Knitting Baby Sweaters

Posted on August 8, 2013 by cpeezers

I’ve not blogged about knitting in awhile. I’ve not been knitting a ton since we moved, but I have been working on my Regrowth Shawl. Holy mackerel, it’s growing. I am approaching the last two charts, one of which is the edging chart. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not completely sure though that I am going to have enough yarn either, but I can order some more if need be. At this point, each row takes me almost an hour to knit. It’s getting pretty enormous.

I finished my baby sweaters before we left home. The Little Ancolie was the one I had so much trouble with, but I did learn a ton from knitting it. I ended up making short i-cords for the button loops, and I liked that a lot.

After I finished this one and declared it a “semi-disaster”, I had to make another one for my sister-in-law’s friend’s daughter. I found another pattern that I liked called “Granny’s Favourite”. I knit it with a more practical washable yarn too. It’s a cotton/acrylic blend from Kraemer.

The little lace pattern at the top and on the sleeves was easy to follow. Everything about this pattern went as smoothly as the other sweater went unsmoothly. My only problem with this sweater was that I first knit a long sleeve. There is lace at the wrist, and I thought it looked too bulky and long for a sweater for an 18 month to 2 year old. So I ripped it back and made a 3/4 length sleeve. I liked this much better.

I took pictures of this while it was still on the towel I used for blocking. I meant to get some better ones, but my brain was in pre-move addled mode at that point!

Both of these patterns are good ones. The first one is more difficult in that you have to be really careful when you pick up the stitches for the edging or you will have a side that is longer than the other. I’d like to knit this second sweater again sometime, although it’s like reading a book for the second time – there is no time to do this because there are so many great patterns to knit and books to read!

Columbia River, Friends and Water Fun!

Posted on August 7, 2013 by cpeezers

We continued our exploration of our new home yesterday. Friends invited us to hang out with them at Wanapum State Park. It’s about a half hour from our house, and it’s on the Columbia River. I am amazed by the beautiful places we are getting the chance to explore here.

Davey had so much fun playing in the sand and then in the water.

He had several friends to play with, and they had a big time. It was the first time that Davey had ever had a lifejacket, and he did great with it. He didn’t want to take it off.

There were water battles. I think David is having the most fun in this one and the kids are taking cover under a raft!

David tried kayaking for the first time. He took off down the river, and we didn’t see him for awhile. Apparently around the bend there were a bunch of small caves where swallows have their nests. I want to kayak there next time to see that.

When he got back, he took Davey for a kayak ride.

I tried it out too and loved it. Little Davey was very concerned that I was not wearing a life vest though. I didn’t go out very far, but I promised that I would wear one next time.

I can’t wait to go back!

An Anniversary Kind of Day

Posted on August 5, 2013 by cpeezers

Today is our 24th wedding anniversary! Of course Davey wanted to celebrate. He suggested going to Hawaii, but we settled on a picnic lunch and swimming.

We tried a new burger joint in town. It’s not new; it’s just new to us. We grabbed hamburgers and fries and headed to a park on the Yakima River. Davey enjoyed his cheeseburger. I don’t know what he is looking at here, but I like his expression. He liked that we finished up with chocolate chip cookies that I made yesterday.

We had a nice view while we were eating.

After lunch, we walked along a trail in search of the Peoples Pond (I think it is called). Turned out there is a road that takes you right there, but we enjoyed exploring the trail. The trail went along right beside the river and ended up at the pond.

Davey enjoyed playing here. The water was so clear. He had fun looking for rocks again.

We want to go back out in a little raft and go floating. It’s such a pretty spot.

A nice way to spend our 24th anniversary!

First excursion: Leavenworth and the Wenatchee River

Posted on August 4, 2013 by cpeezers

Yesterday we decided to check out Leavenworth. It’s a Bavarian themed town up in the Cascades .

Friends of ours recommended that we have lunch at Andreas Keller. A great recommendation as this place was so good. Great German food. We had bratwurst, German potato salad and weinkraut (a really mild really delicious sauerkraut). It’s making me hungry for it again just writing that sentence. Davey’s heritage is at least 1/2 German, and his picky nature can not overcome that background. He really likes sausage of just about all types. So he had wieners – fancy hot dogs basically.

After that lunch we needed to do some serious walking around. There are many great shops to explore. We didn’t go into many, but one we liked was a Christmas store called Kris Kringl. It was 2 – maybe 3 floors of Christmas decorations of all types. Davey and I really enjoyed looking at the decorations.

Apparently there is a neat Nutcracker museum there too. We didn’t check it out this time. We should though sometime because Davey loved the ones we looked at in the Christmas store.

While Leavenworth is really fun, and I want to go back at Christmas when they just go all out with lights and decorations, I think our favorite part of the trip was walking down to the Wenatchee River. The river runs along the town, and we were able to easily walk down to it from the downtown area. My pictures don’t do any kind of justice to how pretty it is.

Davey could have played all day down here. Next time we will bring swimsuits and make a day of it. There was a great little swimming area that Davey played in for awhile.

The water was cold! but we got used to it fairly quickly. I’m not sure I’d want to immerse myself completely though.

Davey had great fun looking for unusual river rocks. He’d find a handful and then bring them to me for inspection. We’d look at them carefully and toss the ones that were not unusual enough. He thought this was a great game.

David is ready to explore the Wenatchee more to do some fishing. Davey and I ready to go back to Leavensworth to do some “tubin'”!

Leavensworth was very busy and “touristy”, but it was still a really enjoyable trip. Our drive from Ellensburg was really pretty too.

First excursion – great success!

All it takes is Sunshine, Water and Lots of Love!

Posted on August 1, 2013 by cpeezers

We are unpacking and unpacking some more, but a person has to take a break from that. So this afternoon, Davey and I started working on our garden. There are raised beds in the backyard, so I couldn’t resist planting immediately. It’s a little late in the year, but I did a little research, talked to some local gardeners, and I determined there are a few vegetables with which we might have some success.

After all, as Davey it explained to me, growing a garden is easy. All it takes is sunshine, water, and lots of love.

I went to this awesomely cool nursery this afternoon to get a few seeds and see if they had any remaining tomato plants. The nursery is called Dusty’s and apparently it is located on a 110 year old farm. It was really neat.

Our landlord loaned us a hand tiller. It’s one of those “as seen on tv” tillers, and it worked great. Davey was checking it out, but I did the tilling. That’s pretty much the pattern we established in the planting of the garden.

Davey marched into the garden ready to clean out the weeds. Mostly though he loved trying out his new white tiger stripe gardening gloves.

He helped me weed a little, but then Ron Weasley needed something and then there were Hogwart students needing to get into our gardening class, and he was off into pretend land.

He did insist on digging all the holes for the scraggly little tomato plants that I got for 50 cents each. He enjoyed digging.

He also liked planting the tomatoes (as Buster watched forlornly from outside the garden fence).

Davey was focused so I was able to take a few pictures of him. I like this one.

After that we planted the seeds. Davey wasn’t quite as into that, although he helped me a little. By that time there were Hogwart students who wanted to buy vegetables, and he was having to explain to them that they were not going to be ready for awhile.

We had fun getting our first garden going. David came out for awhile and took a few pictures for me. He’s not much into the gardening thing, although he’s very optimistic about and looking forward to some good vegetable yields. I planted some beets, kale, lettuce and carrots. We shall see. It’s good training for next spring as well!

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn

Monthly Archives: August 2013