Monthly Archives: April 2011

Eyelet Rib

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At the beginning of this year, I bought one of those little stitch pattern of the day calendars.  Vogue stitches maybe?  I can’t remember for sure.  But each day is a different knitting stitch or fair isle pattern.  There are so many beautiful ones.

I have all this yarn that I am bound and determined to knit up.  So I decided that I would try to take some of these stitches and figure out a pattern to use on some of my yarn.

I liked this stitch pattern called the Eyelet Rib.

I decided to take a basic fingerless mitt pattern and incorporate this stitch pattern.  It worked pretty well.  I used Cascade 220 Heather yarn and size 7 needles.  I ended up with a pattern stitch that looks quite abit larger in gauge then the swatch from the calendar.  I am not sure I do the rib justice, but I think they turned out ok.

I finished the fingerless mitts this morning.  I wanted to photograph the mitts, so I could put them on ravelry and blog about them.  So I went outside with Davey, my camera and the mitts.

I was hoping he could help me.  I know he is just 3 and 1/2, but he is pretty good at wielding the camera and can come up with some random neat shots.  He’d also tried on the mitts earlier, so I even thought he could model them for me.

He was having none of it.  He was too busy “fishing”.

This is kind of another story in itself.  Two Christmases ago, I was playing around with knitting some ornaments.  This is an ornament that I never finished.  Somehow it got mixed up with Davey’s toys, and this semi finished ornament is something he often plays with. (It’s just a semi-stuffed knitted sphere.)

So anyway, I was on my own as far as the photography went.

It just wasn’t working.

Here the mitts just looked kinda blob-like.

Then I tried holding the camera down low and “shooting” from the hip.  Not so good either.

I wasn’t too happy with the photos.

Then David came home and saved the day.

ahhhh much better.

I’ve written up this pattern.  I’m not sure I’d knit these again.  I think I might try them with a finer smoother yarn to get more of the look from the stitch calendar, but I guess there is no reason that I have to duplicate the look.

If I am going to write the pattern though, I’d better do it fast.  I’ve written it down by hand.  But there’s a problem.  For some reason, I felt no need to write the pattern in any even vaguely linear fashion.  I don’t understand why I did it this way.  I mean it makes sense to me.  Today.  In a week?  I kinda doubt it.

Movin’ to Maine

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And so goes my final post about our trip to Oklahoma.

So one of the best things about going home was getting to see my brother and his wife.  We hadn’t seen them in almost two years.  They came home to help my parents move to northern Maine.  My mom and dad have lived in Oklahoma for almost my entire life, so this is a big change for all of us.

They lived on the lake so before they left, we made one last trek down to “Camp Three Sheets”.  I think my nieces bestowed this name on the rocky beach area below my parent’s house. (and I need to find out the inspiration for that name!)

Davey always enjoys throwing rocks and pretending to fish.  He likes hanging out with Mom.

He also enjoyed spending time with Aunt Holly.  They brought a souvenir piece of driftwood back up to the house.  I’m still not sure if this made it onto the moving truck.  I need to ask Holly.

Packing the truck wasn’t easy.  Now why am I saying that?  I contributed very very little.  I mostly observed. But the driveway leading to the house is on a very steep decline.  So the moving truck bottomed out before reaching the bottom.  They parked the truck as close to the bottom as they could, but then packing a truck on an incline was making for sliding boxes.  So they moved to the top of the hill stopping at the first level point.

Then everything went up the hill.

Egadz.

My dad took a little time out to play some Jenga with Davey.

And Davey took a last little walk around the house.

My mom is now en route and my dad is at the house with my brother and sister who are helping him get all moved in.  (They both live on the East Coast, but I’ve learned that they still do not live all that close to where my mom and dad will be!)

It will seem strange for awhile for them not to be in Oklahoma anymore, but they will love living in Maine.

Easter Egg Hunts

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I can’t let the Easter festivities go by without a few pictures of hunting Easter eggs.

Davey got to hunt eggs three times.  Well that’s not exactly true.  There were three “official” hunts.  There were  a lot more “unofficial” hunts which finally evolved to Davey saying, “Mommy, you and I will HIDE the eggs!  Then – you and I will find them!”  He thought that was great fun.  Hiding and finding!

When he hid the eggs, he liked to place them on similar colored surfaces.  So a blue and yellow egg was carefully wedged into place on a blue comforter which was next to a yellow pillowcase.   “Mommy, the eggs are camouflaged!”

There was an Easter egg hunt in our hometown on the day before Easter.  That was a lot of fun.  Davey hunted eggs with his cousin Addie.

