The sweater continues...

Sweater fronts in progress, Fireside Sweater. I'm almost to the shoulder bindoff part!

October Madness

October is fast coming to a close! I'm making a dash for the finish line on hitting 50% complete on my OWL to get the 50 points set aside for that achievement, which means that this sweater back needs to start knitting itself a bit faster.



It's coming up purple, but it's actually a deep wine red.

The rest of it looks pretty much like this, except the sleeves are done now.



Chugging along.... I'm getting tons of cheering from my friends who want to see me succeed at this, which helps so much!

Meanwhile, it's October, which means that for fiber fiends such as myself in the Northeast it's Rhinebeck time!! This year I went both days and paired up with Barbara of Tumped Duck for the weekend's shenanigans.

We came, saw, and conquered. Barbara conquered a potato on a stick.













I saw a The Dude sweater in the wild (center, way far away) which was knitted in the same yarn I already have to make it with. I won't let it keep me down forever...







All in all the weekend was wonderful as always. I also got some goodies, of course.



click through for notes that label each one!

Now we get to dodge Frankenstorm! I'm in ACTION. I really hope we don't lose power for long, but at least I have plenty of yarn to entertain me. So there's that.

WIP Wednesday, October 24, 2012

No longer a WIP!

Well. I still have to block it. But it's DONE!!!

WIP Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Been a while since we had one of these, but I have something to show AND it's still Wednesday! At the beginning of September my longsuffering Evenstar WIP looked like this.



Tonight it looks like this! I'm about halfway through the border.



After stalling for almost a year at the "before" picture stage, it's so nice to see progress and it's going really quickly too.

By the way... that's a 60 inch cable that doesn't quite go halfway around this beast.

Banana Applesauce Muffins

I put together this recipe when my kids were too young to have eggs. I still like to make these sometimes because, well, I can eat the batter with no guilt whatsoever. 

Banana Applesauce Muffins

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 c. olive oil or canola oil

1/3 c. sugar

1/2 c. applesauce, unsweetened

3 mashed ripe bananas

Spices, optional and adjustable:

ground cinnamon

ground nutmeg

ground cloves

 

Preheat oven to 350.  Lightly grease a muffin pan with olive oil.

 

In one bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Mix with a spoon. 

In another bowl, mix together olive oil and sugar on medium for 30 seconds.  Add applesauce and banana, and mix for another 30 seconds or until the mixture is well combined.  Add flour mixture to the banana mixture, and stir with a spoon until thoroughly combined.  The batter is, I think, best described as "gloppy". 

Spoon into muffin pan, filling each cup about half full.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.  Let cool in pan for a minute before moving to wire rack to finish cooling.

A little light building

It's no secret that I kind of love Ikea. So, when the time came that we decided to upgrade the kids from their mattress and boxspring sets on the floor, we went through a couple possibilities. Do we get, you know, normal people beds, with the headboard and footboard and a cat and a dog and a briefcase and a pleasant housekeeper named Maud? Naaaah. Do we get a prefab bed from Walmart or Target or wherever that will be okay for a while, but eventually be revealed as the one-hit wonder it is and become a burden later? Or... do we go for an Ikea hack??

We hack!

Or, well, something like it anyway. I don't know if this is really a hack since there is in fact no hacking, but these are once and future bookshelves, making storage under twin beds, and that's pretty cool. We bought four 5x1 Expedit bookcases (this is the whole line, they come in quite a few configurations). The bookcases were $59.99 + tax.




The mattress sandwich



Dada's helper


They move fast!


"Bam bam bam!"


One unit in place!


Almost done with the second unit.


Yep.... still almost done.


Box spring down!

As a temporary measure, since this is the last day we have to build these for two weeks and we needed to get this storage solution going, we decided to use ratchet straps ($7 each) from a hardware store to attach the box springs to the bookcases. To protect the bookcases we tucked some scrap fabric under the ratchet straps on the pressure spots. And we can always use ratchet straps later on.


Ratchet strap


Box spring achievement!


Behold, the storage space!


Zee approves of his new bed.


So does Maddie the cat.


And on to the next bed!


More helping... (actually at this point he was freaking out because Spike's mattress was out of the room, even though he tolerated all the moving stuff before this. He calmed down in time to help build the second unit)


So very very close...


It's a bed!


Nightstand, back in position.

The kids (neither of them) have needed those bed rails in a long time, but since we're changing things up on them (get it? up? hehehehe) we thought it might be good to add them back for a bit while they get adjusted.


He seems fairly excited.


Putting some things away


Aaaaaaand done!

Now we can take one, if not both, dressers out of the room so the kids have more space to do whatever it is that they do. Among the plans we have a desk for Spike (now that he's a big kindergartner!) and a swinging seat that suspends from the ceiling for little Zee. Also... curtains. Maybe a set of fitted sheets to go over the box springs too. What else? Who knows!

WIP Wednesday, February 1, 2012

..... February. I thought January would never end and yet I'm surprised to see February here so soon. What's up with that?

This week I have more exciting things to post about for WIP Wednesday. First a stitch marker, one of a pair, that I made to go along with a test knit that I can't show you. It's sparkley and gold and silver and red and very Gryffindor. Plus I used little bitty jump rings and nothing bad happened. This could be the beginning of a beautiful thing.

Waaaaaaay bigger than life sized.

So, the test knit. I can't show you. I can't tell you anything really, except this is fingering weight yarn and a typical sock skein in the 450 yard range should make this when it's published. The beads I bought on Monday, thereby making Spike a little late to preschool (so sorry, education system!) are artfully draped over the top of the yarn cake.  I put special effort into my staging as you can tell by the random crap in the background including my can of seltzer and distinct lack of ability to see the knitted object.

I mean... it's in this picture.....

Shhhhhhhh.....

When my hands need to go and I don't have the mind power for a chart, I'm still picking up my two-color not-noro striped scarf. The yarn is Lion Brand Amazing and I have to say, it's a good name for the yarn because it IS.

Colors are Rainforest and Mesa. It's for my husband to own and for me to steal borrow. I mean, for my husband.

Last weekend we rearranged some furniture and took out the futon that has been in the yarn room for a long time. It went upstairs to the playroom so I could bring in my sewing table!!!!!

It folds up for sleeping as well. Paul found this by the side of the road. It is in excellent condition and I'm really excited to sew. 

Now with TWO screens. You guys. It is made of win.

We also reorganized the stash a little bit.

.... and that's it for today!

WIP Wednesday, January 25, 2012

2012? Can that be right?

What's on the pile this week? Oceanspray is coming along at roughly 6.5% complete based on my adjustments to not run out of yarn.



So far so good....