Dream knitting...

Okay, now to show off the fun stuff. I mentioned in my last post how I don't like that this server limits the number of labels I can add, so I can't make my posts as easy to search as I'd like. I'm sure I could get some fancy website that allows me to put as many as I want, but honestly, as sporadically (I'm being honest, right?) as I update, I don't want to hassle with it. If I would just post more often, instead of once every 6 months, I could use them the way I'd like, for individual projects, instead of doing a massive post with 20 different projects. Anyway, I digress...

This post is to share some of what I would like to do next, and what I'd like to do it with. I may have to break this up too, as it's getting late and I have a long list.

First up, I'm going to be making Christmas gifts. I am giving a dish cloth (or 2) to all of my kids' teachers, Bible study leaders, our neighbors, the mail lady; all those people you wish you had gotten something to show them you appreciate them, but maybe waited too late. I think a handmade dish cloth and a wooden spoon and maybe even a jar of yummy jam and a nice note is a great gift for someone you don't know terribly well, but want to acknowledge. I have plenty of cotton yarn, since Michael's had a sale recently and I stocked up.

Michael's sale haul

All the cotton

I just ordered some beautiful yarn from Lolodidit that is going to be a Christmas gift. It's in a tonal pinky-burgundy, and it'll become a lovely Gable cap. I can't wait to see this one completed.

Since I crocheted Bl'aig a stingray for his new room, I'm planning to make a Roxie the Hippo for L'aig's room and a super-cute stuffed train for Blessing's room. I'll be using existing Red Heart yarns for each of these. The idea is to have them complete before Christmas.


Speaking of Christmas, I sing with the local symphony chorus, which is pretty amazing and led by a world-renowned Grammy Award-winning choral director. Each holiday season, we put on an amazing weekend of Handel's Messiah, and then the following weekend, we perform a Christmas Festival, which is usually a blend of beautiful seasonal carols as well as traditional secular favorites, like Sleigh Ride, a Santa sing-along, and fun Christmas standards. For the less-formal fun second act, the Chorus is allowed to wear whatever crazy Christmas headgear they like along with their uniform, so last year I knitted (the week of!) a green and red striped Santa hat. I will have to dig out a photo of it. Many of the singers had different accessories for each of 7 performances, so I decided to try to have a little variety this year. I found some really great patterns on Ravelry, now I just have to find time to make them. I'd like to try for 4 new hats, as I won't be singing in all the performances this year.

More gift knits this year: the thrummed mittens I shared about back in March will be a companion set for my hubby and me. I will probably give him the purple ones, as that is his favorite color. Oh well... Also, more Christmas ball ornaments to come. I plan to make those for the immediate family each year, changing the number and the pattern each year. I might even do different colors eventually.

Last, but not least (at least for the knits with a deadline), is a sweater for my Grandma. Grandma is the one that taught me how to crochet so many years ago. She knits, she hand-quilts, she sews, she bakes, she cans sweet pickles, makes the best chicken & noodles I've ever had, and as a 3-time cancer survivor, she is an inspiration to me. At 89 (she just celebrated another birthday last week!), she has crocheted over 150 hats for charity and over 100 double-layered twiddle muffs for Alzheimer's patients, in one year.

People have heard about her endeavor and have started donating yarn, and some of it is quite nice! We visit her every week, and nearly every time, she tells me to go through her yarn pile and pick out anything I like. I have picked up several skeins of sock yarn (she only like working with DK and worsted acrylic and cotton) and eyelash yarns from her, as well as a few random discontinued skeins of varying wools. Someone donated a brand new sweater's quantity of Classic Elite Provence cotton in a lovely pink shade, so I asked Grandma if she was going to use it. She said she had no idea what to do with it (it's DK weight), so I asked if she wanted to pick out a sweater for me to make for her with it. She picked out this beautiful textured sweater, so I will start on it shortly after Christmas. I told Grandma I'd try to have it finished by Mothers' Day for her.

Those are my immediate pieces. I'm sure I will end up making others before it's all said and done. I might have another Etsy order sneak in there, or a Christmas gift or something. I also need to finish up the blankets I started, make my other Christmas ideas, do some sewing, and get ready to homeschool my twins next year. I think that should be enough for a while.

This will probably be the last of my frantic, must-post-while-I'm-in-the-mood phase. I'll post some photos of the boys' rooms soon, but other than that, it'll be slow and steady on these big projects. Thanks for sticking with me and reading all this. Until next time...

A few new projects

It has been over 6 months since I wrote, again. I promise, I don't do this on purpose. I would just rather spend any time I have to myself creating, instead of writing. I have had a little more time to get other projects done lately as well, now that my older boys are in preschool and my youngest is big enough for Mothers' Day Out. It's only a couple of hours a week, but it's so nice to be able to be out and see the people, or get outdoor projects done during daylight and not have to worry about entertaining 3 little people at the same time.

In the 6 months since I last updated, we have had a flurry of activity around our house. We had a tree cut down in the front yard that was dead. We didn't want to pay for it to be ground (it would have been an arm and a leg), so we left a waist-high stump. My hubby added some mulch and stones around it last year, so we wanted to keep something there. I hope to plant some phlox and sweet potato vines around it/on it next year to make it look nice.

We also had an ordeal with our furnace flu, and ended up paying a pretty penny to get new duct work and flashing done there. I had to call the gas company twice and was afraid of the house exploding, but luckily it all worked out. We are up to code and haven't had any issues since.

My hubby's economical car's a/c blew up at the beginning of the summer, and with it just being a couple of weeks in, instead of paying more than the car was worth to fix it, we opted to buy a newer used car from my in-laws. This depleted our savings significantly, but we're steadily building it back up.

