Happy Birthday Melissa!

A few months back I completed a few gifts for my sister's birthday. Her birthday is on Saturday (Happy Birthday MySisa! - when my brother was a baby he couldn't say her name and he called her MySisa, so cute.) and she recieved the package and opened it on the phone with me yesterday. Let me tell you, she was really excited to receive a parcel in the mail. I don't think it even mattered what was in it! Half the fun is in the anticipation and the surprise, right?

These are Maine Morning Mitts found in The Knitter's Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes. Knit with Noro Kureyon on size US 7/4.5 mm needles. They were quick and easy and I love the colors! I tried to make them match, but it didn't quite work out, I do love the color's in them, and while bothered with their non-matchiness at first, I have decided to embrace the color changes as they are (Thanks Julia!). They were quite snug on me, which isn't a bad thing, but if I were to make a pair for myself I think I will go up a needles size to make them slightly bigger. They are very cool. Maeghan is modeling them for me in the picture.

The other thing I made for my little sis was this Hot Water Bottle Cozy, another quick knit which was fun to make. It is knit out of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted on size US 7/4.5 mm needles. Melissa's lives in Prince George which has the longest, coldest winters known to mankind and I thought that she really needed something warm to help her get to sleep at night. I'm being completely serious, she had a glass of water freeze in her living room last winter. Yowsa!

Aidan is flying out to Miami this weekend for a work conferance. He'll be gone a week so it'll just be me and the kids. I booked a week off of work so I could just stay home with them, the daycare doesn't open early enough for me to be able to bring them there and get to work on time so this will be a perfect opportunity to take a bit of a breather. Hopefully catch up on some laundry. Ah, who am I kidding...I sense some completed CPH sleeves in my future! (I'm going to make my CPH with buttons down the front.)

Well that's all I've got for now. Have a great weekend!

FO: Raglan Sleeve Baby Sweater

Well now, it has been a while. The return to school and work has made our lives a whirlwind again. No energy for anything really except collapsing on the couch at the end of the night in exhaustion. I have been knitting, of course, and it helps that we have formed a small knitting group at work during our lunch hour. It's pretty funny actually, my co-workers are as nuts as I am, so it makes for a pretty good time.

An old friend of mine, Tracy - no "e" - recently had a baby girl (we didn't think we would ever see the day...out of all of my friends she's probably the one I would bet on never having kids, I just about fell out of my chair when I found out she was expecting!) Maggie is absolutely adorable, so I knit her a sweater.

Pattern: Raglan Sleeve Baby Sweater by Linda Bohrn
Yarn: Vanna's Choice
Needles: US 8's
Mods: I changed the neckline/cuff/hem ribbing to seed stitch as I wanted more of an A-line shape.

My favorite parts of this little sweater are the buttons.

Aren't the ladybugs adorable? Tracy has a small tattoo of a ladybug just above her big toe and I knew as soon as I saw these buttons that I wouldn't find anything more fitting. They are so cute. I really think they make the sweater.

I hate the yarn. I was looking for something extremely easy care for the new mom, but this was the wrong choice. The color is gorgeous, but the finished fabric is kinda stiff...it has no drape to it. It also concerned me a bit that the faster I knit with it, the more it smelled like burning hair. Needles of fire I suppose. Ha! I will not use this yarn for a garment again.

Owen has started up with soccer again. Have I mentioned that Aidan is one of his coaches? I think it is so cute that Aidan is really getting involved with the team like this. It's a pretty great team too, the kids are all really nice and many of the parents have volunteered to pitch in whenever they can. It's been pretty good weather here these last couple of weeks - no games in the rain yet, but I'm sure that will change soon.

Maeghan is doing gymnastics this year and so far is having a great time. She's wearing a gym bodysuit that was given to us a few years back by her "cousin" Hera. I thinks it's really neat that Maeghan gets to wear the same one. It's like there's a little piece of Hera here with us, all the way from Phoenix!

First Day of School

Our summer is officially over and school has started once again.

Who wants to go back to school?


Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who is happy about it.

Well what do you know....they both are!!!

Owen started Kindergarten today. He was a bit worried about it last night, but this morning he told me that he really like Kindergarten, so we are in the clear! The goofy guy would not stand still for a picture this morning.

I can't believe my baby is old enough for big kid school. I have to admit that I got tears in my eyes when it was time to leave him in the classroom. Before I know it he'll be graduating!

