Happy Independence Day!

July 4, 2009 at 9:48 am | In Ladybug, Pigeon | 1 Comment

Stay safe out there! And please be considerate of any neighbors who have small children who don’t like loud booms in the middle of the night!

Home Again Home Again, Jiggity Jig

May 22, 2009 at 2:02 pm | In Ladybug, Pigeon | 1 Comment

Hubby’s Grandpa passed away last week, more than a month after his heart attack (when the doctors gave him on average a week to live.) We zipped on up to Chicago for the funeral and family togetherness. I brought some knitting ripping knitting and ripping to do, but didn’t have much time to get it to a very photo-worthy point. Maybe next week, my friends.

So instead of knitting, I bring you kids playing at Millennium Park.

OMG Momma, water!

Self portrait of the family as reflected on the inside of the Bean

We saw one of Chicago’s famous residents. (Which, by the way, the Art Institute was free because of the opening of the new modern wing. We were ecstatic.)

But none of its famous knitters.

Now, if only it hadn’t taken 10 hours to get there and 13 hours to get home again.

Everything, except I’m sure I forgot something

May 6, 2009 at 9:54 am | In Ladybug, Socks, knitting, me | 2 Comments

I feel like blogging!

First up – the Monkey socks. Ripped. They were spiraling in a way that annoyed me. The yarn is much happier now as a 60 stitch stockinette sock. Boring, maybe, but at least I’m satisfied.

Second topic – Ladybug! She hasn’t made much of an appearance lately on this here blog. It’s time to remedy that. She had a little “Spring Tea” concert at preschool last night, and boy was she cute!

They had us all packed into one of the little classrooms, and we got to sit on the teeny tiny preschool chairs.

Thirdly, Hubby is on Facebook and is totally addicted to it. It’s so cute how thrilled is gets when he finds someone he knows or knew 10 years ago. But in the pretty cool category, he found a friend from college who lives in the same town as we do, and has two kids close in age to ours. We met them for dinner on Saturday night!

Finally, my surgery. I had my gallbladder out on Friday, and now I get to tell you about it! (Warning, pictures behind the cut.)

Continue reading Everything, except I’m sure I forgot something…

Done, but not

March 4, 2009 at 4:14 pm | In Ladybug | 3 Comments

I’m at that point where I’m mentally done with my Chevalier mittens. So tired of the cabling. Tired of the red yarn. Done done done. But they’re not. I still have half a mitten to go. I probably missed the last snowfall of the winter. They would have been great for our snowball fight on Saturday.

So today I procrastinated by winding yarn. I had to wind up a second hank of the Cascade for the mitten (same yarn as Ladybug’s mittens, dontcha know) so I wound up the second hank of KPPPM for the Flutterby socks and recaked some laceweight that I’m planning on using for the Cardi Cozy.

So instead of depressing everyone with talk of being sick of my knitting, and why I’m not going to cast on 4 different things right now (couldn’t find a pattern worthy of the Manos Silk. Didn’t want a scarf. I’m just picky, I guess.), I shall discuss someone else’s crafting.

Michelle. She’s made stuff recently for my girls, but she also made a couple things for Ladybug a long while ago that I shall talk about.

I don’t really know when this picture was taken (I put the date into Flickr that I thought was close enough). I don’t know what yarn she used, and it’s not on her Ravelry project page. But Ladybug wore the heck out of the hat that Spring/Summer/Fall, until she outgrew it and it was put into the hat basket. Pidge wore it a lot this fall, until the weather got too cool. I remember watching Michelle freeform crochet the flower onto the hat.

A pair of baby booties, given to us at the same time. Ladybug also wore these until she started wanting to walk, and then they were put away. We didn’t get any pictures of her wearing them, and unfortunately, Pidge won’t be able to. I was a big FAIL when I put these away. They ended up in the box of 9-12 month clothes, and were in the basement all this time (I hunted and hunted for them, but only found them when Pidge got the clothes upgrade.) and something made lunch of them. You can kind of see on the right bootie near the toe, but there are more spots. I feel like such a schmuck.

