Of Sleepovers and Sleep-laughing

My daughter went over to her best friend's house last night for her very first sleepover. I missed her laugh and her voice, humming in her room, sounds that I heard ever night while she waited to fall asleep. I will be calling her friend's house in a few minutes to agree on a time to pick her up. I am sure that she had a great time last night (less sure that she had a decent night's sleep), and positive that she will be asking that we host the next sleepover. She has some girl friends that she plays with every day at school...so it is interesting to me that her first sleep over is with her best friend who is a boy. My mom will most likely think it is improper that she spend the night over a male friend's house...but they are 8 and I don't see the harm.

My son, as usual, came to our bed last night. I must have been totally out because I do not remember bringing him into our bed. This morning I awoke to him next to me and I watched him sleep. He must have been dreaming because he laughed in his sleep. A cute laugh that indicated he was enjoying something funny, perhaps with his sister, or even one of his favorite movies.

Moments like this are some of the things that make me happy to be alive.

Little Girl Climbing High

Today, I took my little girl and my little boy to a nearby Kids/Green Festival with our good friends. We made our way to the Village Park, where the kids' play area was located...kids can only stand looking at arts and crafts booths for a short time, after all. Also, Pippin and Lucy joined us for the day and they kept barking at the chickens wandering around the street. What can I say, I live where a lot of old fashioned values are held, and these values include allowing chickens (and dogs) to run free without fear of being caught, feathered, killed, and eaten.

The play area had at least 4 bounce houses and a climbing wall. Not as much as a carnival, but enough to keep the kids busy for the afternoon. My friend and I bought each of the children a wristband that allowed them unlimited "rides" in the bounce houses and the climbing wall...there may have been more than this, but this is all my kids cared about.

The bounce houses were the first things that the kids wanted to play in. In fact, my little boy (3 years old last month) LOVED one in particular and his wristband paid for itself in 10 minutes. By the way, each of the wristbands cost $10 - GAH! $20 for my two kids seemed like a lot, but I keep reminding myself that going to the outdoor event was free and we didn't splurge and buy food. Plus without the bracelets, it would have been $3 per "ride" and given that my little guy went into the aforementioned bounce house 10 times, $10 for his bracelet was a bargain.

My favorite part of this day was watching my little girl attempt the climbing wall, all by herself. In fact, her friend reported that she was waiting in line for it, but it didn't hit me that she was serious about doing it until I saw her halfway up the wall. I think that the wall must have been 20 feet high. Sitting on a bench behind her little brother's bounce house, I watched her climb carefully up the wall, not caring that other children were climbing faster or that they were climbing only halfway up before they let themselves down. There she was, determined to go as high as she could, looking for foot/handholds to help her reach the top. What made me really proud was that she didn't panic; she didn't yell for help or look around helplessly for someone to rescue her.

When she came down from the wall, she came to me with a big smile on her face. She did it, all by herself. Most importantly, she made a commitment, and fulfilled it, without assistance. My little girl is growing up fast.

Drat the double center decrease

I decided to make the Ariel Tee Shirt from the June 2010 Knit & Style. I wasn't going to buy this magazine...God knows I have enough patterns to drool over in the other billion magazines and books that I have. However, this particular pattern tempted me because it is a bottom up, seamless, tee shirt with lace details. Plus I had a 40% off coupon from the local craft store...How could I resist?

I am using the Rowan Purelife in Brazilwood that I bought from my FLYS last year. I had originally bought this yarn for the lace poncho from Knitting Pure and Simple. I soon realized that I HATE knitting on size 15 needles. It's like knitting with tree trunks...no thank you!!!

The pattern calls for a gauge of 20 sts per 4 inches...a light worsted. Hmmmm, could I really use the Purelife, which is a DK weight? I figured I could try. I went back to my FLYS with high hopes that she still had at least 2 more skeins of the color. I called her earlier that day and it didn't sound like she did...but what can I say, I am an optimist. I thank God that I did go in and check, because way in the back of the bin, hidden from view were 2 full skeins of the exact color that I needed. I was even more happy when she told me that this particular color was discontinued. I felt the heavens opening, and the sun shining on me at that very moment. I knew that somewhere, someone was telling me to make this pattern, and it was all meant to be......okay, not really. But how lucky did I feel? Very lucky indeed.

So I reworked the stitch numbers...again. Why do I do this to myself? Probably because I have too much yarn and I need to knit it all up. Anyway, I am hoping and praying that I will have just enough to finish the lace tee shirt (that, incidentally, I have decided is one cool pattern). I am learning another method to seamless apparel - bottom up in the round to the armpits, knitting the sleeves separately, and then attaching the sleeves to the body for the yoke. Happy day.

