Yes, This is a Knitting Blog, Why Do You Ask?

Well, you might ask that because there hasn't been much knitting content lately. We have gone through another busy period, and my ability to work on my knitting projects has seriously suffered. I've reconciled myself to the idea that until the kids get older I will not get terribly much knitting done. I don't feel that bad about it. Afterall, they are only young once, and I want to enjoy this time with them. I anticipate that in the not-too-distant future that I will be waiting during dance lessons and soccer practices, allowing me a lot more knitting time so I am just holding out for that. I have been doing a lot of craft projects with RJ, as way of keeping her entertained and indoctrinating her into the crafting/artistic lifestyle. ;) I will have to take some photos of those projects and post them, even though they mostly aren't yarny crafts. RJ's birthday is the day after mine, so I have been doing lots of baking. Here are the cupcakes I made for school. It was a "bug/garden" theme, so I made these in striped cupcake papers with a flower on the bottom, and then decorated the top with the yellow frosting and put a gummy bug on it. The cake mix was "funfetti" with colorful sprinkles. They loved them!

Girly Things

I finally finished the Anouk I started for RJ ages ago. I fear that it is now a bit too small for her, but I have a second chance with Iva so no harm done. I need to find some leggings to go under it, but with spring coming up a matching color should crop up somewhere. My girl has also gotten pretty picky, and didn't seem that excited about it. I blame grandma, who has taken to knitting with sparkly purple and pink yarn. It's hard to compete with that! I used some standard kitchen cotton (Sugar 'N Cream) and made the 12 month size for width and the 18 month size for length. RJ is nearly 4 years old, so the fact that it is a bit short is not surprising. ;) Details on my Ravelry project are here. I still love this pattern, although the kitchen cotton was hard on the hands when making a larger garment. The smaller version I made using the same type of yarn didn't bother me nearly so much.

RJ keeps asking me to knit things for her, but given the luke warm reception of this dress, I am not too inspired. She did ask for a sparkly purple scarf, so I am (gasp!) buying fun fur (Bernat Disco, if you can believe it) from someone on Ravelry to make her that. If she ever wants evidence that I truly do love her, I can just tell her how I knit with fun fur for her and that should prove it!

Halloween Post A Few Months Late

I am really behind on posting my 2010 projects, and now we're already into February of 2011! For Halloween I originally wanted to make RJ's entire costume from scratch. I quickly ran out of time, so I bought a strawberry fairy costume with matching tights. I then crocheted a matching hat using this cute pattern from Playin' Hooky Designs. I used some red and black kitchen cotton from my stash and some Lion Organic Cotton in green. I changed it a bit to flare out more, to accommodate RJ's big hair, and added a picot edging. I love how it turned out and she received tons of compliments!

A Little About Me

It's been a long time since my last post for a variety of reasons. Teaching, a two-week vacation (in which knitting actually got done), and other things. I really want to update you all on everything, but I find that I have no knitting, vacation, relevant photos to do so, so for now I will at least get back into posting with a fun quiz that was posted by Karoline of Karoline Knits.

1. What's your staple meal (ie. what meal do you cook most often when you can't be bothered to be adventurous) ?
Right now, it's homemade pizza or pasta sauce. For the pizza I make whole wheat dough from scratch, and from there it's easy. Just add tomato sauce, herbs, cheese and whatever is in the fridge that sounds good. The possibilities are endless. If I am feeling uncreative and pressed for time I open up a jar of spaghetti sauce, add some fresh vegetables and herbs and makes some pasta. As long as I doctor it up I don't feel too bad about the dinner from a jar thing.

2. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Is it boring to say my current job, a college professor? It took me a very long time to get to this point and I really enjoy it (most days anyway). My plan is to retire in 30 years and travel the world.

3. What book are you reading at the moment (if any)
I just read Having Faith and was deeply affected by it. I am now finishing reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. I love his writing style. I primarily read nonfiction. I actually love fiction, but find that it is too engrossing and I don't get anything else done. I can enjoy nonfiction, but it doesn't take over my life (J.K. Rowling, you know I'm talking about you).

4. How do you relax?
I zone out, watch one of my favorite TV shows, and knit.

5. What color are the interior walls of your home?
We are trying to paint all the rooms, but much of the house is still builder's white. The living room is light tan, dark tan, and smokey blue. Our master bedroom is off-white, and our master bathroom is dusty purple. RJ's room is blue and her bathroom is yellow. Our entryway is light blue.

6. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
I love pastries of all kinds. Give me a cup of coffee and a pastry and I am in heaven

7. What time is bedtime and getting up time?
Lately I've been going to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 pm and getting up at 6:00 am. I am still adjusting from being 3 hours ahead.

8. How long do you spend reading blogs (per day or per week)?
Not a whole lot of time, maybe 5-10 minutes? Ravelry and other internet stuff, however, probably wastes way too much of my time.

