Finished objects this week.

I was a good little knitter this week and finished some objects. Like the Giraffe. I've had it finished for a while but I wasn't very pleased with it so I wasn't in a hurry to take or post a pic. I need to redo the mane and the face and add some more dots.

These are quick knits. They are the Finger Food from itty bitty toys. I'm working on the grapes. I've been using the Palette yarn from Knit Picks.

I put buttons in M's button loafers. I made the 9 month size and they are a tiny bit big but that is how I wanted them to be. That way they might last through the fall. These were fun and easy.

I've started designing the blanket for my boys out of the Julia yarn that I got from a give away on Never Not Knitting. I will post the pattern on here and on Ravelry.com when I am done.

I also knitted the Cedar Leaf Shawlette until getting to the edging and figured out that I didn't have enough yarn to finish it on a size 8 needle. I had to unravel the whole thing. This made me very sad. Then I cast on my cheap size 7 needles and cast on too few stitches and too tight and when I went to pull them off I broke my needles! At this point I just looked at my yarn and needles in disbelief wondering if this was some sort of sign. But I went ahead and ordered new needles from knit picks and I am going to try again. I needed them to knit the Tea Leaf Cardigan anyway.

Last Night´s Creations

I started and finished the pear last night. It was a very quick knit. All made with Palette yarn for $1.99 a skein. LOTS of left over yarn to make socks for me or the boys.

I also finished the Little Button Loafers last night for my youngest. I just need to put buttons on them. They were made with left over yarn from another itty bitty knit.
Any of you working on little quick projects?

Itty Bitty Update!

 

So this is how far I have gotten on the Giraffe. I was ahead of schedule with my itty bitty knitting so I worked on other things this week. 

Like the Firefly Scarf and I finished it. I needed to get it done by the end of the month for the knit a long at my local yarn store Loops for a chance to win a basket full of yarn. Here is a pic of it while I was blocking it.

I have also started on The Little Button Loafers by Sylvia for M out of some leftover Knit Picks Organic Cotton. It´s been a while since I crotchet last so I had to remember the what the stitch abbreviations meant.  But I forgot to take pic of them and after I finished the scarf I started working on the Cedar Leaf Shawlette by Alana of Never Not Knitting and I can´t wait to finish and block it. 

Well lets move on to my gardening endeavors. This is what my garden looked like last weekend. I didn´t get enough mulch to put on the weed cloth. I bought more yesterday and lets hope it is enough. It will go down today. I plan on making a long flowerbed in front where I will grow sun flowers and a grapevine.

I also got two raspberry plants to plant where there is no weed cloth now to the right of the pic but there will be weed cloth and mulch. This will all be fenced in with a white picked fence to keep both cats and kids out of my veggie garden.

Here are some pics from my back yard.

 

The fruit tree that was supose to have 5 different fruit on it from graft but the grafts didn´t make it so who knows what sort of fruit it will have when it matures.

 

The Sunflower that came from no where. It looks like it will be tall.

 

The rose that mom and dad planted this spring. Looks like it will be red. I have no idea what it is or what it will look like.

This is our sad tree that went so badly when we had that ice storm in 2007 where we were with out power for 7 days.

This is the mower I use when I mow. I can´t use the gas powered one because it makes my hands hurt from it shaking so much. I can´t weedeat either. I´m sure that if I bought an electric one I could. 

Now to the front yard.

This is my house. It was built in 1927 and I LOVE it. It was 20.000 more than we were going to spend when we were house hunting 5 years ago but I just had to have it. The last few weekends I have been working on the front yard. It was a real mess after us doing nothing but mow for 2 years because last summer I was to sick from being pregnant to even bother with weeding or gardening.

Last weekend I planted this Maple that I got for $7 at Lowe´s. It was suppose to be over $22 but they were having a big tree sale and my hubby really likes Maples. I also cleaned out the left flowerbed in front of the house until I got to some poison ivy and I stopped. I'm sooooo allergic. I was itching for 2 months the last time I was exposed. This weekend I found it growing all up and down the left side of the house. I´m going to have to get some poison ivy killer. 

This is the 83 year old Oak in the neighbor´s yard. The lady that lives there is 83  as well. You can´t see it in the pic but the trunk is wider than our car.

I did some more gardening yesterday in the front. I put down some flowers in the flowerpots on the front steps and I cleared out some weeds and vines from the right flowerbed. 

I have some big news to share with you. I´m teaching my first knitting class. I´m teaching a toy knitting class from the itty bitty toys book at my LYS Loops in Utica Square. It is a series starting with the baby koala. I can´t wait to do this. It will be June 26th at 3pm for anyone that wants to show up. Cost is $25 per person. Material not included. 

Here are some pics of the boys

O got his hair cut and he was such a good sport that he got burger king as a reward.

We walked to the hair dresser and M was still sleeping so we ate outside.

This is the best double stroller in the world! It´s Phil & Teds and well worth the money.

The boys were playing so nicely together in the toy corner of the living room that I had to take a pic. I recently rearranged the living room and I am so happy with the way it turned out. I still have some finishing touches to to so I will post a pic of it later. 

