The boys are back to school!

hmmm... let me guess what you did this summer

What I wanted to tell you about, before the kiddos interrupted me for days, was, well, who the hell knows what it was anymore. Here, at least, is what I remember from the last few days.

Over the weekend, we celebrated the official end of summer by visiting our favorite local corn maze.

The theme this year was the Olympics and we couldn't resist taking this picture of all the kids on the medal stand. They weren't quite in birth order. S (the second born) snatched gold away from B by finishing his hot dog first.

This was not an easy picture to take as wee one didn't really understand the concept and B (the first born) wasn't quite satisfied with his position. Take a look at the first try. The maze was fun though. It was a beautiful day. And I even did a little bit of knitting in the car on the way.

What am I knitting right now? Well, in Germany, I finished up the pink baby sweater set that I started shortly before we left.

my version of the peace baby set - more info here

And then I started a sweater for me from the latest Rebecca magazine.

Ooooh, I just loved those stripes and those large poofy sleeves. I was also really drawn to the orange color. The yellow is kinda blech, so when I went yarn shopping, I picked me out a pretty little pink to pair with the orange. The local yarn store by my in-laws has a nice selection of Lana Grossa yarns and I remembered enjoying the Cool Wool 2000 when I got some at New Year's for an itty bitty bunny ears hat, so I decided to go with that again. As you can see from my progress, I have had almost as much knitting time recently as I have had blogging time!

And the busy days and tired nights aren't over just yet. We've got company! My brother-in-law came to visit. We just saw him in Germany and now he's over here visiting friends and us. Wee one is very confused.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm moving and reorganizing the entire yarn stash again?

I've finally kicked myself out of wee one's room. My desk is gone (I now have half a cabinet in the kitchen for my desk stuff - city living with three kids is tough!) and the yarn is next. Then wee one will have her own little room all to herself with plenty of space for her toy stroller and doll house and all the other pink stuff still to come. Now I merely have to find a way to squeeze my yarn stash into the built-in sideboard in the dining room. The boys' games used to be in there, but they've been evicted (the games, not the boys). Essentially, I've spent the last month or so (before we left and after returning), moving everything from downstairs upstairs and everything from the left side of the house to the right side of the house. But soon, very soon, it will all be done.

And then we can talk some more.

I know what you're saying: hey, crazy lady, aren't you already making an orange sweater? I know, I know, but this is some amazing orange yarn I just got from Dani at Sunshine Yarns and is for a sweater I've been wanting to make for wee one for quite some time.

The pattern is "Buttercup Baby" from the Fall 2006 Interweave Crochet (yes, that's how long I've known I wanted to make this sweater). I don't usually buy Interweave Crochet - I don't usually crochet - but I was pregnant and this issue came out with this sweet sweater and the matching pants have butt ruffles and I was full of hormones, so I got the magazine and I swore I would try to make it. Someday. Someday when my crochet skills were better. But as wee one approaches two years, my time is starting to run out on all the cute baby patterns I'd dreamt of making for her. Which means today's got to be the day, even if I can't crochet one iota better than I could two years ago.

Recognizing this, I started planning this project a few months ago. I've got my lys's crochet expert on board to help when I get to the "experienced crochet" sections. I even swatched some stash yarn, cast on and knit a few inches. But I wasn't in love with the color and kept thinking that a fun, bright orange would be so much better for wee one. (She looks great in orange.) I mentioned this to Dani and asked if she might be able to dye me a really awesome orange. "What kind of orange," she asked. I started to look around, and, well, Knitsmiths does meet at a bookstore, so my eyes instantly fell on the books behind us.

this is Peta, by the way, in a lovely pink lacy sweater she knit last year

And there it was, the perfect orange: Penguin paperback orange! And voila, she nailed it!

Orange you excited?!

Poor little dolly has gotten soooo dirty. This picture can't even capture how dark and crusty her little face and dress have become. If you look close, right above the neck of her dress you can see something like the original pretty pink her face used to be. Oh, she gross.

"she looks fine to me"

But, I can't get her away from wee one long enough to clean her. (The picture above was taken seconds after I snapped the first photo. "Hey, give me dolly back.") I think wee one and I could actually have a fun time washing dolly together, but my real worry is that she won't be able to wait until dolly is dry to get her back. So, it's looking like I'll have to knit a whole new dolly.

Step one: make dress. Some picot edging and I should be able to take off dolly's old dress and slip this new dress right on her. I'm hoping that if she wears the new dress a while, it'll get some of that nice dolly smell on it that I'm sure wee one is attached to. In the meantime, I can wash the bejesus out of dress number one.

Step two (to come): make new dolly. I should have juuuust enough yarn left over from the first dolly to make a second one. Yes Virginia, you can make two dollys from one ball each of three colors of Classic Elite Bazic.

