Buskers and Sesame Tofu

Posted on September 29, 2013 by cpeezers

Pretty busy weekend. Yesterday we had soccer. We thought we were going to be rained out, but nope. It was a little chilly and wet, but Davey and his team had a great day. It’s fun watching them get better each week, and it’s also fun to really see them get after that ball and want to try to score.

After soccer, we went to Buskers in the Burg. I wish we would have been able to go in the morning because we would have seen more of this:

Giant puppets! This chicken guy was actually being chased by a puppet with a big mallet, but then they’d reverse and the chicken would chase the other puppet with his cleaver. I think there were more of them out in the morning – maybe next year we will see them!

There was a hay maze which Davey enjoyed running through a few times.

Today we went to the library and then mostly hung around at home. I had homework to do, and so I knocked some of that out. Then for dinner tonight I made Sesame Tofu. We had discovered Sesame Tofu at a restaurant by our house in Broomfield. It was the first tofu dish that we really really liked, and we went over to this restaurant quite abit to have it.

So we miss the Sesame Tofu. I decided I needed to figure out how to make it. I got really lucky and found a great recipe on my first try. This Sesame Tofu Recipe was so good. I didn’t get the tofu quite right, but that will just take a little practice. The sauce was really good. Little Davey loved the sauce on rice, and he even had a little tofu. He’s getting so much braver and becoming really so much more interested in trying new foods. Yay for that.

Now tonight – Breaking Bad finale and some knitting time. It’s chilly and a little rainy out, and I’m enjoying this beginning of fall. Tomorrow we are all back to school!

Owl Mitts and the Behemoth

Posted on September 27, 2013 by cpeezers

I just finished up some fingerless gloves last night. My friend Ann at our local LYS told me about the pattern. I made them with some bulky or heavy worsted (not sure) Ella Rae wool. They were a great knit. See the owls? Well they are upside down in this picture.

These mitts have a long warm cuff. One of my favorite things about this pattern though is the thumb construction.

I usually make thumbs where you put stitches on waste yarn and come back to the thumb at the end. There are always some small holes and you pick up stitches to try to fix this. But these gloves? You make the thumb as you go! You increase two stitches in the gusset every other round. When you get a big enough thumb, you bind this part off. It makes for such a beautiful solid thumb. I want to always make thumbs this way from now on. I will say that the thumb was a little large and I might not increase so much next time. I am a pretty loose knitter though, so that may be where the problem came from for me.

There are also a couple of increases toward the top of the hand. I did them at first, then I realized it made my glove way too big at the top, so I ripped back and did it without the decreases. Again, this might have been my loose knitting.

I should probably loosely block these, but I’ve not done that. I already wore them to school this morning (it was raw out and a little rainy!).

I also used magic loop to make them. This would be a great pattern to learn that technique – although it’s not difficult. Great first cabling pattern as well because there are only three rows where you have cabling (if I remember correctly.)

Love this pattern! I’d like to make another pair and make them into mittens.

My Regrowth Shawl is slowly approaching bind-off. I have now begun referring to it as “the behemoth”. It’s enormous. It’s been a great pattern, and I have loved knitting it. I have 8 rows to go, and I ran out of yarn again. It’s so large at this point, that I ordered 4 balls of yarn. It might take that to finish those 8 rows. Maybe it will just take 2 or 3, but I didn’t want to have to order it again. I wish I could take a good picture, but lace in progress just doesn’t photograph well (at least in any way that I know how to do it).

There are at least 1500 stitches on a row now. I don’t really want to count that much, so I haven’t checked for sure. I think there are actually more. It’s large – I think it’s the largest thing I have ever knitted. I can’t wait to block it, although I am still not sure where this is going to happen!

Whew!

Posted on September 24, 2013 by cpeezers

Busy weeks. Fun weeks. Davey was thrilled to have his Nanny and Pa here for a week. We had a lot of fun showing them around a little of the great Pacific Northwest. Davey enjoyed hanging out with them.

Davey started school on the 11th. It is the 24th now, and I am starting to get used to him being gone all day. He is loving school though. So far he can not wait for each day to begin.