This last one is of O being super sad. Even though he is crying this pic is so in the moment and to me makes it beautiful.

Itty Bitty Mother's Day Weekend.

It seemed very fitting that I finished this toy right before Mother's Day. It is the Koala mama and baby from itty bitty toys by Susan B. Anderson.

This weekend I spent knitting and gardening which are my fav. things. I also got a LOT of yarn on Friday to ooo and aaah over and dream about the things I will do to it.

I got the Cascade 220 to make the Giraffe.

I have already knit up the body and the head and I just have the legs, spots, pom poms and tail to go.

 

The next project in the book is finger food and it was a lot cheaper to buy whole skeins from knit picks of Pallet yarn 100% wool only $1.99 a skein and I will have plenty left over to make socks for my boys and myself. 

 

Next in line to knit after that is the baby bear and I found this yarn to knit it with. It is very cute and I just hope I have enough for it since it is only a 50gr. skein and the pattern used a 100gr but I don't know if it used all of it. 

 

After that comes the monkey which calls for a variegated yarn but the yarn that it calls for is hard to find and expensive so I got some of the cheep $1.99 palette yarn from knit picks and I will just look at the pic in the book and change the colors to make it look the same. It's more work but I think it will be worth it in the end to have a really nice looking monkey. 

 

Then there is the hippo. I'm looking forward to knitting this toy. It seams very fun. I am trying to make it look like the one in the book for very cheep again using the Palette yarn from Knit Picks. 

 

I chose a different color for the curly snake. It is Felici Sport in Seaside which is 75% superwash merino wool and 25% nylon. It's not the bright colors like in the book but I like them. It's self striping yarn. 

After that come the felted bouncy balls. I will probably just use the cascade yarn left overs for that. 

I don't have yarn for the panda and the zebra hand puppets yet but 

 

I do have the yarn for the mama duck and ducklings and I'm looking forward to making them. I'm sure they will get a lot of play. This is another Knit Picks yarn called Shine Worsted which is a cotton blend. 

 

After that I'm going to make the baby doll set for my neighbors little girl's birthday. These are the colors for he dress hat and hair. I'll be using the rest of my organic cotton for the doll itself and the little bloomers. This will be a fun knit. 

 

Ah, and yes I did buy some raw merino wool in DK  and sock yarn to dye myself. The DK is to knit the Tea Leaf Cardigan while the sock yarn will be a giveaway I will have once I have finished it. 

This is all the yarn that I got on Friday.

 

Here is the yarn that I won from Never Not Knitting. It is Julia from Nashua Handknits. It's 50% wool, 25% alpaca and 25% Mohair. 50gr and 93 yards. Very Yummy. I'm planing on making a blanket out of this for my boys. 

 

I also have this yarn from knit picks. It's wool of the Andies in sport weight to make me some fair isles mittens next fall. 

As you can tell I have a lot of yarn to make some great things. I've finally graduated from being the person that just buys yarn because I think it is yummy with out knowing what I was going to do with it to only buying yarn for things I want to make. It all has a purpose.
 

So I will be doing a lot of this (there I am starting the Giraffe).

 

While these kidos are being good and letting me. Can you tell that they are brothers?

 

Hubby took this great pic of M.

 

And Saturday we went to the Ren Fair and here O is being a Knight. My cuties!

Guess what I got in the mail today!

Yes you guessed right. I got my yarn and book from Never Not Knitting. O was so excited that there was a package to open that I was almost sure that he was more excited than I was. While I was opening the package O helped me get the yarn and the book out and he kept saying ball. I had to explain that it was yarn not a ball. Then M was sitting next to me on the couch where I was placing the yarn and the next thing I saw was him with a skein of yarn about to eat it. I will teach both of my sons to both crotchet and knit.

Now my baskets overfloweth in my knitting shelves. Don´t worry that´s not all of my yarn . I have a cube full that is hidden from sight.
I just wanted to say thank you again to Alana of Never Not Knitting for this great opportunity to get to work with this amazing yarn and the book COLOR by Kristin. I think I´m going to take the patterns in the book to make a quilted blanket for my sons to use in the living room.  It is now in cue after I finish the firefly scarf and the Cedar Leaf Shawlette by Alana.

I was able to get my veggies in the ground finally. My great brother brought me a load of poo yesterday. It´s Old horse manure. Probably 7 years old and is now the most beautiful soil I have ever worked with.  Will tell more and post pics later. Now I just need to fill the other bed tonight after my KAL at my LYS (local yarn store)  Can´t wait!

I WON!!!!

This amazing giveaway on the Never Not Knitting blog that is written and all the photos are taken by Alana. She is the designer of the cedar leaf shawlette that I am knitting when I´m not knitting the scarf or toys. in this giveaway were the 12 skeins of yarn and the book COLOR by Kristin. I can´t wait to try it out.  It was funny that I won  because it was announced on her podcast that came out Saturday and in that podcast she interviewed an Icelandic lady named Ragga that has started a knitting getaway in Iceland and me winning was totally random. The knitting Iceland getaway sounds amazing even to an Icelander. Her getaway in June is already full so she is planing another in August. Anyway you can learn all about it on Alana´s podcast.

Thank you Never Not Knitting!