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!!!