Less than a week of school and I've already got one boy home sick with a stomach bug. He woke up twice in the night to throw up, poor little guy, so he's gonna spend the day relaxing and watching Nick Jr. (because the pre-school shows are "kinda funny" he says). To make matters worse, boy #2 woke up crying this morning because the tooth fairy forgot to come. I'm ashamed to say that this is not her first time forgetting. Or her second. It's unbelievable what a terrible tooth fairy we've got here. She totally sucks and so needs to be fired. I'm thinking that if she forgets again, we're going to tell the boys that they can just give their teeth to us and we'll give them two bucks. (wink.) But for now, we've hung a big sign on the boys' door to help the tooth fairy find her way to us.

The tooth fairy may have been distracted by my poofy-sleeved Rebecca sweater. Check this out:

This is is the front piece, knit up to the beginning of the armhole/yoke. Now look at how wide the sleeve is in comparison! Yikers.

Between having the boy at home today and me trying to flag down the tooth fairy, there won't be much free time for me to knit any more on the crazy sleeve, but there may still be some crafting. When he's feeling up to it, we'll spend some time working on his homework for this week: a collage about himself. Can you believe it, I found all these pictures in the blog archives!

recipe for a sick day: collaging and watching Nick Jr.

first sleeve of my Rebecca #37 sweater

Wide at the base (the small ribbed cuff will be knit down from the provisional cast on), lovely rows of decreases at the forearm, and a beautiful, straight sleeve just taking shape above. Ooooh, I'm just giddy about how fun and pretty it's turned out. With all those stripes and the funny proportions though, don't you think it kinda looks like something from Dr. Seuss? It's the poofy-est, floofy-est, goofy-est, kooky-est, spooky-est, rooty-toot-toot-iest sleeve in the world!

Over five yards of black fabric, a couple of yards of red felt, and a couple yards of shiny gray fabric and I'm just about ready to start making the boys' Halloween costumes! (Wee one's costume is still in the planning stages for now.) I started asking the boys in August what they wanted to be this year so I had time to get past the fickle first choices and get down to the real contenders but the boys stayed pretty true to their first ideas. B wanted to be a vampire (eeek!) and S wanted to be a shark (cool!). I asked again a week later and then a week later and they seemed so sure that I started looking for sewing patterns. After showing them all the various options I found online, they chose these:

B will be a Batman style superhero. This costume was just way cooler than the standard vampire cape-and-collar thing. He's so psyched about those huge wings! And I'm relieved that he'll be more of a superhero than a villain. I found several shark patterns that were all quite different, but S liked this one the best with the little hole in the mouth for him to peek through. He thinks the teeth are so funny and is amused by the fact that I have to make him a pillow that sits on his head to keep the nose pointy on top.

The boys insisted on coming with me to Jo-Anns to pick out the fabrics. There's a lot of fabric in these two costumes! And a lot of sewing. But they are so excited about the whole thing that I remember why I wanted to make their costumes every year. They're just that much more special when they can help plan them and watch and help me put them together. Halloween ends up lasting a month at least, with planning and sewing and trying things on. Getting the candy is only the bonus at the end.

Only 46 sewing days left!

But let me tell you, you won't be disappointed!

The new Mason-Dixon Knitting book, Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines, is just as good, dare I say even better, than the first! I know, it sounds impossible, but it's true. You'll see when you get the book, which I know you're going to do anyway.

The subtitle this time around is "Patterns, Stories, Pictures, True Confessions, Tricky Bits, Whole New Worlds, and Familiar Ones, Too". The first book promised, and delivered, patterns, stories and pictures as well, and the ones in this book more than live up to the standards set there. What I especially like about this second book is that there's more of a focus on Kay and Ann's stories - they're our favorites anyway, right? My favorite is Ann's story about entering a knitting design in the State Fair. The story is lovely, funny, delightful (everything you'd expect from these two) and the adorable pattern is included in the book.

"Fern" cardigan

There are several more really nice kids' patterns in the book - an excellent follow up to the baby patterns in the first book. One totally cool pattern is the SK8R sweater pattern, a hip, denim sweater for the kids who usually think of themselves as too cool for handknits. Ha, not anymore! Kay is teaching us how to "besweater the unsweaterable"!

"SK8R" sweater

And this time, there's even more of those silly yet stylish home-y projects we've come to love from these two. In the first book we got "warshcloths" and hand towels; this time around it's a swiffer-style mop cover and kitchen gloves.

