Random B&W on a Saturday

I was playing around with the settings on our digital cameras, realizing that I know very little about the non-automatic settings. To my surprise, I found out that Willow's camera can take black and white shots... so I took some!

Stretch!



No! I will not stand still for you to take a picture!



Pretty Lucky



Willow Smarty Pants



Funny. It doesn't taste like the colour purple.



Helping Daddy build a railroad.



Piper Cutie Pie



You don't need this camera, do you?



Maybe if tomorrow is sunny, I'll try the sepia setting.

Philadelphia Flower Show 2012

We went to the Philadelphia Flower Show this morning, and I was very excited because last year we had to sit the Flower Show out because Piper was only a few weeks old at the time. This year's theme was Hawaii, so for the last few days we kept joking that we were heading to Hawaii for a day trip.

This is what you saw when you entered the convention center:



It's a little freaky, but it doesn't make sense because you aren't getting the audio that goes with it - rushing waves and surf. There were thousands of white orchids everywhere.



I have to say I won't really be gushing about this year's theme. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Really, as dry and gloomy as this winter has been, I was really looking forward to something bright and multi-coloured and tropical. The lighting in the convention center wasn't just dim - it was dark. Half my photos were taken on the 'night time' setting on my camera. Add to that the fact that this was the most absolutely crowded I have ever seen the Flower Show - there were so many exhibits we just couldn't get anywhere near because there were so many people.

Anywho. I did get some great shots of orchids - and that was really the most outstanding thing about this theme - so here are some of my shots:











Going along with the Hawaiian theme, there were some neat floral arrangements dedicated to the volcano goddess, Pele:





If you would like to see more of the pictures, you can go to my Flickr photo set to see the others.

I had two other gripes - first, I didn't see a single vendor selling heirloom vegetable seeds or just other interesting vegetable seeds than I would find in my local stores. Every time I have gone to the Flower Show previously I have come home with seeds for things like golden beets and black cherry tomatoes - so I was diappointed to not see a single vendor. Secondly, I know I am walking with a stroller. I, however, am walking very carefully so as to not crash or bang into other people, and have a wealth of patience for when a break opens up in the crowd so I can get through. For those twits who see an empty spot in the crowd and lunge for it, and end up tripping over Piper in her stroller, you deserve every injury you get. It happened at least 5 times. Look where the hell you are walking! One guy even accused me of following him when he tripped the second time!

Maybe next year I will take a day off work and go on the Monday or Tuesday, after the big crowds have gone through.

Birthday Swap!

I participated in a Birthday Swap in February - the owls from my last post were what I made and sent to my downstream partner. Today I received my package from my upstream partner, which had an adorable little vest for Piper:



Of course, getting her to sit/stand long enough to take a picture was pretty much nigh-impossible today, but trust me, it's a cute vest.



(We put up the gate at the top of the first set of steps this morning, and Piper is fascinated with it.)

There were some goodies for me in the package, too:



I'm intrigued by the chocolate with chili - I've never tried that before. I know the salted caramel chocolate won't last long. And Willow has already requested socks with the yarn my partner sent - my challenge now is to keep my knitting up with her rapidly growing feet! Thank you very much!

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!

Tara's Broken Collarbone Hat

Oh my, I was feeling guilty about this one.

This hat was my project in exchange for my friend Tara making Piper a Christmas stocking. I had bought the yarn well before Christmas, and had the pattern in mind... but just didn't have the time to cast on for the project until after Christmas.



Side view of the slouch hat:



I cast on and sped along quickly at first... but everything ground to a screeching halt. This all started the week after Christmas - I treated myself to a facial, and managed to fall off the aesthetician's table, landing with my left palm flat on the ground, jamming up my shoulder. Knitting hurt. I couldn't do more than a few rounds at a time before my shoulder and collarbone would start to ache. Most nights I ended up taking Advil and going to bed with a hot pad on my shoulder.

Swirly decreases:



But I persevered. I tried to work on it a bit each night, but was starting to feel bad about how long a simple hat was taking me, especially since Tara had finished her part of the swap so long ago. Cue to this week - I had my normally scheduled doctor's appointment, and I told him about my sore shoulder, and how 4 weeks later it really didn't feel any better. He said I should get an x-ray - he had ruled out a torn rotator cuff, but there may be something else causing the continued pain.

Well. Had the x-ray, and he called the next day to say I had a hairline fracture in my collarbone. There isn't much to be done about it - it will take about 6-8 weeks to heal, and I can take OTC painkillers if needed. The diagnosis won't help it heal any quicker, but I am a little better for knowing that this pain wasn't all in my head!

And, although I made extremely slow progress, I finished Tara's hat.