His teacher supplied him with jitter glitter to put under his pillow the night before school started, and she gave him “ready confetti” to throw up on the first day of school. He loved this!

This picture is blurry but it depicts his excitement to get going!

We got to hang out with him for a little while at the beginning of his first school day. After about half an hour, she sent the parents on our way so they could start having some “real fun!”

Davey started soccer too. He’s playing on a co-ed team and is doing just awesome so far. He’s having a lot of fun.

It’s fun to watch him want to get after that ball and move it down the field.

We also have Fall/Halloween fever. We decided to ease into it by carving a pumpkin. Well it’s not really carving. We scooped out the insides and then drilled holes randomly all over the pumpkin. There are lots of pictures of this on pinterest. I could not get a picture of it at night. I need to figure out how to use my camera to accomplish this. I recommend lots of holes too. We didn’t have quite enough. The dry air here has resulted in a rapidly shrinking pumpkin. It’s already about done for.

I am starting back to school myself tomorrow. I am going to get certified to teach K-8. I actually did get to see Davey during the day last week because I spent 40 hours at the school observing a class. I went to see him each day at lunch. It was a great way to transition to his full days of school – yes more for me than him!

Roositud and Buster

Posted on September 6, 2013 by cpeezers

I like to look for ways to add embroidery to my knitting. I’ve done a few things, but I’ve not been really happy with the techniques. The main thing I’d tried was basting a paper pattern to the knitting, embroidering the pattern over the paper, and then I tore the paper away. It was kinda neat, but it didn’t much feel like embroidery to me.

So I subscribe to the Knitting Daily emails, and the other day I received an email about embroidery. They provided a video to explain an Estonian embroidery technique that I had not heard of. It is called Roositud. I have no idea how to say it out loud. In my head, I call it many different things with the result being that I can never remember the actual word. Maybe I will remember better now that I have written about it.

There is a great video on the Knitting Daily website which very clearly explains the technique: Roositud. It was very easy to follow. The result looks like this:

You use a double strand of yarn for the embroidery. I made mine about 12 inches long. When you get to the stitch you want to embroider, you lay the yarn down with a tail in the back and then the longer part hanging in the front. Knit a stitch or two or three (whatever the pattern calls for in the embroidery), with the regular color you are using – so that would be brown above – and then pull the colored yarn to the back. It will lay across the front of the stitch(es).

When you come back on the second row, it’s a little different because your yarn is on the left. They explain how to take care of this really well on the video. But it looks kinda like this:

You pull the colored yarn forward and make what they called a “hanging flap”. Then you knit the stitch or two and just pull that yarn to the back. The part that covers the front stitch stays in the front. That doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. The video explains it better.

I really enjoyed this technique, and I can’t wait to try it again. I am trying to figure out kind of my own design of the front of a fingerless mitt or mitten, and I’d like to include a row of lateral braid across the bottom.

Cool Estonian technique!

It’s also Buster’s first birthday today. Davey is really excited and has been insistent that we have a “surprise” party for him. So that will be later today.

Pictures from our first Kittitas Fair

Posted on August 31, 2013 by cpeezers

It’s been a big fair weekend for us. We spent Thursday and Friday at the fair. Friday evening we also went to the rodeo (me and Davey’s first ever), and today was the big parade.

There was a great show for kids. They got to dress up and pretend to be in the circus. Davey performed in it twice, and David got chosen both times to be a “volunteer” participant.

Davey is ready for Cats!

The first time David was a helper. He was asked to show his muscles here.

The second time, Davey was a clown.

Who also wanted to do some disco dancing.

David was the “world’s strongest” man in the second show.

This morning we went to the fair.

The parade was basically a quest for catching candy.

Success!

Davey rode lots of rides at the fair. Over and over and over again. Thank goodness for the “pay once – all day ride pass”! We ate fair food. We looked at the animals and exhibits. I began planning my knitting entries for next year. There was some beautiful work entered.

Davey and the ducks

Posted on August 29, 2013 by cpeezers

A couple of days ago, we went back up to Cle Elum to fish.

My introductory sentence combined with the above picture makes it seem as though we walked to Cle Elum. That tickles me.