"Golightly" gloves

Now, what was really special about the first book, in my opinion, were all those blankets. The Mitered Square blanket from the opening page was spectacular and then there was the whole section on log cabin knitting with the gorgeous Moderne Baby blanket and Blankie of Many Colors patterns. This time around, the centerpiece of the book is an introduction in to the world of Fair Isle, with an entire chapter of tips, tricks, and even more amazing blanket patterns.

"Liberty" throw

Oh and there's women's patterns too, and more funny drawings and comments in the sidebars. And, if all that's still not enough, they've also thrown in the secret of knitting and a guarantee:

These gals have just the right attitude about knitting. It makes reading their blog and their books a joy! So go read your copy, which I'm sure you already pre-ordered. You're gonna love it!

It's Hansel Halloween parts!

The tooth and the bat mask belong to the boys. They've asked me every day since Saturday if I've finished anything for their costumes yet. I finally forced myself to sit down yesterday and cut out the pattern pieces so I could actually show them something. Oh, the motivating power of children's unrestrained enthusiasm! When they heard that I'd cut out stuff, S wanted to see his funny shark tooth piece and B pulled on his bat mask pattern with glee. Hooray!

The wings, however, are mine.

I am still giggling over my Rebecca sweater's Liberty-Bell-sized bell sleeves. Ding dong, these babies are gonna be awesome! It's all so orange and over the top that I think I'm gonna have to wear this sweater out with the kids on Halloween night.

And the supplies for wee one's (no-sew, no-knit) costume should be winging themselves to me as we speak! More on that next week....

Summer's over and here's the proof: six summer quilt squares from my current block of the month quilts. The first three are from my lqs's 2008 block of the month program.

June - "Mohawk Trail Star"

July - "Free Trade"

August - "Combination Star"

This second group is from a block of the month club offered by Sunshine Carousel Quilt Shop in New Hampshire. I couldn't resist the beautiful thirties prints in this one!

May - "Salem"

June - "Wedding Bouquet"

August - "Coronation"

With more of these to look forward to, how could I be sad about the end of summer?

I thought I wasn't a girly girl. I thought I wasn't going to have one of those girly girls. And yet, my daughter went to drop off her brothers at school this morning wearing her pink emli bonnet and her sparkly pink bolero. And then, she came home and put on this little number I just made for her.

Oh yeah, it's a tutu. A year and a half and I'm already at pink tulle. Oh my. This was actually just practice for her Halloween costume, which will involve a longer tutu. I'd read a few how-to's and tutorials that suggested that these things were easy to make, so I thought I'd give it a trial run. My girl could always use a pink tutu. I bought a couple of rolls of pink tulle online, cut up my strips while the boys were brushing their teeth for bed, then turned on Top Gear (cause that's the kinda girl I am) and made a tutu. I knotted and knotted and it transformed itself into this perfectly frilly pink thing of beauty.

Can you see wee one's hand caressing it? I'm not sure she even knew what it was at first, but she knew she liked it. I asked her if she wanted to put it on and she jumped right in.

Yes, she was a natural.

So, it was a huge success. I have succeeded in making a tutu (Halloween plans still on) and the forces of nature have succeeded in turning me into a girly girl (gender stereotypes will out).

My Rebecca sweater is coming to an end, but my yarn is coming to an end even faster! One ball of each color (plus a smidge more) to knit the back up to the yoke. One ball of each color (plus a smidge more) to knit each sleeve up to the yoke. One ball of each color half gone in the front so far. And only one ball of each color left to knit the yoke, cuffs and collar. I'm no good at math, but all those plus a smidge's are adding up I'm sure. I'm getting nervous. So I've sent off an email to my mother-in-law to stop by the tiny store in Germany where I bought the yarn and pick up some more.

Hilfe. Brauche Wolle. Schnell.

The knit pirates can't believe that we forgot to check the needle size when we started knitting a baby-sized Shedir hat for wee one! It's way too big, so now we'll have to rip it out and start over again. Say it with me: aaaaarrrgh!

After I told them to turn the tv off, they set up a 52-card game of Card Sharks in their room. I heard them upstairs yelling "lower than the Queen, higher than the five..." just like in the real show.

Oh, please let this rain stop so we can go outside again.

Oh yes, the boys have the day off from school. According to our school district it's a "day of low attendance" (due to Rosh Hashanah), so they just give us the day off. Which means moms like me are looking for something to do with their kids all day. Today, we chose the aquarium. (Gotta come up with something for next Thursday....)

wee one said "oooohhhh" each time she spotted a fish

Despite the fact that the boys have only been in school for a total of 6 hours in the last 4 days and have been trapped inside because of the rain most of the other hours, I did manage to restart the ill-fated baby shedir hat.

It fits now and I'm loving the cables, so I'm not even going to go back and fix that little goof in the cable near the beginning (please tell me you can't see it!).

Man, could I use a day off.