But I got gauge...

I started to stitch together Max's sweater yesterday...and it looked like this:


Long arms, short body. The ribbing would only add 4 cm. GASP!!

So I frogged the front and totally reknit it yesterday, during my son's playtime at the mall playarea. Last night, I looked at my beautiful Goomba face on the back and decided that I would use a size 10 needle and just frog above the Goomba face. I am hoping (crossing my fingers hard!) that it evens out in the wash...I will block it better this time! I miss my top-down seamless knits :(

No Whining Zone

My house has a No Whining Zone. Actually the only rooms where whining is allowed is in my children's 2 rooms. Respectively. And I am very happy to say that it works.

Today, I took my son to the local mall playpark and he made lots of new friends and had a grand time...so much that he did not want to leave. He cried the whole way car drive to our house that he did not want to go home and he wanted to go back to the playpark.

I reminded him that because we were home, he had to go to his room and finish whining. I closed his door, he opened it, I went into my bedroom to make the bed (better late than never, right?), locked my door and listened to him complain that my door was locked and he wanted to go back to the playpark. When I finished with the bed, I opened the door, asked him if he was done whining. He looked at me and whimpered a bit. I picked him up (mommy hugs always helps the whinies go away), carried him to the kitchen and asked him what he wanted for lunch. He chose Chef Boyardee Raviolis.

Now it is quiet and the whinies have returned to Whiny Land. I know they won't stay there but at least I and my kids know that if they return they are not allowed in the No Whining Zone.

No Crying Over Dropped Stitches

I wore my Corntastic Equinox the other day. I loved the way it felt against my skin. So light, I didn't even feel it. It was heaven.

That evening, I was taking it off and I was horrified to see this:

I dropped a D*** stitch!

I figured out where the stitch was dropped...how did this happen???

Well, being me, I decided to frog the whole top. Yes, the whole top. Besides this little oopsie, I've decided that the top is too holey:


I am going to reknit the top and close the stitches, i.e. twist the yarnovers when I purl them.

I am not as upset as you may think. I like the yarn and it frogs well, the pattern is easy, I like the results (aside from the holey-ness), and I've learned that you can't make a decent length sleeved top with only 550 yards. Good times.

It's Apple Hill Season!

I took my children to Apple Hill on Labor Day Weekend. My brother visited us for a few days and it was the first time that he has ever visited this wonderful place. We went to High Hill Ranch first. My children rode ponies (I am sad to say that I think my daughter will outgrow this soon...almost - it cost me $6 PER CHILD - GAH!) and got their faces painted. We visited the Fudge Factory and bought some nummy candy.



Then we headed over to the Larsen Ranch - a new ranch for us. We visited the museum there, where we saw some old cars, farm equipment, a covered wagon (rebuilt with the original hardware). We talked to a man whose father owned the original parts to the wagon. Also, there was a bison head on a wall that I had to take a picture of.



We also saw the oldest apple tree in Apple Hill. Believe me, it looked ANCIENT.




It was a nice day. My husband is missing out on our traditional visits to Apple Hill.

Flower without a cause

My daughter planted a pumpkin seed this spring. We were both really excited to see it bloom. She had high hopes of a nice big pumpkin to carve for Halloween. I am sad to admit that this will not happen. None of the flowers that bloomed in this precious plant have turned into a pumpkin. Now it is dying. I don't know how to break it to her.

Max's sweater: Goomba

Max is a Nintendo fanatic, especially Super Mario. He finished the Super Mario Galaxy - the WHOLE GAME (with Luigi and everthing) which is quite a feat. I think there are about 125 worlds or something crazy like that. He's defeated them all.

I fell in love with Rowan Kids. I was originally looking for a hooded vest for my daughter. I have this nutty idea to make one in blue with a wildcat paw print in white on the back. Fridays are Spirit Days at her school and she is always looking for blue clothes to wear. Given that she is a girl and always liked pink and purple, this has been a challenge. I figured what a perfect excuse to buy some yarn (snicker), practice my newfound seaming skills, and do some colorwork.

Rowan Kids is chock full of cute kids' patterns, sizes 5 - 12. I purchased one at one of my FLYs after looking high and low for an appropriate pattern. I thought surely it would be easy to find a pattern with my specifications: hooded vest, pullover, in worsted weight. Nope...except for Tait that is included in Kids. Finding a pattern for Max's sweater was such a bonus.

I am knitting Iggy. I am using Plymouth Encore Tweed. I thought that I would just knit it plain with no embellishment. However, when I knit, my mind wanders to the person that I am knitting for. In this case, I could not get Mario Brothers out of my mind and it occurred to me how cute it would be to knit one of the characters on the back. I came across the Goomba Hat Pattern on Ravelry. It's just a hat with a Goomba Face. I decided to put the face on the back of his sweater. I stranded the yarn for the main part of the face; I will use duplicate stitches for the eyebrows.

So far so good.

(Less) Holey Equinox

I am almost finished knitting the Equinox top. It is a very well written pattern and very easy to follow. The only modification I made was twisting the purl stitches after the YO rows (K*, YO, P1, P3tog, P1, YO), starting at round 9 for 10 inches after the front/back/sleeve separation. I knit the sleeves and bottom of the body as written (purling the YOs from the previous row).

So instead of:

(K*, YO, P1, P3tog, P1, YO) repeat around
Next 3 rows: (K*, P5) repeat around

I did the following:

(K*, YO, P1, P3tog, P1, YO) repeat around
Next row: (K*, Ptbl, P3, Ptbl)
Next 2 rows: (K*, P5) repeat around

This made the fabric a little tighter.