The Particulars:



Pattern: Classic Elite's Fresco Simple Slouchy Hat in size Medium
Yarn: Great American Yarn's Superfine Merino/Silk (50g/143 yards) in cream, 2 skeins
Needles: Aero size 5 - 16" circulars and DPNs
Would I knit this pattern again? YES! I love how this hat turned out - and I think it is a good alternative for those who like the Sockhead Hat, but want something that can be knit with DK or sportweight yarn. In fact, I'm clearing a few other small things off needles so I can cast on for one of these for myself.

And Tara, I'm sorry this took me so long!

Leggings FTW!

I kept Willow's baby clothes. For eight long years, I kept them washed and folded and in Rubbermaid bins. One thing I never considered while hoarding these clothes that I may end up having children in complete opposite seasons. True, both my girls were born during storms - but Willow a thunderstorm in July, and Piper an ice storm in February.

The itty-bitty baby clothes weren't much of a concern - newborn clothes are much alike, regardless of the season. However, now that Piper is wearing 12 month sized clothes, I have run into a problem. Willow's hand-me-down 12 month clothes are summer clothes. We had a high of 39'F today. I washed all of Willow's former 12-18 months clothes last weekend, and secretly lamented that there was so much cute stuff that Piper was just not going to have the opportunity to wear... but then I had an idea...



Leggings! I bought some footless tights at Target and she wore them under these cute pink and white plaid/gingham short-alls. She looked adorable!

Here's another shot:



I'm going to have to go back and find some footless tights in a few other colours - I have 3-4 other paid of short-alls I can dress her in now! Leggings FTW!

The Worst Smell Ever

She looks happy and healthy, doesn't she? The picture completely belies what has been happening around here the last four days. An epic stomach bug attacked Piper's daycare and a bunch of kids, Piper included, were told to go home and not come back until the symptoms were gone for 24 hours. I thought I would be out for the day... cue 4 days later, and I thought I was going to lose my mind (not to mention my stomach) from the ungodly stench coming from my Piper Bean's posterior. It was funny - I thought I was going to get some sympathy from the doctor's office, and what I was told that I was lucky it wasn't coming out both ends. Ah well. As my mother is always telling me, it's one of 'the joys of being a mother.' She's getting better. Knock on wood, we've hit the 24 hour mark. Wish us luck!

Oh No -

I may have spoken too soon...

A First Time For Everything

Well.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I've been knitting for nearly ten years and this had never happened before. I finally finished the project that was occupying my size 5 circulars, so I started on Tara's cream slouchy hat. The yarn is a lovely silk-merino blend, and I was happily and speedily knitting away while Willow and I watched 'Mysteries At The Museum' when I noticed that something was wonky.



See it? No? How about a close up:



For you non-knitters out there, this should not happen! I had created an unintentional moebius by accidentally twisting my stitches when I joined the hat in a ring. Piss piss piss. I had to pull it all out - but not before this happened (and please forgive my scream):



I was holding up the nascent and not-to-be hat to show Willow what I had done wrong and Piper grabbed the yarn. Piper is fascinated by my knitting, and is not happy when I say these are Mama's toys, not Piper's toys. Oh well. Tara - I'm sorry my child flossed her teeth with your hat.

(Oh - And forgive the living room - it doesn't get picked up until Piper goes to bed - it's a sisyphean task otherwise.)

Just Because She Is Cute

I already posted this to Facebook, but I'm going to share this here, too:



She ate it all up! I went easy on the sauce because I didn't want to overwhelm her (and it was a mild Japanese curry roux mix), but she ate everything. What non-baby food can I feed her next?

Those Pesky Resolutions

I find myself looking forward to creating resolutions this year - it's the keeping of the resolutions that is the pesky part. This year is a big one for both me and Andrew. Not only do we both turn 40 this year, but our 15th anniversary is in September as well. With these things in mind, here are my 2012 resolutions.

1) Lose weight. I'm not setting a number here, but suffice to say, it is a big number. My willpower has been fighting a losing battle with stress, sleeplessness, and lack of coordinated time to have Piper and Willow cared for so I can exercise. I have already taken steps to alleviate some of these things, and I am really looking forward to exercising again.

2) Either finish or frog all UFOs. I could not even give you a rough estimate of forgotten and neglected works-in-progress I have in my bins. However, it is getting to the point that I can't locate needles I know I have to start a project... because they are languishing somewhere else. And other than 2 projects that I have prior commitments for, no starting a new project until one is finished! I frogged 2 things this morning.

3) Try a new recipe once a week. I am in such a food rut. If you have anything you think I must try, pass the recipe my way.

4) Declutter. You have no idea how much this is bugging me right now. Part of it is just Christmas and how we have to move things around to accomodate the tree, etc. - but a large part of it is we have a smallish house and a lot of stuff. Add a new member to the family, and the stuff increased exponentially. I need to start with the kitchen/dining room. I have seen some neat ideas on Pinterest to maximize storage, and I am looking forward to implementing them.

I think that is good for now - and if you have any suggestions or advice, pass them on - I could use all the help I can get!