There is a Kiwanis lake that runs beside the river up there. That lake is designated for children and the handicapped, so it had really nice access. Unfortunately the fish weren’t biting. Davey tried fishing for a little while, and David tried out the river which runs parallel to the lake. David did catch a small trout in the river, but that was about it.

However, Davey was much more interested in these guys:

I don’t know what kind of ducks these are. I call them Labrador Retriever mix ducks because of their coloring. They were hilarious though. Davey was absolutely plotting to bring them home with us.

He very much enjoyed talking to them.

He ran back and forth from the ducks to me because I was translating what they were saying to him.

The ducks were funny too because they followed us everywhere. It was when they followed us back to the truck that Davey really decided that they wanted to live with us.

We had to say good bye with promises that we would return (I think the ducks were saying “bring food next time guys!”).

Quiet Weekend

Posted on August 25, 2013 by cpeezers

We’ve had a nice weekend. Yesterday, Davey and I spent some time at the park with friends. I went to the library and checked out more books than I can probably read before they are due (I always do that). Today we’ve been hanging out at home. I’ve been working on a new knitting/embroidery technique called Roositud. I’m making some fingerless mitts and have almost finished the first one. I love combining embroidery with knitting and I’m always looking for new techniques. This is proving to be great fun.

I enjoy lining up my yarn and taking pictures. I maybe like yarn a little too much.

Nah.

Davey has been doing lots of playing which includes lots of playtime with Buster.

But sometimes they have a little quiet time themselves.

A Little Fishin’

Posted on August 22, 2013 by cpeezers

We went exploring a little today. Drove up to Cle Elum along the river. David floated that part of it yesterday, and he wanted to show it to us. He also wanted to check out some potential fishing holes.

None of them panned out too well – for today anyway. He was a little limited as to where he could go since Davey and I were with him.

But we had a nice picnic lunch along the river. And as usual, there’s little Mr. Hider.

David fished a little, but he wasn’t really set up for water that big.

I was fascinated by this pretty little creek that was flowing out of the woods into the Yakima.

And I know the angle on this picture is whacky (I get carried away sometimes), but I was looking at those trees thinking this is going to be beautiful in the fall!

Morning Silliness & Playing at the Pond

Posted on August 20, 2013 by cpeezers

David has been going to school in the mornings to work on stuff.

Off he goes – Davey and I waved good-bye, and then we started playing our new favorite game: Let’s run from the camera.

I guess I can only post so many “Mama, I am running from the camera pictures”, but I can’t get enough of them. Davey gets so tickled.

He laughs and laughs.

I guess I shouldn’t encourage this, but I can also be quick and stealthy with the camera when I need to be. Like when his back is to me.

I took this Sunday at the People’s Pond. Didn’t catch any fish, but we found a great place to play.

Davey played for a long time with an empty bottle and a cup. He was making potions.

He created “waterfalls” as well.

While Davey was playing, David fished some more, and I worked on a sock.

I got this yarn a couple of years ago at Hobby Lobby. I like it. Can’t remember what it is called, but it’s kind of stretchy. Should turn out nice.

Glow “Run”

Posted on August 18, 2013 by cpeezers

Davey participated in his first “run” on Friday night. It was the first annual Glow Run here in Ellensburg. We kind of found out about it at the last moment, so we didn’t get registered in time. I’d like to try to get ready to do it next year.

It was fun for Davey though. He did the kid fun run. We thought it was going to be about a 1/2 mile run, but they decided to shorten the distance. I guess maybe because they were going to run around a large field, and maybe they didn’t feel keen on having the kids running around a big field in the dark? Not sure.

So here David is working out the “route” with Davey. See those cones? There is one about 50 yards out into the field. I think maybe it was a 100 yard dash. The distance really didn’t matter though. Davey was very excited to participate.

Of course we took lots of pictures.

I feel like I should also document that it’s not always smiles and grins for the camera. Lately it’s a lot of running from the camera and a little of this:

That picture makes me laugh.

So they waited until it got nice and dark to start their run. It was fun to try to take pictures of Davey in his glow necklace.

My shutter was just too slow in the dark to try to capture Davey crossing the finish line. He ran as fast as he could go though. He was breathin’ hard when he came through the finish line.

I’d like for us all to participate next year!

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn