knipicks sale and other goings on

Hi Everyone! After a month long absence I'm back for a short catch up session. We've been super busy with work. It seems that we alternate weeks where we work late so the other one is frantically trying to catch up on things. I did manage to get my fair isle mitts done and I'm pleased with how they turned out. Sadly it has been too warm to wear them but far be it from me to hasten summer's departure.

With it being so hot we haven't spent as much time outside as usual, but our garden has certainly done well. We're winding down on cucumbers, the tomatoes seem like some ripen everyday but we have to stay on top of it to get them before they go too far, and the squashes are just starting to be ready for harvest. A few days ago I harvested three butternut and three delicata squash to start curing. Once they are done they should last for about five months, though I doubt it will be that long before we eat them.

I also got three melons though I don't think they were quite ready yet so I'm letting them ripen on the counter for a bit. We started a batch of pickles and they're pickling in the basement for another week before we can them. I'm excited to see how they go. We sort of threw in a bunch of spices and we used some white and some red wine vinegar to get extra flavor.

On the knitting front I've been sneaking things in here and there. My big finished object of late is the baby set for Josie's baby due in September.

I used the Flower Hat and Cardigan pattern by Susan B. Anderson from my Itty Bitty Nursery book. It was fun to knit but the yarn was a bit of a pain just because it was nubby and the nubs sometimes didn't want to pull through so I'd have to do fiddling to get them in the loops properly. It was worth the trouble, but I don't know that I would use the yarn again. It was Queensland Cotton Soft Wave. I did the flowers and vine with Spud & Chloe sweater which is amazing. It is my go to yarn for baby knits now as it is machine washable, super soft, and comes in a huge range of colors.
I'm working on the Spud & Chloe at the Farm set. I've finished one mouse, the body & head of a dog, and an eggshell for a chick. I'm just making a piece here and there between other things. Today I cast on for a baby hat for a shower this week at work. It will be the Cherry-O pattern from Itty Bitty Hats and I'll share as soon as I've finished.  After that I have two bear hats to knit for a set of twin boys due the beginning of November and a pumpkin hat for another boy due in mid-November.  I'll have another to knit for in December due to a friend of mine who had her first son about a week before Maegwin (she said apparently she likes December babies).  I want to do something special for her though and she is having a boy.  I'm thinking of doing the same sweater as above but in blue with a sailboat and maybe have a rope wrapping down around the buttons with a little anchor at the end.  I dunno, I'd have to design it so it will take some time and thought.  Whew, so many babies!

Maegwin has been really getting into summer fruit and we're having a piece or two a day. One in the morning on the car ride to daycare for her breakfast and then one on the way home. Their snacktime is around two so by the time we pick her up at six she is ravenous. It's a nice change from the crackers she was usually snacking on. We also found some soy bites, thanks to my friend Shelly, so we have been incorporating those into our food as well. They are really delicious!



We also rounded out Maegwin's room by adding the papasan chair I had in the nook and buying her a table. She insisted on helping put it together.

She took the screws and put them into all the holes very meticulously.

We asked her if she knew how to do it and she gave us this look like "Yeah, of course this is how you do it."

It was pretty fun to watch her get so excited about it. I put the stools together while she and Daddy worked on the table.


She insisted on using the wrench and trying to screw things in herself.

We had a good time doing it together. Unfortunately she is still too short to get up on the stools herself but I see years of fun in the future with it.

Of course when we were done, we had to do a victory dance.


I've also recently attended the Knitpicks sale at their warehouse. We got there super early because Mom's group heard that last year they let people in early. No such luck this year so we had about an hour and a half to kill. The unfortuate thing was that it was blazing hot at noon and I had no sunscreen. Since I had got in a car with Mom and Aunt Lynn, I didn't have my usual store of useful things that I keep in our car. I had to settle for putting my Sling RePete bag over my head and hoping for the best. I'm sure I looked like an idiot but I didn't get a sunburn so I call it a win. We finally all started lining up and we were the second group in line. We heard that there were only 18 boxes of yarn and the line was back as far as I could see. They also had lots of books and some bags. There was a fabric sale going on as well in a different section of the warehouse. I went straight for the yarn boxes and was surrounded within seconds. They basically cut small holes in the tops of the boxes and many of the skeins had no labels. As you can imagine within minutes of the crazy frantic pawing everything was in tangles. I managed to get a bag of blue wool and some Risata sock yarn which is what I wanted then I got the heck out of there. It was just too crazy for me. I don't understand the mania of shopping like that. I headed to the book area which was much more serene. My strategy for getting people to move was recommending books to them that I saw them with which I already own and could vouch were good. They would then take the book and move on, leaving me with a nice open space to peruse. I think I bought about 20 books at $1 a piece and a few hardcovers at $3 a piece. As I was going up to check out I saw a Namaste Bitty Bag on the $5 table. It just had a broken strap but apparently that was enough to dissuade people from purchasing it. Not me! I regularly get my shoes repaired so I knew I could take it to the tailor and probably fix it for a few dollars. (I was right-I dropped it off subsequently and they are going to fix it for $8). Overall I'm glad I went but probably wouldn't again.

ABC

Our little Maegwin has a few new tricks up her sleeve.  First, she's learned to say her ABC's though she gets a bit muddled after S.

She can also count to ten but we've yet to catch this on video. She learned it from Daddy while I was working late during close week. So amazing! We don't know if she is advanced or not but she is the only one who talks in her daycare room. The teachers say she is what keeps them sane because at least they can chat with her during the day. hehe
We've started getting tomatoes out of the garden, roughly 10-12 every couple of days. They are so delicious! Mostly we get cherry tomatoes and romas but we've had a few beefsteak and orange smudge ones as well. It's a delicate balance of leaving them out long enough to ripen but not long enough to start to rot in the heat.

We also have about ten butternut squashes on the vine and four delicata squash as well as four or five melons. They are hard to find in among the vines but the vine is still covered in blossoms so we expect a good crop. It's so nice to actually get things from the garden this year and it was just the confidence booster we needed to keep going. At least we've managed to get the animal problem enough under control that we can harvest things. Next year should be even better!

We are also enjoying the development of Maegwin's sense of humor. She can find the silliest things to do with everyday objects. For example we were cooking a few days ago and had her in the high chair nearby so she could watch the action. She wanted the bag from the onions and kept calling it a hat. Silliness ensued.

She was being very sanitary while cooking.

Then she started posing.

What a crazy girl!

We bought some markers to draw on the windows..but Maegwin had other ideas.

It's ok, they're washable and she had a great time.

I think we've started a trend though because her daycare reported that they were using paint and she kept asking to paint her belly yellow.

I finished my fair isle gloves I talked about in my last post and they are awesome. I love them!


I don't know what I was so scared of-they weren't that hard at all. The most difficult thing is letting the floats be loose. I used some grey and pink alpaca gifted to me by my friend Gwen that matches a scarf she knit for me. Yes, Gwen, I finally did something with it! I've already cast on for a pair of socks in fair isle for Mom's Christmas present and they are even easier. That left hand is getting the message that it doesn't get to slack off anymore and has to work for its knitting living.