Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny! I am s l o w l y knitting a Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan for Hannah. I find it just about impossible to knit and nurse a newborn at the same time. 

I started reading this i know by Susannah Conway. Amazing book! I recommend it to all. 

The in-between time

I am in a period of waiting these days. Baby is due in a month, and I just spent a month on bed rest. Little one decided she was in a hurry to be earthside and I went into labor at 31 weeks. Strict bedrest has bought me and the pumpkin another 5 weeks. We are both doing well and I am officially off of bedrest now.

Now we wait. Every day I think this could be the day. Every night I go to bed wondering if our children will wake to find a new baby sister cuddled in bed with mama. I hope baby continues to stay put for a while longer. I am also anxious to meet her. I want to snuggle with her, kiss her downy head, and spend hours with her nursing and blissed out.

I am in this weird in-between state. Thoughts of baby and labor and baby stuff are always just simmering below the surface. The bubbles rise and pop and I am suddenly lost in baby land. Life seems a bit surreal at the moment. Life is going along as usual, and in the blink of an eye there will be a new member of our family. A new little one that will be tiny and adorable and monopolizing of my time. I always worry about finding a balance between meeting the needs of my husband and older children while meeting the needs of a nursing newborn. It will all work itself out, but in this time of in-between, the worry consumes me. I have been knitting and writing, all in an effort to remain present.

These are the warm woolens for baby I have knit in the last few weeks:

More is on the needles and I have yarn on the way for an adorable little cardigan for Hannah.

Yarn Along

The knitting is a little sweater for our baby, and the book is Daybook by Anne Truitt. Lovely book!

Weekends are for knitting

This weekend was filled with knitting. Christy and I are knitting for the baby, and I will post pictures of those items as they are finished; cute little sweaters and hats and longies.

I took a bit of time to knit for me as well. Hand knit wool socks are the very best! I adore the colors of this yarn! It is Blue Moon Fiber Arts-Gertrude Skein color way. I always think of this yarn as Gertrude's Garden though; lime, mango, and plum, with almond and coconut. Maybe I should call it Gertrude's Kitchen! Yummy!

Listening to this and reveling in the day...

The way things change, and balancing it all

(photo by Jack)

I have been away for awhile. Life has brought many changes to our household. Last spring, my older children decided they wanted to go to school. This was hard for me to hear, but I have worked so hard to raise children that were confident and strong and ready to make their own decisions. I started looking around at schools and found a fantastic charter school 35 minutes from our home. It is a K-12 school and small. I love the school, and when my littles decided they wanted to try it out too, I let them. I enrolled all four of my children in school and got a job interning in a kindergarten class at the same school. This stay at home mama now works full time and goes to school full time.

It has been a huge adjustment, with many tears all around, but things are going fairly well now. I miss my children horribly, and life seems so much busier now, but I have seen such growth in us all. The older children are adjusting better than the younger, and I expected that. We keep plugging along, and my littles are doing better every day.

There has been no baking, or knitting, or Making of any kind (except at Christmas, what a glorious break!) and we are all feeling the absence of it. Our lives are lacking simplicity, and my struggle now is to find ways to simplify, while living our current situation.

This lovely long weekend will be devoted to Making and reconnecting and getting back to our family roots.

Weekends are for knitting

We had a lovely, blustery November weekend here. Lots of rain and wind and then snow. It was perfect weather for homemade soup and bread and knitting. I finally finished the first sock of this pair. They are for me, and I started them last fall. Maybe by next fall I will have the completed pair.

Yarn Along

Ginny from http://www.gsheller.com/2010/11/yarn-along.html has inspired this post. I finished this dish rag yesterday. I love hand knit dish rags. I just started reading this book. I bought it because of the cover picture (I know it is covered up, sorry!). Maddie from Persisting Stars took this photograph and I have been enchanted with it for a long time. When I heard it was being used on the cover of this book I had to buy it.

Knit-less

The last couple of weeks have been rough. I have been so busy and I have not taken the time to relax. I miss my knitting time. Knitting is good for my soul, it makes me a better person. I am a better mother, wife, and friend to myself when I knit. During the week I usually have too much going on to knit, but weekends are for knitting. During the week I homeschool my children, raise and nurture them, cook mostly from scratch (I do on weekends too), run errands, take the children to various lessons, and go to school full-time myself (thankfully all of my classes are online at this point). Weekends are for knitting, and baking, and Making, and just slowing down.

The last couple of weekends there has been no knitting or slowing down, and I am really feeling it. I have been knit-less and I am not happy about it. I do not think it would be wise for me to wait until this weekend to knit again. I am going to go bake some chocolate chip cookies, make myself a cup of tea, and knit... my homework will still be here tomorrow.