Here is proof that my daughter is destined to be crafty. She found my old poncho and insists on wearing it, even though it fall off. I am making her one of her own now, in pink and gray.

Birthday Yarn

It's been a really hectic few weeks, although mostly things have been going well. I had a big event I planned for my department which nearly 300 people attended and it was a big success. We've also had other good things happening at work and school. The only negative was a recent bout of illness. I was just catching up with the grading I missed while planning the event when RJ got really sick and the hubby quickly followed suit. We missed work and school for a couple days, they both ended up needing antibiotics, and no one slept well for days. It was rough, but now everyone is on the mend.

Unfortunately, all this stuff going on has meant no time to blog. I am finally blogging now about my birthday yarn, which I got at the beginning of March! It was such a fun day. A couple of friends and I went to Alamitos Bay Yarn Company on one of my furlough days and then went out for sushi for lunch. Yum! It was especially fun to go yarn shopping, because in the month of your birthday you get 20% off your purchase at Alamitos Bay, so I went a little crazy (for me anyway). Here is what I bought:

First, I got the new Interweave Knits. It has some great patterns, including one by my good friend Anne Lukito from CraftyDiversions. I love her Rose Window Beret! I also got some navy blue acrylic blend yarn to make a sweater for RJ, and two skeins of turquoise Brown Sheep Serendipity Tweed to add to two I already have. I plan to make myself the Transverse Cardigan with the Serendipity Tweed. I got enough for a whole project of those two yarns. I also got a skein of Blue Sky Alpacas in orange to use in addition to some other cotton yarn to make RJ the dotted chicken from Itty Bitty Knits. If I like the yarn, I may pick up more to make RJ another sweater. She seems to favor orange and pink when picking out clothing. Along the same lines, the pink skein will be combined some Blue Sky Alpacas in a slightly darker pink/magenta to make a tonal striped hat for RJ for next winter. I may even add a fun feather topic like this hat to add some fun. The yellow and green is a washable cotton yarn called Cottontail made by Classic Elite that I picked up to play around with. It seems like it would be a good baby/kid yarn. Of these last few yarns I got a skein or two to try them out. If I like them I will probably go back and buy more for a bigger project. That, and the yarns were all so luscious and soft to touch I probably got a bit carried away. Seriously, how many hats, toys and sweaters does one child need? Based on this photo, probably lots. She is a born shopper:

Birthday Exhaustion

The reason it has take me so long to post is that we have just ended our one month of birthday celebrating at my house. My husband's birthday is February 16th, mine is March 12th, and RJ's is March 13th. It seems like there has been nonstop celebrating and planning since forever, but that's mostly because I planned parties for both my husband and RJ. So, this Saturday was the overblown, kid-centered, party for RJ's second birthday. The theme was "Old MacDonald" so I was generally going for anything farm-related. There was a bounce house (which had palm trees and was not farm-themed, but oh well), rented tables and chairs, animal cupcakes (sheep, cows, pigs, & chicks), and balloons.

I sewed RJ a little shirt out of red gingham and had hairbows made in cow print with a red accents. Here she is modeling the shirt I sewed. Sadly, the hairbows kept falling out in the bounce house. Boy, does that girl love to bounce!

I got flowers at the farmer's market and made flower arrangements in small galvanized pails and watering cans.

I don't want to bore you with photos of everything, but it was pretty much out-of-control crafting. I made bean bags from felt for a bean bag toss (which we never got to, the kids refused to leave the bounce for anything but food). There were goody bags decorated with a hot glue gun, ribbon, and scrapbook paper with horses on it. There was also a pig pinata and tons of food, most made from scratch. We had over 20 kids show up and at least as many parents. Thankfully the work was worth it and it was a big success (according to the guests and the guest of honor), and now I am exhausted. I have done some knitting these past couple weeks whenever I could squeeze it in. I also want to post about an FO I finished over a month ago for which I finally got some modeled photos. More on that next week, after a restful and hopefully uneventful weekend.

Katja for My Princess

I don't suppose it comes as a surprise to those of you who know us that we are spoiling our little girl. We are now suffering the consequences, as we try to train her to sleep in her own bed and not ours starting this week. The result is that none of us are getting much sleep. Before she was born we vowed that our bed would be off-limits. During the first few months she slept in our room, but had her own bed. Once she moved to her crib we were doing just OK with our vow, only bringing her into our bed around 5:00 am or so, just until she woke up for the day. Then I broke my foot, and she has slowly been taking over our bed ever since.

I am also spoiling her in the knits department, but to be entirely truthful baby knits are so much fun that knitting projects for her are just as much for my enjoyment as they are for her. Gauge, what's gauge? As long as it's bigger than she is now, it will fit her someday. Also, a child can wear lots of things that are no-no's for adults. Garishly bright colors? No problem! Slightly see-through? Throw on a onesie and leggings underneath! Baby knits are also a great way to use up small amounts of yarn or have fun with a yarn that would cost too much to buy in a quantity large enough for an adult sweater.

