Ah Vacation

I am incredibly excited for our vacation, we leave in the morning. An entire week out in California with family. It is going to be fantastic.

The only problem is...
PACKING. It drives me mad. Packing for myself is bad enough. Packing for myself and 4 children, well, I have no words. Endless laundry, endless folding, and STILL things I have forgotten. Sigh. It'll be a late night and an early morning.

Tomorrow is filled with driving, flying, more flying, and more driving. But at the end, MY SISTERS! AND MY GRANDPARENTS! AND MY AUNTS AND UNCLES AND COUSINS! WOOHOOO! The week should be an absolute blast, I am so excited. I even finished my poncho in time to wear it traveling, and now I will be crocheting like mad to finish the flip flops. I had wanted to get a pic of all of them finished, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

So, tomorrow we are off, and the blog will more than likely become stagnant, but I'll see what I can do. (Who am I kidding, like I have a lot of people reading.)

Blech to packing, yay to vacation, and then I come home and get to...

yep, unpack.

The Poncho is Done!

Here is the finished poncho. It is VERY soft, and I love the colors, but I accidently made it a bit short in the width, so it doesn't cover my arms as much as I would like. I still like it though. ;) Took this shot myself, the girls helped out too.

Ari's picture of the poncho. You can see that it isn't very long over my one arm.

Ab's picture of it. :) Ignore the ugly shorts lol.

The Little Man Nephew Set is finished! WOOHOO! Here is the toque and booties. I may end up making a sweater as well, we'll see. These booties also seem pretty big, so I am thinking of making a little pair of socks. Maybe. ;) 

The cute little toque, the pattern calls for contrasting yarn, but I used all of one kind. I'm thinking the little man will probably get another of these. 

Ahh, another cloche finished, this one is also Sugar 'n Cream, a bright one. The purple part is actually pink though. 

The Pink Cloche!

Here is the pink cloche, being modeled by Drew-please ignore the powdered donut residue. ;) I used BeppyCat's pattern, found on crafster. I used a size 7.5MM hook and Sugar n Cream. It worked up really well, and is fast and easy! I still need to add the flower. I actually made two, the first I made a little mistake on joining one of the rows, but instead of frogging I decided to keep it for myself. I am also in the process of making another in a different color, I think I am addicted.

Cloche Modeling continued

Colin modeling the cloche.

TA-DAAAA!

It's done! I sewed the pocket together on Saturday and gave it to my mom, she loves it. :) It turned out really well.

The toy pile is calling my name.

I am trying to ignore it, but it's sheer size is making that difficult.

It is an absolutely GORGEOUS day here today, a few in between thunderstorms and rain-even if I am rather partial to those grey days. I succumbed to the yarn addiction again, and ordered some baby silk from elann. This seriously has to stop, holy moly. The yarn stash is beginning to rival the living room toy pile and that is really scary. I do have more fun with the yarn than the hot wheels though. Mostly.

My three big kids are across the street playing with my cousin's daughter and little man C is in helping me. I worked on the poncho a bit, trimmed some of the fuzzies off the mom bag, and am finishing off a big huge Turtle Mocha coffee. So far I've not felt the effects of the caffeine, so maybe it will come in a big burst. Then I could whip right through that toy pile. Sigh.

Aside from the Big Spring Clean, yesterday I felted the bag for my mom. It shrunk a lot more than I had thought it would, but this was my first time working with the Peruvian Highland wool and my second time felting. As you can see, the flap did not shrink up as much as I had thought. 

Here it is blocked, and drying. I am going to flip up the extra on the flap and sew it into a pocket. It is hard to see, but it is flipped up here. Please also ignore the burns on my ironing board lol. 

What a tremendous gift. My grandma (my mom's mom) had told me she had some knitting stuff she wanted to give me, as she doesn't knit anymore due to arthritis. I had no idea how emotional this would get!

First was the set-the green case-of knitting needles & dpns given to her by grandpa-more explanation below with the close-up. Then the tote, which came from the dry goods business my other grandpa (my dad's dad) used to own. My dad also worked for him for years, as I did, and they finally went out of business when I was in junior high. My dream as a kid was to someday inherit the business.

Then, the needles, of which I had no clue of the sheer volume she had lol. I found out the ones in packages were given to my grandma by my aunt, who recently passed away. She was a huge packrat like myself and had worked for the dry good's when they went out of business. It is still really hard to believe she is gone, and it is unbelievable how much it means to me to have these from her.

Getting emotional now, but this is just too much, and I am so thankful for my Grandma and my family, and this great gift I got today.

Here is the close-up of the set given to my grandma from grandpa for her first Mother's Day from my Uncle Larry. My grandpa and Uncle have both passed away. The needles are BEAUTIFUL and it is just way too cool.

A close-up of the tote and the yarn and needles that were inside of it. 

Knitting books from the 80's baby! 

April is such a crazy, busy month for us

I am not having NEARLY enough time to knit or crochet. Sigh. Mostly it's been confined to the school runs and picking up Mr. Blue from work, about the only times I get to sit still.

We had the girls' birthday, my brother's birthday, and Mr. Blue turns 31 tomorrow. My parents anniversary is coming up soon, AND we have our big trip to California at the end of the month. All of that along with me trying to get the house all organized is sending me over the edge after the edge I've already gone over.