My clothes dryer stopped working on the 4th of July with a wet load in it, and a wet load in the washer, so we ordered a brand new one to be delivered a few days later. I bought that dryer 2nd hand over 10 years ago, so we felt it was okay to replace after many loads of faithful service.

We decided the boys each needed their own rooms, since the twins have basically shared a bed since birth. Our house has 2 bedrooms on the main floor and a 3rd in the basement, which we had to strip the carpet out of last summer when the basement flooded while we were on vacation. With 3 little boys, we always assumed the twins would be fine sharing a room downstairs (once they're a little older) and the baby would take the other upstairs room. This was all fine until the twins started getting upset at each other for every little thing, so we decided it best to try to split them up. Our utility room downstairs is larger than we probably need (we don't need to have it full of stuff, that's for sure!), so I thought it would be cool to have one of the boys move in the far end and partition it off.

We spent nearly all of July and most of August figuring out, painting, collecting items, and decorating the spaces to entice the little people to want to spend time in their new rooms. We moved them in a week before my goal, Blessing's birthday, and they were thrilled. It doesn't always work out the way we planned, but I think we are all much happier now that everyone has his own space. I will try to post a tour of the spaces after this week, which is jam-packed with projects while my hubby is on vacation.

Somehow, with all these unexpected expenses, you would think I wouldn't have had a dime left to buy yarn, but somehow I managed to do just that. I have been making Etsy orders, teaching lessons, and saving my fun money each month to buy more yarn and pretty patterns off Ravelry. I have been so busy trying to stay caught up that I've only finished a few projects this year, but the ones I have finished have been mostly big projects. Many of them have ends to weave in and need to be blocked, so I don't have official finished photos yet, but I will list the ones I do have photos of here:

Knit 29 dishcloths (not all are pictured here...)

 

Knit Cascade Heritage striped teal socks for hubby

Crochet brown beard for Etsy
Knit Gruffalo for Blessing's birthday

Oh help! Oh no! It's a Gruffalo!

Purple prickles!

Crochet viking hat w/ beard for Etsy x 2

I have a huge queue to complete before the end of the year (hopefully), so I will wrap up with a great big end-of-the-year post again this year to show them all. Some of them are gifts, so I don't want to spoil the surprise.

I reread several of my "recent" posts and noticed how I kept saying I didn't need more yarn. Well, I bought tons more yarn. I still have yarn coming that I ordered this weekend. I don't know if I'll be done buying yarn now (I should be), but I'm not going to make any more promises like that. If I buy yarn, I buy yarn. I'm not going to feel bad about it. My grandma keeps giving me donated yarn every time I visit her, so that's not helping with my goals, and pretty yarn keeps popping up on podcasts and sales, so I will not feel guilty for getting something beautiful that I like and will use to make myself a nice piece, or a gift for someone I love. That is all I'll say about that.

I'd like for it to not be six months before my next update, but it may be a month or more, with Christmas gifts, being in the middle of volleyball season (I referee), and the twins' birthday coming. I have many cool ideas to share with you, but they'll have to wait, because it's late and I have lots to accomplish this week. I'll try to take pics of the boys' rooms as I complete them over the next couple of weeks, so I can put in a tour of all the neat touches we did.

Until next time, have fun and be crafty!

Quick update

Exciting times in my life right now, I just have so many projects going, I don't have time to take photos or write about them all. I am part of many knit-alongs (KAL's), and trying to keep up with all of those has kept me very busy lately.

I am participating in a year-long dishcloth challenge (I am working on 1 a week, generally), I did a shawl make-along (completed, but ends not woven in), and I have so much yarn I'm saving for sweater-making this fall. If last year was the "Year of Doing," this year is the "Year of Buying." I've purchased (and won!) my first skeins of hand-dyed yarn, indie-dyed yarn, and all of it is wool! I never thought I would let myself spend that kind of money on yarn, but I've let the envy bug get the best of me. Now I have far more yarn than I could ever use in a reasonable amount of time, so I need to stop buying again.

Here is just a taste of all the projects I need to work on in most of my crafts (i.e., supplies I have that I need to use!):

Cricut:

Farra gift-needs vinyl

Cheryl gift-needs vinyl

Cathy gift-needs painting, vinyl

shirts

pillows x 9

Tote bags

boys' room decor

birthday/anniversary cards

Hall family tree

Tags for Etsy

Sewing:

pillows x 9

outdoor curtains

tumbling block quilt

5 quilt placemats

DPN cozies

DPN roll

project bags

straight needles case

Aprons 

Seat for mud area

Glasses case

Knit dress

Knit top in aqua

Knit top in purple

Knit dress in purple

Yarn:

socks x 15

sock monkey

Striped cat x 2

Striped bunny

beards x 5

dishcloths x 30

Christmas towels

felted slippers

bento box quilt

Christmas balls x 4

Jodi shawl-weave ends and block

So Faded cardigan sweater

Malabrigo sweater

Joji cardigan sweater

Melanie Berg cardigan sweater

Sophie's universe blanket

Sky blanket

Dish scrubbies 

Quarter keepers 

Christmas dish towels-toweling with crochet tops

Update spreadsheet

Pom Pom gloves x 2

Fox paws x 2-kit, palette

Fair isle fingerless mitts

Sheep hat

Genie cowl

Hippo

Mandala 12-point star blanket

Christmas light garland

Hats

Capelet (boucle)

Gator hat

Crazy Christmas hats for Festival x 3

Hopefully, I'll get to make a decent dent in these lists this year. I'll try to post things as I complete them, and do another update soon with photos of the things I've finished lately. Until then, check out my Etsy shop and the new School Spirit items. 

Happy crafting!