With that in mind, I am currently working on katja from Knitty, Spring 2006. Could I wear a knitted halter? Probably not. But on a tiny little girl, this will look too cute. I started with a small ball of a silk/cotton blend yarn in a lovely mauve/pink color that I Marie passed along to me. I then bought two skeins of Dale of Norway Svale, which is a cotton/silk/rayon blend. It has just a bit of shimmer and the color is a rich, dusty purple. The result so far is this:



I think it looks girly, but not too cutesy. I have enough of the pink to do the bottom band as well. I think the two colors add a bit more interest. I hope to finish this soon so she can wear while we visit my family in Wisconsin in July.

Hogwart's For The Weekend

Sorry for the long blogging absence. I didn't do that well with NaBloPloMo and then was overwhelmed with other stuff. I have lots of things to blog about, but I've been swamped with grading, my duties on a departmental hiring committee, and preparations for the holidays. Gotta love the end of the semester! Soon my parents will be here and I should have more time for reading blogs and posting.

A few weeks ago the whole family attended what can only be described as the most authentic and fun re-enactment of Hogwart's ever. Wherever possible, our lovely hosts did there best to make it feel like we were really there.

Saturday was the Quidditch World Cup, and my husband's team (Ravenclaw) made it to the final game, along with Hufflepuff, that was to be played on Sunday. Part of our admission to the World Cup got us a pouch of wizarding money, which we could use to buy spirit items (flags and pins), picnic lunch, and of course sweet snacks (licorice wands and chocolate covered newt's eyes, yum!).

Sunday we donned our school robes and waited admittance for the school year. I was a first year, so had to be sorted (Gryffindor, yay!). Next we had the usual beginning of the year feast. There was French onion soup, salad, shephard's pie, and trifle for dessert. Oh, and I can't forget butter beer! It was a fantastic meal. After our meal we went to our classes. I had potions, ancient runes, and charms. Here is my wand (from charms). Pretty fancy, huh?


Following classes, RJ and I rooted for the husband's team in the Quidditch Championship game. They won, leading to much celebration! Here they are, playing hard for the championship:


Finally, we had the awards ceremony at the end, in which Ravenclaw won the house cup. Gryffindor finished last this year, despite our resounding win at removing garden gnomes from the forbidden forest (we captured 50!). I think our poor performance at trivia was our real downfall, but we're not really known for our brains. Here we are at the awards ceremony, waving our Ravenclaw flag.

An Update

Thanks for all the concern about RJ. She is feeling a lot better, although she's still massively clingy. Some days I feel like I've grown a new appendage, one that's really cute and babbles a lot. I'm glad she finds me comforting, and I hope that being home together over Thanksgiving break will give her time to fully recover. We will have family visiting as well. My brother-in-law and niece will be arriving late tonight and will stay until Sunday. We are quite excited about their visit, particularly because my husband's family lives so far away we hardly see them (they are from a Carribean island).

I apologize for the lack of craft content. I am behind on blogging about my latest crafting adventures (it's difficult to do these things with the appendage), but I hope to catch up the next couple days. First, I need to show off all the fun crafting from the truly off-the-hook Hogwart's party we attended. Second, there's the sewing from last weekend's get together with Theresa of Knitting Underway. So this won't be a completely boring post, here is RJ's post for her 8 month birthday. I can't believe she's so much bigger than the bear now!

Pumpkin Day Hat

OK, so most might define my lack of posting for the past few days a failure for NaBloPoMo, but I would argue that I'm just making those who are posting every day feel better about their accomplishment. Are you buying that? Probably not.

On Tuesday, RJ screamed and cried when I put her in the car to go to daycare. This is very strange behavior for her, particularly in the morning. She usually coos and laughs all the way there, then reaches for her favorite caregiver when we arrive (no separation anxiety there). That day she just clung to my arm and cried before we even left the garage. She had been sick for several days, so I suspected she had an infection. Sure enough she has another ear infection (her third in three months, poor thing). I also noticed that one of her bottom teeth was finally poking through. So she had the double whammy of the ear infection and teething. :( She is finally starting to feel better, so I am back to posting.

I will leave with the crocheted pumpkin hat I made for RJ for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I made up the pattern myself based on a couple different ones I found and a leaf pattern I looked up in a crochet book. I used cheap Red Heart Soft Yarn in Tangerine and Leaf. What do you think? (In the bottom picture she has stolen daddy's wand; he dressed as a Hogwart's student for Halloween.)

The Cold, Such As It Is

Obviously I'm not following the NaBloPoMo creed to the letter, as I have been unable to post every single day. However, I have been posting more often, so I'd argue that I am following in the spirit of NaBloPoMo. Anyway, I will recap my very busy weekend tomorrow for you. It was a doozy, with nearby fires and a huge party inspired by Harry Potter.

