the neighbor’s doorstep, ring the bell, then run away real fast. However, the neighbors are onto me and it was time for me to fine a decent solution for preserving the foods we like to eat so we can enjoy them beyond the growing season. I have tried canning in the past, but those darn pickles are still on the shelf. The list of canned foods that will be eaten around here is painfully short, and it is pretty messy business to prepare food that will sit on the shelf for years. I have had more success with freezing surplus, but some foods don’t freeze all that well. Enter the Snackmaster. I tried it out on a bunch of yams
. I didn’t slice them thin enough, so they ended up a bit chewy, but still tasty. I love yam chips with sea salt. I plan on experimenting with different foods. I am really looking forward to drying tomatoes….
and eggplant…and zucchini…and onions. I might try fruit leather, as the kids may like that. They don’t really like fresh berries, which I find appalling, but I have given up trying to make sense of their likes and dislikes.
Pix is having an Easter Egg hunt!
Now that I have your attention…I’m back. For how long, who knows? I’m not juggling so much coursework, but life doesn’t seem to be slowing down much. I am over on Facebook more regularly, but I miss blogging so I shall give it a go…again. WKD shows up on Networked Blogs on FB, so please feel free to follow me over there, if you like.
Bad Knitting Karma
In yesterday’s Knitting Daily email, I espied a very helpful video by the lovely Eunny Jang about weaving in ends. Here it is in case you missed it:
The weaving in tip shows up around 2:00. It’s pretty clever, and fairly obvious once one wraps one’s brain around it. I smacked myself upside the head, because in my knitting basket is the following:
It’s a lovely sweater for Pumpkin knitted out of leftover sock yarn. Look! I only have part of sleeve left to knit! Too bad I didn’t see the video before this happened:
I just wanted mindless knitting, really. When I started this project, mindless miles of stockinette was just what I needed and I didn’t think beyond that. No worries, I have enough leftover sock yarn to knit another sweater and believe me, on that one I will be weaving in all the ends as I go. Not that I am going to make that one any time soon, mind you. This is also a good technique for trapping yarns in a stranded knitting project. I have one waiting in the wings, finally. I was toying with the Ivy League Vest, but ended up choosing the Fair Isle Cardigan from Vogue Holiday 2009. Vogue Knitting now has these very clever videos for all their projects:
I will not be using the Ambrosia yarn recommended for this project, as it would cost about $200 to knit this sweater. I found some lovely Harrisville Shetland 2-ply cones from Webs for about one third the price. The red I found is more of a cranberry which will suit me better, I think. This project will be the next Birthday Sweater, and I do believe I shall have the decks cleared in time for starting this on my birthday.
Reality Bites
While I have been composing this post, reality stepped in and reminded me of why I have not been blogging. I have been interrupted no less than five times by my family. No wonder I can’t get a post completed. Pumpkin was named Student of the Week, and I was regaled with the story of her selection, and we had to make her poster RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Then, Laserman insisted I watch this video.
Having seen 2012, I do wish I had seen this video first, because then I might have 2 hours and 10 minutes of my life back that could have been spent blogging.
The most wonderful interruption was from my husband who surprised me with an early Mother’s Day present. We have decided to break with tradition, but I wasn’t expecting anything to replace my beloved pile o’ crap. Then Hub shows up with this:
He said, “Since you are a “real” runner now, you need a jacket that’s just yours.” Aw, how sweet! There’s nifty pocket for my Ipod up by the collar ( hard to see in the photo). It’s early for Mother’s Day, but we’re not that traditional. He’s already given me my 45th birthday present, which is a race registration for the Drop Top 10K in June. I’ve downloaded my Freeway to 10K podcast for interval training and now I am ready to roll – and people will see me coming!
I finished it!
Molly Ringwald, from Knit scene Fall 2006, knit as small as I could reasonably get it and it is still baggy. Fits great around the shoulders, so my recommendation would be to size this for the shoulders. I did use bamboo silk, which is a really stretchy fiber, so that should be taken into account.
Also finished the toe-ups for Pumpkin
From the book Toe-Up, by Chrissy Gardiner. Pumpkin really likes them, so I am trying a grown up pair of toe-up socks for me. Just started the Gull Wing socks in some Yarntini in the Plum Blossom colorway, a leftover from the Woolgirl Sock Club. Really nice yarn. I think I like it even batter than Dream in Color Smooshy and I liked that yarn alot.
Oh the blogging. Sigh. My grown-up school has started and between that and chasing my kids hither and yon, I don’t know how often I’ll be back. But I will try 
It’s hard when one has too many projects on the needles. Progress is not what it could be, even when one has Season 3 DVD of Weeds to get through. The upside is that no matter my mood, I have a project to fit it. So I knit on, promising myself that I won’t start anything new until I finish some of this stuff and life is good…for awhile. Then what happens? The kids go back to school, and I just happen to have unsupervised time on the computer and the next thing you know…
I have the potential to take on one of my new year’s resolutions. (See number 3)
It’s the Ivy League Vest, designed by Eunny Jang. For the time being, it is available as a free download at Knitting Daily.com. There is a DVD for sale as well, but I haven’t decided whether to buy that or not. Northwest Wools has a good one-off Fair Isle class, and I may take that instead, though the steeking directions on the DVD make it mighty tempting. I have a Ravelry queue a mile long and I’m throwing this on the pile. I need to do some thinking, as I know that I will want to change the color palette.
So what about that Birthday Sweater? Well, it’s still a possibility. I had to frog Shalom, as it made me look like a linebacker and I didn’t want to scare small children. Note to self: round yoke cardis and wide shoulders are not a good combination. I’ve found a new potential Birthday Sweater in Francis Revisited. After all, I do have until my next birthday to finish the current year’s Birthday Sweater.
So,um,yeah.
Vacations
Gardens
Shopping
and Walter
No, he was not named after the farting dog. We hit the jackpot at the Oregon Humane Society and we have all fallen head over heels for the newest member of our family. He is supposedly a 2 year old Shih-Tzu, but is a bit large for a Shih-Tzu. He has impeccable manners and loves to cuddle. How I do go on!
I have managed to finish a couple items
The previously mentioned Baby Surprise Jacket, knit out of Peaches and Cream Ombre. Cute and washable, can’t beat it!
I also finished a pair of plain vanilla socks out of Mountain Colors Bearfoot, one of my favorite sock yarns:
As for the raging case of startitis?
As my son would say, ” so….um, yeah.”
I attended the Knit-out and Crochet 2009 at the Tigard Public Library yesterday, and much fun was had by all. I sat with a group who needed no help, really, and we knitted and chatted the afternoon away quite happily. I passed around my blog card, all the while apologizing in advance for my lack of blogging over the summer. It was then pointed out to me that I’d better get busy because they were going to read it. That’s a good reason to get off my behind and get to blogging.
I do have knitting, but no pictures. Will get right on that. Made a very cute Baby Surprise Jacket…now which baby gets to be surprised? Also started another new project which officially puts me squarely in the face of a case of startitis. I had four projects going this week..aaack!
…and then there’s Walter, the latest addition to the family. Since he arrived, I just sit and stare at him, rub his little belly, and count my blessings. I did the same thing when the kids were babies. I could just sit and smell their heads all day. Walter has cast his spell and we will never be the same.
I will be posting again soon with some pictures of the latest. I’m blogging from Facebook today and I cannot see a place for putting pictures into posts.