First problem I ran into was the lace detail. I know how to read charts; in fact, I prefer them to the pattern written out. Maybe I should have looked over the pattern before I started knitting. Hah-I assumed too much. First frog.

Second problem I ran into was I didn't make the double decrease correctly. Instead of slipping 2 stitches knitwise, I slipped them purlwise. What a difference it makes:


This is what the stitch looks like with the 2 stitches slipped purlwise.













This is what the double center decrease is supposed to look like. You will notice as you continue knitting that this decrease is virtually invisible, while the previous (wrong) decrease looks like a left slanting decrease. You don't want that...










I didn't pay attention to this tiny detail until I was 20 rows into the darn pattern! The decrease is supposed to look like a normal knit stitch. Don't make the same mistake I did. Look at your knitting before you continue and make sure it looks right. Otherwise, you will have funny looking leaves in your lace. Second frog.

Now I am knitting the pattern for the 3rd time and so far so good. I was watching LOST last night...and I made a little mistake, but not big enough to make me want to frog it AGAIN. At least the lace looks like leaves this time :)

The Sleeve of the Husbeast Hoodie

Aaaargh. My husband's Fair Isle Hoodie is taking forever to finish. I bound off the body last week. Now I am working on the first sleeve. The good thing is, there are decreases, so it is not pure stockinette for rows and rows with no end in sight. Gah!

I suppose I should be thankful that at least it is a project I can work on while LOST is on...

Glad I didn't Shrug it off

Last year I charted Barbara Walker's Candlelight Stitch pattern. I was determined to make a shawl out of the Karabella Breeze that I bought from my FLYS and I was going to use this pattern. Because it is a lace pattern, it was not a quick and easy project and was taking longer than I thought it would. I let the shawl hibernate...and I even considered frogging it to make something different. I even (gasp!) gave one of the balls of Breeze to a swap partner because I didn't think that I would need it. Note to self: Never never never ever give away something that you may use, no matter how remotely. Wish I had that one ball now.

Anyway, I took the shawl out. Now that it is getting warmer, I am wanting to do lace projects. My husbeast's hoodie is taking life and breath out of me (okay not literally, but each of the sleeves are taking me a week to do. I found the chart of the lace pattern and I felt happy that I actually did (all by myself, and correctly - yay for me!). Frog or not to frog...a quick decision. I decided to finish the last pattern repeat that I was doing and construct it into a shrug.



After it was blocked, I looked at it again on both sides and admired the fact that it truly is a reversible pattern. I thought that it was a shame to put sleeve seams in it, forcing me to wear it with one side always showing. Then I remembered the Convertible Shrug that I made when we went to Oregon. This particular shrug used buttons instead of seams. I opened my box of buttons and pulled out my jewelry tools and before I knew it, voila! I made a Convertible (and Reversible) Shrug.

Finished! Entrelac Shrug

Finally seamed the blocked shrug. I think it came out pretty well! Now I want to make another one with DK yarn and with short sleeves. Truth be told, I want to use the Malabrigo Silky that I bought last year in the colorway Indeicita and I only managed to claim 5. Ugh. I can do it I can do it.

Entrelac Shrug

I love the look of Entrelac...addictive and fun, especially with self striping yarn like Noro. For my project, I used Noro Silk Garden and Cash Iroha. The pattern is Dramatic Datewear from Ponchos and Wraps (a Knitter's collection). It was an easy knit. Some people slip the first stitch of each row if they know they have to pick up stitches. At first, I did not, and when it came time to pick up the stitches for the next tier, I just picked up every other stitch. Then I slipped the first stitch of each row to make it a little easier to pick up the stitches. However, I noticed that the latter technique made holes where the stitches were picked up. Not big ones and barely noticeable. But the former techinique left no holes. When I discovered this, I returned to the former method.

For the cuffs, I picked up 36 stitches, instead of the 50+ stitches stated in the pattern (I knit the size small). I used a 2x2 knit/purl rib for 2 inches. What can I say, I don't like knitting rib.

I didn't block it at first; I usually think this is just an extra unnecessary step. Boy, was I wrong. I seamed the arms and tried the shrug on. The arms were tighter than I expected, which wouldn't have been such a big deal, if the back part of the shrug didn't look so short. I ripped out the seaming and steam blocked it on my kids' playmats. Now I am just waiting for it to dry and will seam it later today.