Finished Object: Owlies!

These are so freakin' adorable!



I made these for a birthday swap for my February 2011 due date group, and I will be sending them off to New Zealand tomorrow - but I had to show everyone a picture of them first.

The Particulars:

Pattern: Owl Puffs (Rav link)
Yarn: Leftovers! Mostly Malabrigo, but also some soy wool I had as well as some bamboo wool.
Needles: Size 4 and 6 dpns (depending on the owl)
Would I knit this pattern again? Definitely! They take less than an hour to knit - the trickiest bit is getting the eyes sewn on and to embroider the beak. Willow and Piper have both demanded owls of their own, so I guess I need to dig through my leftover ball stash.

Um, yes, I have a large leftover ball stash.

Finished Object: Kathy's Cap

I was on a mission to get this hat finished quickly - and I loved how it turned out:



The Particulars:

Pattern: Classic Elite's Fresco Simple Slouchy Hat in size Medium
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino, 1.5 skeins
Needles: Aero size 5 - 16" circulars and DPNs
Would I knit this pattern again? This is the second time I have knit this pattern recently - the first being for Tara. It seems that I will be knitting it again soon because Andrew wants a slouchy hat like this as well. What can I say - it's cute and comfortable. And doesn't muss up your hair so much.



The Jack Daniels...? Well. My friend Kathy starts chemo on Thursday - what better way to kick cancer's ass than with a cool, sumptious hat and liquour? Good luck, Kathy! I know this isn't going to be an easy road, but we are all here for you.

There You Go, Dad!

Snotty nose and all - but Piper was loving her beets. I gave her ravioli, leftover barbeque pork, and chopped up beets and grapes - and she devoured the beets before anything else. Andrew joked that I should give her borscht next - I wish I could - I wish there was a restaurant around here that served it.

(Now Dad, I know you think you have seen enough pictures of the kids eating, but sometimes that is the only time we are in one place and still enough to take a picture.)

Catching Up

I apologize for the radio silence - we have been a plague ship around here - in very quick rotation, Piper had a stomach bug, an eye infection, and then an ear infection - and then we all caught a chest and head cold.  Lovely.  The worst part of all this is only one of me or Andrew can take cold medicine because the other one has to get up with this kids.

Anyway, this post has been sitting her unwritten for a week - I uploaded the pictures and then life got in the way.  My friend Alicia spun some more fiber for me, and I can't get over how lovely it is:



It's a little more purpley than it comes across in the photo.  It's a good thing that my Mom doesn't like to knit with wool, because if she did I think this yarn would be snatched up before I could even say, "Hey - that's mine!"

Close Up:



I envision a pair of fingerless mittens with these - I believe Alicia said there was about 270 yards of dk weight yarn.  I'm not even sure where I got the fiber for this (no comments, Terilee) - but it's so incredible how Alicia spun it up - I wouldn't have expected this to have come from the bid wad of fiber I sent her.

Thank you, Alicia!  Once again, you do lovely work!

Happy Birthday, Piper!

Piper's birthday was actually a few days ago, but didn't have her party until tonight. It will be interesting going forward - Andrew's birthday is the day before Piper's. This year I wanted Piper to have her own birthday party, but I can see us doing joing parties in the future. At least until the point where she starts having parties with friends.

My friend, Stephanie, made Piper's cupcakes and smash cake, and they were delicious!


The cupcakes for the big people


Piper's smash cake

Piper took some coaxing to get into the cake. Poor thing - she has a terrible head cold and cough right now and is utterly miserable.



She's such a funny little girl - at first she didn't want to get her hands in the cake - would only dig into it with a fork or spoon. She warmed up to it, though - and was soon using utensils and her hands:




I bet you wish you had a whole cake all to yourself!


I have icing on my face? Where?

And Willow - just for comparison :)

Friends with Talent

I am a lucky girl - and even luckier still to have friends who have talents I do not possess. A few years ago, I bought some soft, squishy, beautiful fiber and a spindle with the thought I would try my hand at handspinning. Just look at it:



I had also bought some less fancy fiber to practice with, and as it turns out, my talents do not lay with handspinning. So, this beautiful fiber languished in a ziploc bag in a Rubbermaid bin in my basement. That is, until my friend Alicia received a spinning wheel for Christmas.

Alicia is in my due date group and like me, has two beautiful girls, one of which is a few days younger than Piper. She offered to spin up any fiber we may have so she could practice using her spinning wheel - and I jumped at that opportunity! I sent her up all the fiber I had - and this was definitely this nicest fiber of the lot.

Look what she sent me:



There is about 102 yards of bulky-weight yarn, plenty for a hat for me! Here is a close up:



I can't even describe how squishy this yarn is - it is going to make a fabulous hat.

Thank you, Alicia!