Yarn Along

Ginny from http://www.gsheller.com/2010/11/yarn-along.html has inspired this post. I am reading this lovely book to my children right now. The knitting is a sock for my husband.

Weekends are for knitting

We are having a delicious rainy weekend around here. This weekend has been exactly what weekends should be. There has been lots of knitting and watching movies and Making. The children and I made soup and flat bread and cake and apple pies. We spent Saturday evening at my sister's house playing cards and laughing ourselves sick. We took the children to a farm to pick pumpkins. We came home with boxes of apples and pears and raspberries as well. Our home is overflowing with simple abundance! I bought some cute little quilted crystal, four ounce glass jam jars that I put tea lights in and placed on our kitchen table. They are sparkly and warm and cozy when lit. They make dinner time just a bit more magical. The children are all painting at the kitchen table right now, creating joy and love. I think I will start another load of laundry, bust out my watercolors, and paint with my babies. I adore weekends!

It is in the making of things...

{"If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little - somebody who is obsessed by Making".
e. e. cummings
I find such joy in the Making. These pictures are from some of the Making moments this week.}

Weekends are for knitting

This has been a glorious Autumn-y weekend full of knitting and baking and Making. I finished a pair of socks for myself. I love them so much! I made homemade broccoli soup. I bought a grain mill and ground my own flour. I have bread dough rising in the kitchen. I can smell the yeasty goodness and my children are so excited for the flatbread I will make for dinner this evening. Life is grand and beautiful!



pattern: Yarn Harlot's Basic Sock Pattern
yarn: Lorna's Laces
colorway: Trick or Treat
needles: US 2

Weekends are for knitting

Weekends are for knitting

Aah, Autumn! My very favorite time of year. The beginning of so many things. For my husband it is football and hunting season. For me it is knitting and homemade soup season, both of which I enjoyed this beautiful fall weekend.

Poor Nutkins

I tried, really I did. The nutkin sock is just not progressing. Every time I try to work on it I just get frustrated and I want to banish my children to their room. I cannot concentrate on the pattern when I have children constantly talking to me and climbing in my lap and needing me to put the knitting down for a minute to help them with something. I do not want to be frustrated with my little ones. They will only need me so much for a short time.

I adore the yarn so I think I am going to RIP it and them just knit plain stockinette socks with it. I will save more difficult socks for when the children are older. I am ok with this. :)

Weekend knitting

John is elk hunting today and he needed an orange beanie so I whipped this hat up. I knit almost the entire thing on Saturday. I only had a few rows to finish it up but my hands were aching so I went to bed and finished it up on Sunday.


pattern: LTK Pumpkin Hat
yarn: Lion Brand
colorway: Orange
needles: US 4 & 6
modifications: I did not knit the green stem on top.

And-

My Very Own Shiny Sock Club (MVOSSC) November 2009

I totally stole the yarn and pattern idea from the Yarn Harlot. Nutkin socks and Dream in Color Starry yarn. My colorway is November Muse.

Finally!

I have finally finished the socks I started for myself forever ago. I love them and am so happy to actually have knit a pair for me!


pattern: Yarn Harlot's Basic Sock Pattern
yarn: Socks That Rock Lightweight
colorway: Rainforest Jasper
needles: US 2

My Very Own Shiny Sock Club (MVOSSC)

I love the idea of sock clubs. The new yarn and pattern all put together just for you. I have never joined one though because I have very definite ideas about what yarn fibers and colorways and patterns I love. I only knit plain socks. I have knit one pair of ribbed socks for Krull and the rest have all been simply stockinette socks. I adore stockinette socks. While there are a few here and there that catch my fancy, I find most patterned socks unappealing.

In an effort to capture the joy of sock clubs for my self and to broaden my knitting horizons, I have decided to make my very own shiny sock club. Each month (or two or three) I will choose a yarn (either from my stash or somewhere else) and a pattern (or not, some may end up plain) and knit. I am very excited about this! I have already chosen the pattern and yarn for November and will start as soon as the yarn arrives. It is absolutely beautiful and I cannot wait for it to appear in my mail box!

Moths!

Horrific little buggers! I have been seeing a few moths here and there the last month in our house but I just thought they were coming in from outside because someone is always leaving the door open. Last week I found a couple of wormy things in a ball of my yarn and went berserk. I looked through everything else I have and never saw anything even remotely suspicious. Still though... I had Toby throw away the infested ball and then I managed to stuff a third of my stash in the freezer. I have been rotating stash through and haven't found any evidence of bugs. I didn't realize I had so much yarn. It is a beautiful thing.