Fun Weekend
14 Nov 2007 4 Comments
in baking, enjoying your children, family, knitting, Michigan State Spartans
I started this Sunday night . . . . .
Man you don’t relieze how tired you can get from having a 5 year old, 2 3 years olds, and a 1 year old around until it happens and not getting much sleep the night before everyone arrived.
My mother-in-law came to visit this weekend and brought our neices with her. Tyler loved having his cousins here to visit. We met them at Twisted Wrap & Skeins, a yarn shop about 30 minutes from our house. My mother-in-law and I both enjoy knitting and feed each other with ideas, so that stop was totall
y for us. You can tell that they are used to having kids come into that shop and the 3 older kids behaived very well. William was also very good. I got some yarn to work on Christmas projects and my mother-in-law and I both got some yarn to start leaning to knit socks. They also gave me a pattern to start leaning with.
After we got home and ate dinner I started my fist pair of socks. I am less than an I have finished the first sock, and started the second one. It is an awesome pattern, especially for a beginner. These are going to be great slipper socks since I used “kitchen cotton.” I am looking forward to starting socks using “sock yarn.”
inch from starting to turn the heel.
Saturday, I made chocolate muffins for breakfast. The kids just ate those up. I was glad that it was nice day outside since we put the coats on the older 3 and let them go outside to play. We watched the 1st half of the Michigan State football game, then after getting the 2 3 year olds down for a nap, my mother in law and I headed back out for more yarn stores, this time in town.
First we went to Material Mart. I was not impressed at all. They seemed a little stuffy to me. Weren’t that much help. We did find that they had some nice knitting needles so my mother in law bought me a pair of size 1, 16″ cable and 24″ cable. They had a decent selection of yarn. I might go back and look over their yarn again, though it is not my first choice of stores to go to.
Since we were unimpressed at Material Mart, we headed over to Granny Square Yarn. That was a little bit more fun. They are going out of business 
, so they had their knitting stuff 40% off. I ended up with enough yarn for another pair of socks. They were very nice in there. I wish they weren’t going out, I would shop their more.
We took 2 of the kids with us on that shopping trip. They both were very good. William had fun finding the toys and things he could play with while we were shoping. (On the left is my stash from the shopping trips.)
When we got back, the nappers woke up, Michigan State won (now are bowl eligible), so we moved all the car seats into the trailblazer and went to the mall for more play time. They had fun playing at the play area. Came home and everyone went to bed much ealier than the night before.
Sunday, I made a yumy blueberry coffee cake. Note to self make again, make again. It smelled so good while it was baking. We made it to church on time considering getting 4 kids and 3 adults ready for church and putting the roast in the oven for dinner.
After dinner they headed home. All the adults agreeed that it was time to go home. I am looking forward to having them come again. We leaned alot about how to get everyone fed and kept happy and got a lot of crafting time in.
Knitting Progress
15 Oct 2007 2 Comments
in knitting, Michigan State Spartans
I finally was able to get pictures of my knitting projects on our computer thanks to my mom letting me borrow her camera last week. On my first blog post I mentioned that I had finished Kitchen Sink. Here are couple of pictures of the project in progress.
Now finished and well used. You can see the needle of another project sticking out of the mesh.
Russ loves blankets and has asked me to knit him one. So here is it in progress.
This has been a fun project. I pretty much did my own pattern, a couple inches of garter stitch then switched to seed stitch with a garter stitch boarder. I was knitting it off 3 cones, but it was really getting annoying so I finally balled the yarn.
It has been temporally put aside because I realized at I was finally was ready to do the bust shaping on my tank top that I have been working on since April. It has been fun learning how to do short row shaping. This project has had a lot of firsts for me — knitting in the round, short row shaping, using stitch markers and large article of clothing for me to wear. I have been carrying this around with me everywhere. I even had it with me at ACLS today and did get a couple of more rows done. I know a tank top in October in Michigan, but as a friend has pointed out it is a great layering piece, just to figure out what to wear over it.
The stitch markers I am using now were given to me by Carolynn , much nicer than the ones I was using. I want to learn how to make some, so I can give them away as gifts especially to my mother-in-law who has also been bitten by the knitting bug. She prefers to just knit, where I like to knit and crochet and have a crochet project I have been working on off and on for 8 years to finish — hum I wonder where it is? A project I should also finish this winter.