Mr. Blue has requested a clean house for his birthday gift-if you saw the toy pile in the living room you would know this is more valuable than gold-so today is cleaning day, along with errand running day as mil will have the boys for me. AND I have a rheumatologist appt this afternoon. Of course it is a lovely, grey, rainy day that would be just perfect for getting cozy and knitting and reading the day away. Responsibilty calls though.

Progress is being made, slowly but surely! Up until the second blue strip is halfway, I believe. I CANNOT wait to get this finished, even if my hands and arms hurt. 

YAY!

Venus finished her poncho! Our knit-along is finished! It is GORGEOUS, and Teag is adorable.

V did hers in two colors and I love the way it turned out, in fact I am pretty jealous, wish I had thought of it.

You can see her work here.

Well done Michelle!!!

Ah Saturday

I had hoped the kids might surprise me and sleep in, but no such luck. They are all so excited about our day that every.single.one.of.them was up by 7am. For the boys, it's off to grandma's for a sleepover complete with GOLF! For the girls and Mr. Blue and I, it's off to Omaha for a fun-filled birthday present day of Build a Bear, eating out, and probably a few other fun things.

I have been harboring a secret hope I could visit an actual LYS while there, but I don't know if Mr. Blue will be able to handle it, especially after we go dressing up bears. I could coerce the girls and we could vote and outnumber him, but that wouldn't be very nice. Sigh.

I finished a dishcloth last night, they are my handy little in between projects, for when I am needing a break from the current ones. I love my poncho, and cannot wait to finish it, but WOW are my forearms and hands tired. Hoping to get a lot done on the drive today.

And yet another project! Here is the yarn for a cloche I am doing for a friend of my sister's. She really LOVES pink, and I thought this would cover the bases. 

Progress on the poncho for me! Wheeee. I absolutely love the softness of this, and the colors. I've made a few mistakes here and there, but not too awful bad for the third thing I've knitted. 

The finished baby booties! Not bad for my first try, I just hope they are manly enough for the nephew! 

FINALLY, poncho pictures! Here is Arenne in her poncho, she has it on with the seams out in this pic. Please excuse the rowdy hair, we were growing out their bangs, and the pics were spur of the moment. These turned out a lot better than I expected, and have been great with spring outfits. The only issue is that they are stretching, but I expected that. Will probably end up cinching them up with ribbon at the necks. 

Here is Abbie in her poncho! My first real knitting project, done with Chunky USA. 

MY GIRLS ARE SIX YEARS OLD TODAY!

Holy moly, it is so hard to believe!!!! Col and I went shopping yesterday to get them special birthday outfits, they were ADORABLE going off to school. The boys and I are going to go have lunch with them at school, they are are really excited for this, while i can't wait to see them I am dreading the school lunch. ;)

We are bringing cupcakes (Barbie) for their snack at school today, and later picking up a cake(Barbie) for the dinner with our parents tonight. On Saturday we are making a special trip to Omaha to Build a Bear workshop, wheeeeeee! The boys will be staying here with my parents, and the girls are VERY excited to be going to build a bear and having us all to themselves.

They also get birthday crowns at school and there was much discussion over whether the new headbands would interfere with the crowns. It's too much!

I finished the booties! Yeehaw! Being the pattern rebel that I am, I am very proud of myself for reading a pattern and sticking to it. Still working on the camera, but will take pics when I can!

Happy Birthday Abbie & Arenne!

Update

I went and made my first ever...

BABY BOOTIE!

Now to make the second one.

TV Dinners are

supposed to be easy to make, so why is the plastic part of the ordeal so tricky? Here you have this pre-packaged, quick dinner. Definitely not gourmet, but sometimes that cakey stuff just hits the spot. You take it out of the box and proceed to spend 20 minutes just in getting the plastic opened in the right spots and closed in others. Can they not serrate the edges around the compartments that need opening? But noooooo, you try to carefully cut open that square, until you get tired of it and decide to tear the rest open. Of course, invariably, you tear off half of another compartment that is supposed to stay covered. I'm not entirely sure that any of this actually matters in the outcome though. Especially when your corn has slid stealthily into the cake. Hmph.

Still going on the poncho, although my hands and forearms are tiyad! It has ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 inches in width, and the farther I go, the heavier it gets, in spite of the yarn being fairly thin. It is very soft and yummy. I was starting to question how the striping would look in the end and had thoughts of turning it into a wrap, but I came to my senses and am going ahead as planned. This is one of those times I'm happy for my post-kids weight gain, as I won't be swimming in it.

I also started some Little Man nephew pants, using Dot's pattern for Drawstring Baby Pants
The problem is that I was going to use Bernat Cotton Tots, and had to adjust the hooks for gauge, and then realized I was really not liking that yarn to be used for little guy pants. I also had added around 7 stitches SIGH, so for now they are stuffed in a drawer. I am thinking I will retry with yarn to fit the pattern and go from there. Today I am googling for sweater patterns for the cotton tots. I should have enough of the yarn to do a sweater and hat, and possibly some booties. I may end up getting started on the star blanket instead though.

I am also hoping to get motivated to figure out the camera uploading problem, but really, I am just not seeing it happening today. We'll see!

Here is the beginning of the poncho I am doing for myself, with the Peruvian Alpaca from Elann. After about 6 froggings I think I finally have it.