On Easter we went to my aunt and uncle’s house.  My uncle is Greek, and it is a Greek tradition to dye Easter eggs red.  I loved how they looked, and my picture just does not do it justice.  I had to use the flash, and well it’s ok, but I just thought the bowl of red eggs was just so striking.

Easter was a very rainy day, so we had to hide Easter eggs inside.  Davey’s cousins Paige and Alana were so nice to hide eggs for him.  He loved it.

I didn’t have much success taking good Easter egg hunting pictures inside.  Here’s Davey after the hunt.

He did one final hunt with his cousin Addie.

Actually it was one hunt + 20 more “I want to hide them and find them Mommy” hunts!

Smiles and Superhugs

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Davey spent time with so much family this weekend.  It was great for him.  He became the master of the SUPERHUG!   His superhugs can get a little crazy.  They have a lot of Squeeze to them!

A superhug for my sister-in-law Holly:

There was a superhug for my brother!

Davey was also the recipient of superhugs- here he was getting one from his Uncle Johnny.

I love Davey’s grin in profile too!

We hadn’t seen Michael and Holly in almost two years so I was smiling to see them getting to spend some time with Davey.

Bat and Ball

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It’s been quite an Easter weekend.  We’re actually still in Oklahoma and won’t return to Colorado until tomorrow.  We are having a quiet day after several very busy ones.  I thought I’d spend some time blogging.  I always miss it when I take a couple of days off.

I’ve started going through all the pictures I’ve taken.  This may be a problem.  I took a lot of pictures.  I’ve become rather overwhelmed.  I think I’m going to write several smaller posts instead of a big ole ginormous post.  There are so many small moments that I’d like to remember!

For example, this game was so simple, but Davey had so much fun playing it over and over.  I’ll call it Bat and Ball.  It involves a big plastic bat and a big plastic ball.

It goes like this.

David took the bat.

He tossed the ball, swung and hit the ball with a mighty whack!  The objective was to hit it over the house.

Then.  Davey and David ran as fast as they could go around to the other side of the house.

It was about 92 on this day.  (The rest of the trip has been rainy and cool.)

Davey would scurry around looking for the ball.

Davey would find the ball.

And they started again.

Simple game = Such fun!

Muggy Friday (haven’t gotten to say muggy in awhile!)

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It’s Friday in Mannford.  It’s really windy and muggy today!  We haven’t felt muggy in awhile, and I kinda like it.  The back of my neck is starting to sweat though, and I think David has already had a shirt change after taking Davey to the park.  We may experience some Oklahoma storms tonight.

They walked to the little park in the neighborhood this morning.  There’s a merry go round.  I don’t know if Davey had been on a merry go round before.

They both got a little dizzy.

There are also see-saws!   Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone around to provide more of an equal weight offset to the 37 pound child.

So it’s a nice day.  We just got back from Walmart.  Davey has a new train and he’s now building it with David.

I’m typing this on David’s mac.  I feel like an imposter on a mac.  I can get around, but it doesn’t feel very comfortable.

Think I will go knit for awhile.  I’m turning the heel on I-70 Sock number one.  I’m still mesmerized by the self-stripingness of self-striping yarn.

Oklahoma bound

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Headed to Oklahoma.  We stopped for the evening in Salina, Kansas.  Davey actually went to sleep very quickly.  He hasn’t napped in quite sometime and that almost always includes never falling asleep in the car.  He didn’t today either.  David and I didn’t fall asleep either, but we would have liked to.  We traded off on driving this afternoon a couple of times.  I love that big open sky, but the straightness of I-70 can become monotonous.

Tonight in the hotel, Davey had his juice, Winkie the Rockstar, his Maine pillow, and his books.  He was feeling pretty much at home.  He loves the whole hotel thing.  It’s very fun for him.   He said that he wanted his own bed and he pointed with his entire arm to show us where he wanted us to sleep.  “Over there Mommy!”  I hope he sleeps well.

Lately, he likes to talk to Timber.  He and David started this.  You have to close your eyes to talk to Timber.  He scrunches them tight.  He says things like “I love you Timber.  I miss you.”  This sometimes leads to questions about Timber. He asked if Timber pooped in dog heaven.  He wanted to know what kind of bed he slept on.  He told us that Jesus is there and if we are really lucky that the angels will bring Timber back for a visit.  I think he gets this from a wonderful book by Cynthia Rylant called Dog Heaven. (Our great friend Angie sent it to us after Timber died.)

He likes to talk to Timber, and he likes knowing that he is in dog heaven.  I like listening to him.

So it’s time to rest up for the last part of the drive tomorrow.  I have no pictures to post as I didn’t take any with my camera today nor did I remember to bring a cable so I could download any pictures had I taken any!