Project Plans
17 Sep 2007 3 Comments
in babywearing, cloth diapering, crocheting, family, knitting, Michigan State Spartans, planning
In looking forward to a decent stretch of days coming up in a couple of weeks, fall, and Christmas, I am busy thinking of the things I need to get done. Lets see what is on my to do list
Sewing machine projects
- MSU diapers for William — have the fabric just need to cut them out and sew them
- More diapers for William period . . .
- Make a couple of recycled wool soakers (diaper covers for those who don’t know what I am talking about). Anyone know how to make them? I could use some help on my first project doing these. I have 2 sweaters that are already felted I just need to sew them up and lanolinize them. Looking forward to not having an occasionally wet bed and boy in the morning.
- Fleece pants for the boys this winter. (I have some leftover fabric for these).
- Flannel sleep pants. If Jo Ann’s has flannel$.99 again after Thanksgiving, I think my sisters may get pants again this year. Shh. . . Toi, you didn’t read this.
I think they all appreciated the ones they got last year and I know I could use a couple of more pairs of sleep pants myself, since I wore mine year round and have them on right now. This year will be even easier since I have my serger now. Mom gave it to me for Christmas after I made all the pants last year. - Rings slings. I have some promised slings for baby gifts I need to get finished and I also have a couple of people who would like to buy slings from me. Once again I have the materials around the house for these, just need to sit down and get them done.
- Cloth books I started as Christmas presents last year. Maybe I can actually finish them to give this year. Though my nieces are almost too old for them now.
Around the house
- Finish cleaning the garage so we can get the car in this winter.
- Clean up the clutter — drop of the stuff we are going to donate.
- Put away and sort out what boxes we don’t want to unpack, especially since we know we won’t be in this house more that a few years, like Russ’ at least 3 boxes of stuffed animals that went up to the attic in the garage. I think he needs to get rid of a few of these animals. He would probably say I need to get rid of my books, fabric and yarn. So I guess we are even.
- Routine household maintenance.
Knitting & Crocheting
- Russ’ afghan – He has me making him a knitted blanket, MSU colors of course. I am so glad that I have triple stranded it and working it on #13 needles. It is going pretty quickly.
- Nursing Tank Top from Knitty
- Socks and slippers for our household. I am already finding out the floors are going to be cold over the winter. Russ says it is the crawlspace. I think I have to agree.
- Dishcloths — maybe Christmas presents
- Hats for my boys and self and maybe some mittens too
- Keep working on the crochet afghan I started my senior year of college (Fall 1999), still have to finish it. Maybe I will actually get it done this year. It would be a good warm blanket for Tyler this winter.
Do I have enough ideas — many things I do have the raw materials for, so that will be good for our budget. Then look for good deals on the rest of the items.
Well I should probably get off the computer so maybe I can get some of these things done.
One on University of Michigan Fan
10 Sep 2007 Leave a Comment
For those of you Michigan State fans that read my blog, you will enjoy this story. For you Michigan fans, I’m sorry.
Tonight we went to Walmart. I have kind-of been wanting a new case for my cellphone. We went into the electronics section because Russ wanted to look at something else. So Russ is looking at what he wanted and I started looking at the phone cases — Michigan State cases. So I picked it up. I debated all through the store and Russ finally said – get it.
As we were walking out, a friend from high school and college was working as the greeter. I don’t know what possessed me to say this, but here was our conversation.
Me – “I am showing my colors.” Showing her my new phone case.
Friend – “Mine are better.” Pointing to her lanyard with her name tag that was University of Michigan.
Me – “At least mine is winning.” MSU is 2-0, Michigan 0-2
Friend – I can’t remember now what she said – it was the kicker. I think it was something like “That’s true” somewhat ashamed.
And we walked out of the store. I was laughing, since I was able to come back with a quick, good response.
For you Michigan State Fans
05 Sep 2007 Leave a Comment
I was reading the Midland Daily News web site tonight and they had a great top 10 reasons for why the Univerity of Michigan lost to Appalachian State last saturday.