Lately, we've finally been getting some "cold" weather here is SoCal. Maybe not so much this past weekend, but the week or two before. It's been just chilly enough in the mornings that I've finally been able to let RJ wear a bunch of her cute handknit hats. This is one of the cutest, made by Zona of Twirl Girl Fibers (ravelry link). I'm not certain, but I would guess that the yarn was spun and died by Zona as well.



Isn't that adorable? She usually doesn't pull it off, which must mean that it is pretty comfy too. At daycare they wait each day to see which hat she is wearing, since she has so many cute ones. Sadly, the weather is warm again, so no more hats for now. What we really need is some good rain, to put out all these fires!

Happy and Playful

Thanks for the suggestions for things to do with my scraps of yarn. I am anxious to start something new actually, so I will likely be casting on with some of this yarn soon.

Anyway, I have clearly fallen off the NaBloPoMo wagon, but hope to keep up for the rest of the month. The weekend was extremely busy and RJ really keeps us on our toes (in a good way). She really is quite delightful to be around. Usually on her daycare sheets under "today I was feeling" she usually has circled "happy" and "playful." Can you see why?


She doesn't get her easygoing personality from me. According to my mom, if I had been in daycare they would have circled "sensitive" and "tearful." Thankfully, I outgrew that. I try to keep the crying to a minimum, even during faculty meetings.

Not Like Me

Unlike me, my daughter is black. In my mind she is German/Caribbean, or multi-ethnic, but because her father is black the world will see her as black.

Unlike me, my daughter will grow up in a neighborhood where people from different countries, ethnic backgrounds and races all live together.

Unlike me, my daughter will grow up in world where a black man was elected President. It is no longer just a possibility, it is a reality.

Thinking about the possibilities open to her and the new world we live in brings tears to my eyes.

Comfort in Tough Times

Anyone else feeling nervous about the current state of the world? Even though the weather is still rather warm here, all the stuff going on makes me want to knit my family some woolly sweaters to cuddle us. Sure, we'd probably die in the California heat if I actually did that, but I suppose it's the knitters version of a hug. Meanwhile, I am still working on my cotton projects for RJ, which are much more practical for our climate. Anouk is nearly done, with only the pockets left to do.



My original plan was to make the pockets blue with a white flower and orange center, more true to the very colorful original. As I got closer to the end I started to think perhaps white pockets with a yellow flower and orange center might be a good option. I am definitely leaning towards the white at this point, particularly since I have some shirts that it would match really well with those colors.

Also, we are getting ready for RJ's first Halloween. Someone gave us a small pumpkin, and it turns out RJ is huge fan. Evidently, this was much better than her other toys. :)

Sugar and Spice

One "problem" with having a little girl is that I am always coming across cute clothes or patterns for clothes, and I want them all! We just received an order from Gymboree which included some adorable winter clothes, like this jacket with little ears on the hood. Can I get a collective "awwww"?I am also working on anouk, Itchy Fingers Longies, and some baby socks. So, I should really work on something for myself, right? Then I came across this cute knitted halter top on the blog Newton's Knitting, and I totally want one for RJ! She looks SO cute in halter tops, how can I resist?

America's Biggest Threat: Bears!

For those of you who are Stephen Colbert Report fans (and besides Barry Manilow, who isn't?) you know that Stephen has a strong hatred of bears. Evidently, all these months of watching the Colbert Report with Mom and Dad has led RJ to feel similarly about bears. She was sucking so violently on this bear's leg, I'm not sure if he will ever recover:


Don't think for one moment that this is an isolated act of violence against bears for RJ. She has a long history (well for her anyway) of attacking the fuzzy teddy versions of these obviously evil animals. Just look at her during her three-month old photo shoot. This bear clearly had it coming, trying to hog the spotlight during her photo session.


I apologize for the long blogging absence. We are going through what seems like all the daycare illnesses one by one. RJ has been sick every week, and she has been kind enough to share many of her illnesses with me, my husband or both of us. Thankfully, this is just a phase which will surely strengthen our immune systems in the long run. I hope to blog more regularly now that I've lost my voice in the most recent illness. I won't waste any of my time, you know, talking to people. Despite the illnesses, I do have some knitting related content for the blog. I just purchased this beautiful hank of Paca Peds in the colorway Fireside from Anne at the Handicraft Cafe:


It will be the sock portion of this pair of socks for RJ. I started the cuff in a dusty apricot color, but I don't have enough for two whole pairs of socks (I managed to secure a bunch of sock yarn leftovers from my wonderful knitting friends to practice with. Thanks guys!). I think the colors have a very fall look. Maybe I will make a matching pair of mittens for RJ in the Paca Peds?