And In Conclusion

Forgive the blog silence - I have misplaced my camera. I had it on Christmas morning, but then haven't seen it since. Willow graciously lent me her camera so I would be able to finish out the blog for the year.

The year ends with some finished objects - some of these were Christmas presents, others just stuff I managed to finished between baking and not cleaning my house.

I wanted to give Andrew a hand-made gift for Christmas, and I even bought the yarn to make him a hat way back at the beginning of November... but with everything else going on, I didn't manage to cast on for the hat until two days before Christmas. I made a valiant effort, but the hat didn't get finished until Boxing Day.

Andrew's Ribbed Beanie:



The Particulars:
Pattern: Ribbed Beanie by Wooly Wormhead
Yarn: Knottiegirl Superwash Bulky Merino in Spruce
Needles: Size 9 bamboo 16" circulars and dpns
Would I make this pattern again? Sure - it was easy enough. I'm not terribly keen on the rippling edge - I think if I had knit the cast on rather than doing long tail, it would have been firmer. I also changed the decreases - I didn't like how the decreases ate up the purl columns on the first decrease, so I decreased on the last two knit stitches and left the purls intact until I had a 2x2 rib.



I also finished the first pair of socks of my own design - and as much as I like these socks, you can't see the lace pattern in the yarn. I might try knitting these up again in a solid or semi-solid and then I might publish it. These will be a gift for someone.



The Particulars:
Pattern: My own - unpublished.
Yarn: Unique Sheep Footprints in 'Chocolate Kiss.' I'm not sure where I got this yarn - it has been in my stash for a while.
Needles: Size 3 Harmony dpns. I rarely knit socks entirely on dpns, but my size 3 circulars were otherwise occupied.
Would I knit this pattern again? Yes - with some tweaks.

Incidentally - these are Willow's feet - at age 9 she has women's size 6 feet!

My second attempt at a cowl - I am still not sold on them for myself - this is the second one I have tried, and the second one that was meh on me. I like knitting them, however - round and round - makes lace easy.



The Particulars:
Pattern: Diamond Leaf Cowl by Mosaic Yarn Studio
Yarn: Loops and Threads Sante Fe Roving in Scarlet Stripes (discontinued yarn) - acrylic
Needles: Size 7 Knitpicks 16" Circular
Would I make this pattern again: Yes, but definitely in a less bloomy/fuzzy yarn next time. I was a little short - the pattern called for 4 repeats, but I ended up with 3.5 and then had to start the purl rounds to cast off. I am not sure who this is for - it doesn't look fabulous on me. Right now Willow and Piper just play with it. Any takers?

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Some closing shots -

I know it looks like Piper doesn't have any hair in most of the pictures I post on this blog:



But I assure you, she does:



It all just resides at the back of her head. So far, her hair is stick straight - doesn't even curl when wet. This picture doesn't give a great idea of colour, but I think she may end up being a fair apricot/strawberry blonde when it finally comes in.

We were at the zoo today, and oddly enough, there was a melting ice sculpture in the middle of the picnic area:



There must have been a function the night before at the zoo - and as warm as it was today - in the mid-50s, there was still a lot of definition and sharp lines on the statue.

That's all, folks - 2011 has been an exciting, stressful, game-changer of a trip. Let's hope things calm down in 2012 - I have enough plans of my own I want to accomplish.

Cinderella Intermission

Willow and Piper were putting on a performance of Cinderella - Willow, of course, was Cinderella (in her Pocahontas costume), and Piper was the Fairy Godbaby. Willow's dolls played the Evil Stepmother and Stepsisters. See how the cat has the best seat in the house from the playard? And I would like to say that I didn't 'drop' Piper. I was supposed to hold her until it was her scene... but the squirmy baby had other ideas.

Piper and The Ill-fated Bacon

Finished Object: Simple Yet Effective Cowl

I've managed to finish up a few small projects recently - but hadn't had a chance to take pictures of them (and some of them are intended as Christmas presents, so you won't see them until Christmas!) until today.

Here is Willow modeling my Simple Yet Effective Cowl:



Which easily transforms into a ponytail hat:



The Particulars:

Pattern: Simple Yet Effective Cowl
Yarn: Lion Brand Amazing (lost tag with colour/lot number) - less than 1 skein
Needles: Size 5 bamboo circulars (16")
Would I knit this pattern again? Absolutely - it's very easy, and after the first few rounds I didn't even worry about toting around the pattern anymore. And while I am pleased with how the stripes worked up, I wouldn't use this yarn again for this project. The cowl itself is a little stiff (although it did benefit from a trip through the washer and dryer).

And can I say I love the top picture of Willow? We got around her natural squinty/eyes closed propensity with the sunglasses, but I have to say I am a little disconcerted at how grown up she looks. It is even more startling when I look at my Ravelry projects page and see the progression of Willow from about age 3 until now. Where has the time gone?