I did knit quite abit.  I started a pair of socks with some self-striping Tofutsie.  It’s great fun.  I am just working them in simple stockinette so I don’t have to look down too much.  Cuts down on carsickness and headaches!

Have a happy Thursday!

Hangin’ Out

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Today Davey and I hung out.  We are heading to Oklahoma tomorrow and so we rested up today.  I started to pack for Davey tonight, and I realized that he has grown out of almost every one of his t-shirts and shorts.  It’s going to be 85 in Oklahoma on Friday, so I figured we are going to have to break out the summer clothes.  Looks like we will be making a trip to the store to get some before heading home tomorrow!   Sweet growin’ kid!

Davey had fun playing with his barn today.  He carefully lined up his animals in the barn.

Yikes!  An alligator in the barn!

Then he was a ghost!

And he popped out!

Fun stuff!

A couple of miscellaneous things:

He has taken to calling David “Dad- O”.  Don’t know where he got it but it is cute.

Davey likes to pick dandelion flowers for me.  When he sees one, he runs to grab it.  Even if I am standing right beside him, he then tucks it under his shirt and says “Mommy!  I have a surprise for you!”  Then he gives me instructions on putting them in water.

We just put him to bed.  He had his bath.  We brushed his teeth.  He likes to brush his teeth for awhile too.  We read 5 books  (We made a trip to the library this afternoon as well).  He was pretty tired tonight as he didn’t ask for stories or songs.  He fell asleep pretty quickly!

And that was our pretty quiet day.

Morning on Bald Mountain

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This morning we decided we’d go exploring  (We are out of school for a couple of weeks).  So I googled  “Boulder –  hikes for children”.

I came up with what looked to be a great 1 mile loop at Bald Mountain outside of Boulder.

I printed out the directions and the map.  Davey loves to study maps so he immediately took that off my hands.

A nice thing about where we’ve moved is that we’re pretty close to Boulder so it wasn’t far to drive over.  We went through Boulder and followed the directions which began to lead us up a switchbacky mountain.  We somehow missed the turn and had to go back down the mountain where we finally found the Bald Mountain trailhead.

It was pretty desolate out there.  Beautiful though.

So we began our hike.  We walked a little bit up the hill.  We were not yet out of sight of our car.

Then we saw this sign regarding Mountain Lions.

Now – I am used to the coyote warning signs which are posted all around the open spaces areas by our house and formerly by our apartment.   And – I blogged about this – I met up with a coyote one day.  We were 40 yards apart, but I did see one.   So…I take these signs seriously.

The sign said: “Mountain Lions have been sighted around this area and they present a threat to visitors and their animals.”

Now the sign also said that the chance of seeing them was “slight”.  I never even noticed that part of the sign until I downloaded the pictures from my camera once we got home.

I was too busy skimming on down to the part where it advised me to “Never run from a mountain lion.  To fight back.  To never turn my back to a mountain lion.” And – “throw stones and sticks if the lion acts aggressively.”

Davey took one look at the sign and said “Wildcats!”

David started reminding me about the book he read last year.  It was about the mountain lion problem around Boulder.  There have been a few attacks on humans.  There have been “dogsnatchings”.

David continued by explaining how the mountain lion will watch his/her prey for a long time.  Silently.  Then suddenly when the time is right – he will take a couple of long jumping strides and pounce.  David added that the mountain lion goes for the back of the neck.

We pretended to ponder the situation.

Then we hightailed it back to the car.

We had Davey sandwiched between us.

I’m pretty sure there was a mountain lion behind these rocks (or maybe he was in the tree).

Back to safety.

Lunch and then the  park.

The wilderness ain’t for wimps (me).

Make-up Socks – Done!

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Last year – on June 1st, I decided to knit my way through The Joy of Sox.    On November 8th,  I started the tenth pattern- these Make-Up Socks.  But then knitting a few Christmas gifts distracted me, and I was slow to get going again on my project.

In the last couple of weeks I decided I was ready to get going again. For one thing, I enjoy seeing Davey’s feet in the pictures.  If I wait too long his feet will be bigger than mine!

So last night I finished sock pattern #10 –  Make-up Socks.

They were a challenge.  I have blogged about them quite abit.  They were always fun but pretty slow going at times.

However, I learned to knit a pair of socks on 2 circulars.  I enjoyed the 2 circulars very much.  I am happy though to go back to my dpns for the next pair.

I had to do lots and lots of small cables.  I really learned how to “read” cables much better.  Also, those little leaves where you increased 1 stitch to 5, knit it several rounds and then decreased back to 1 stitch were so cool.  I look forward to using them in another pattern.  I can see knitting a really pretty hat with them climbing up the sides.

I was glad to have my “photographer” and “photography assistant” helping me again!