See, I managed to not knit the mittens some more! So now I can go cut up some potatoes (interestingly, for a red potato recipe that I learned from Michelle. Small world.) and get ready to go pick up the girls for another evening at home.

OOEEOOEEOOEEOOEEOOOOOO… WAH WAH WAH

February 18, 2009 at 11:22 am | In Ladybug, Pigeon | 3 Comments

The good

A friend of ours sent a package with hand knit and sewn gifts for the girls!

A Sheldon (in Ladybug’s favorite colors!), a Pea Pod (look at those cute green buttons!), a sewn portable drawing studio with gorgeous fabrics that didn’t make it into the picture, and some yummy looking jelly. (Sorry the picture’s not the best. Hubby doesn’t know how to focus on the knit stuff. Me, yeah, I’m peeling an orange for Ladybug.)

The bad

I’m a bad blogger. I finally fixed the hole in my Poms, and I didn’t take pictures. But I’ve learned something very important: DO NOT just knit past a knot in a ball of yarn. You will hate yourself later.

The ugly

Dude, the flu. ’nuff said.

Another Random Friday?

January 30, 2009 at 2:49 pm | In Ladybug | 2 Comments
Tags: random

How shall I weave all that my brain has to offer into a gently flowing narrative? I’m thinking a list.

Picked up Ladybug’s Swirly socks again, have made it past the heel. It was totally inspired by my desire to try this short-row heel technique. I only ripped out the heel 5 times before I got it right. Still not feeling the short-row love, but it’s something I’d like to have in my arsenal. (For the record, when she’s talking about “active stitches”, she is including those ones that you just made.)
Started making Ladybug a tutu. Luckily I bought tulle on a spool, but cutting it into the right length is still tedious.
Desperately want to run out and buy lots of cute flannel prints to make cloth diapers. Having sewn exactly 2 things in my entire life, I should probably rethink this desire. However, I’ll be at Mom’s on Sunday. She knows how to sew, and has a machine that can actually do a zig zag stitch. In other words, if I’m gonna do it, it needs to be done right now!
I love our new house, but it would be nice if the whole house humidifier that I was so stoked about actually did something. I know that I screwed up and forgot to actually turn the water on to the unit, but I fixed that recently. I’m still getting shocked every time I go to open up the fridge. (Not enough to be a food deterrent, though.)

And a picture for your enjoyment:

Compare that to the ones of Pidge in her sweater.

Happy 4th Birthday, Ladybug!

January 19, 2009 at 8:11 am | In Ladybug | 2 Comments

I’m so sorry you’re sick today!

Keeping Pestilence Warm

January 7, 2009 at 11:41 am | In FO, Ladybug, knitting | 3 Comments
Tags: child, mittens

Even a rider of the apocalypse needs warm hands.

Pattern: Basic Pattern for Children’s Mittens (Rav link)
Yarn: Cascade 220 in a lovely shade of “Plain Red”
Needles: US 4 for the ribbing, US 5 for the body
Size: Small (child 4-6)
Started: 12-15-08
Finished: 1-7-09
Mods: None. Simple and lovely basic mitten pattern. I chose it because it was simple and lovely and had a thumb gusset. Not pictured is the Idiot string I attached to the two mittens. I don’t want these little buggers getting lost and stepped on and dropped on the floor of Daddy’s car.

This girl has gotten us all sick again. I took to calling her Typhoid Ladybug (but hubby didn’t get it.) We’re all hacking and coughing and today she’s running a fever too high for her to go to preschool.

ETA: Got the yarn ready for my next project! Ooh la la, I love my new ball winder!

Ooh, A Package!

December 11, 2008 at 12:40 pm | In Ladybug, Pigeon, yarn | 2 Comments

One more reason why I love our new house – a locking mail box for packages. If we get something in the mail too big for our little box, they put a key in there for one of the two locking package mail boxes. (Of course, our town/neighborhood is pretty safe and low crime. I’ve never had anything stolen off the porch, but it’s nice to not have to worry about it at all!)