In the previous post's picture I actually was not working on my sock...I was working on some secret knitting, here is the finished sock!

Totally not red! I love the stripes in it. It was really fun to watch the colors emerge! The second sock will have to wait a bit while I work on some other stuff. But since I was able to knit this in just over a week, I think it'll be done soon.

Look Ma!

Originally uploaded by Red Yarn

I'm knitting! This is probably the only picture that has ever been taken of me knitting. I didn't realize I looked so stern!

Owen was pretty funny the other day, or at least I thought so, I don't think he would agree. I was working on my sock and he wanted me to get him something from the cupboard. I told him to hold on for a minute, I was just going to finish my row, he stopped, turned to look at me, stomped his foot, and emphatically told me...

"All you care about is your knitting. You don't care about me anymore!"

I don't think it helped the situation very much that I burst out laughing! I mean, seriously buddy, I cater to your every whim....and then some! But I guess that's pretty typical of kids, they are the center of their worlds, they haven't really learned much about selflessness yet. One day he will see....one day....maybe when he has kids of his own? Hopefully sooner.

PS I love my sock...almost done one of them...pictures of my progress to come!

PSS I blogged this from flickr, just for fun. I'm crazy like that.

FO: Cable Footies

I can finally show you an FO that's I've been sitting on for awhile. They were a birthday present to my dear friend Connie. I hope that she finds them cozy and warm this fall/winter.

Pattern: Cable Footies from One Skein
Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino
Needles: US 7/4.5mm DPN's
Started: May 29, 2008
Finished: July 11, 2008

These would have been a very quick knit, but I paused after I knit one of them to make those baby booties from a few posts back. The pattern was very straight forward, and they make such cozy house slipper socks. I will definitely be making myself a pair as well! Even though these were finished before Connie's birthday, I'm sad to say that I only gave them to her last night!!! I'm such a numbnut, that every time I saw her between her birthday and now, I had forgotten them at home! Nice friend, eh? But I hope she loves them enough that it makes up for my delinquency!

So I know I said I was going to start working on my CP Hoodie again, but the other night I got distracted by some delicious sock yarn that arrived in the mail and have cast on for a pair of socks instead. Hopefully this time around it won't take me a year to complete the pair!

Bathroom Reno's

Aidan worked very hard, cramped in a tiny space in 32 degree (celcius) heat to renovate our powder room last weekend. Here are some before shots - it's really hard to take pictures in such a tiny room!

Vanity and countertop - the mirror had already been removed:

Toilet - yes I realize you probably did not need to see my toilet, but here it is anyway! That wooden thing at the top of the picture is a cabinet.

And here are the after shots! New mirror, sink, countertop and a fantastic new faucet (it looks like an old pump, I love it!).

The cabinet was painted white and new hardware attatched.

Another toilet shot - at least this time it's new!

And a new cabinet on the wall above the toilet.

And here is a close up of the new tap. Cool, huh?

We are currently working on the upstairs bathroom, just a few minor touch ups as we can't afford a complete reno, but then we will be done! Since there has been a delay in listing our place, we will get to enjoy the reno's for a few months before we sell.

I have been knitting, but unfortunately, nothing I can show here, mostly Christmas presents and a few birthday gifts thrown in for good measure. I need to get back to work on my CP hoodie if I'm going to have it finished for fall, I've been getting distracted by too many other things.

Well that's it for now, thanks for checking in!

Summer of Firsts

I have been a delinquent blogger, but in my defense, we have been busy! We had a wonderful vacation in the interior with my family. We celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday and retirement over a fantastic long weekend at my sister's house in Prince George. We also went camping for the first time since we've had the kids. It was interesting to say the least. We used to camp all the time when we were childless, but the last time was 10 years ago. I have discovered that I am not a good tent sleeper. Every single noise kept me awake all night. I was terrified. I know, ridiculous, and although I knew I was being irrational, it didn't help. And the Loons! My word, they were eery, and loud, and they "sang" all night long. Hopefully I'll get over it because we will be sleeping in a tent for the next few years at least!

It was a vacation of firsts.

First weiner roast:


First 4-wheeler rides:

First fish!:

First tadpoles!:

And first dinghy ride into the sunset:

We had so much fun. It was worth all of the work that went into packing/unpacking, and the long hours in the van (which we had to rent because we couldn't fit all of our crap in the car!). I look forward to next summer so we can do it all over again!