Jonah “Crumb”

Jonah shows where middle C is and then plays a lovely atonal composition with his chin.

 

And just because I was taking a walk down memory lane – he was Nadia’s age in this video.

 

Elephants, I Like Elephants

Nadia is currently obsessed with elephants. She loves the elephants marching in The Jungle Book, she loves the Elephant Song on youtube – she’s just generally crazy about them.

I’m in the middle of two giant lace shawl projects so I took a quick break from counting stitches for about a week to knit this elephant up for her for Christmas.

Cute, huh? And a really fun and easy knit. The pattern is Elijah by Ysolda and it’s seamless which made me super happy. The last time I made a toy (birthday bunny) I was so frustrated by all of the seaming of tiny pieces I swore to never knit plush again. Now, I think I might do a few more for Christmas.

I’ve been dyeing up silk scarves and felted Christmas ornaments this past week like a person possessed. No good photos yet but I should have some up soon.

This weekend we went to a fall festival nearby and Jonah got to ride a real horse. Not a pony, a horse. He was scared but he held on and went around the ring three times. He’s growing up so fast and do so many things on his own. We were really proud.

Well Hello There

Nope. I’m not even going to try to explain other than to say – we’re busy.

Since I’m not trying to defend my lack of blogging, I’m sort of out of things to say. Except to tell you that Nadia’s new word for “toothpaste” is, get this, “pooppaste.” Hahaha!

Fluff

I received a pound of Rambouillet fleece from Julie at Great Wool last week. The fleece was coated and it’s so clean. I’ve seriously picked out maybe 3 pieces of grass. It’s so soft fun to spin. I’m really enjoying the whole process of raw fleece to spun yarn. I think I see a new obsession in my future.

Here’s the wool drying out after being washed,

I’m hand combing a few locks at a time,

and then spinning from the comb.

I’m new to all of this so the yarn isn’t uniformly even but the texture of the wool from being combed and still having a bit of lanolin in it makes up for my bumps and slubs.

I finished spinning a gorgeous alpaca/silk top from Gale’s Art that I bought at The Fiber Studio when I was home in Minnesota. I could live in that store, it’s awesome.

This is 820 yards of fingering weight heaven – destined to be a lace shawl. I just need to find the right pattern.

And finally, I finished the Falling Leaves shawl that I started way back in January. It’s now going into a package for someone for Christmas but I won’t say who.

Peter took this picture – tell him he did a good job!

Is It Possible? Could It Be?

Why yes, it is new b/w photos. Finally! However, these weren’t developed by me, even though I have the means to do so. A lab in Daytona (Speedway Photo) was kind enough to process three rolls for me. Unfortunately, I found out a few days ago that the lens I have been using for the majority of my medium format photos is busted and so many of the images didn’t turn out. Argh.

Here’s a couple that did come out okay.

Both were shot from inside the playroom/office of our house in Potsdam, NY.

Cows at a local farm in NY. This is a holga shot but you can’t really tell because I had to crop a bit. Moo!

Just a few funnies – Jonah thought his shorts looked better on his head.

When I was painting my toenails both kids wanted to have it done too. These are Jonah’s feet. Haha!

New Home, New Life

I’m not even sure where to begin but I guess I’ll continue from where I left off.

We have a lovely visit at home in Minnesota. I have a zillion rolls of film to process if I can ever just find the time to do so. I also have a bunch of digital photos to share but I need to wade through them all to see what is worth keeping still.

The house is wonderful and large. We still have some boxes left to unpack and we’ve been exploring our new town and the surrounding area. Of course, we went to the beach right away. I was ecstatic, I’ve missed it so.

So here’s a couple of silly shots of the kids the first day in Florida. They found my snorkle gear and proceeding to figure out how to put it on all by themselves. Goofy kids.

One more silly shot – a friend of mine who lives nearby went out for drinks. We discovered that there really is a Monty Python’s Holy Grail. However, we still don’t know what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.

Bye-bye New York

The kids and I are flying home to Minnesota for the next week or so while Peter and his dad load up the truck and drive down to Florida.

We’re looking forward to seeing family and spending some time at the lake. I’ll see y’all on the flip side!

Hiatus

With all of the craziness happening in the 4-6 weeks my blogging here will be sporadic. We’re busy right now getting ready for a garage sale. Most of what’s being sold are the kids’ baby clothes – it was hard to put price stickers on some of those teeny tiny clothes. *sniff*

We’re officially out of Potsdam on July 15th so that means once this garage sale is done we will be in mega packing mode.

Here’s a shot of Jonah and Nadia on Jonah’s 4th birthday having a “birthday hug.”

Nadia in a pirate kerchief amidst the everyday mess of our house.

Fiber Update Overload

I have a bunch of Finished Objects (FOs) to share with y’all. Some have been gifts, so I haven’t been able to share until recently.

First up is the top down seamless kimono sweater that I made for Nadia. The yarn is a bamboo/alpaca blend that is super soft with a lovely drape and sheen. I still need to block it BUT I don’t think I’m going to bother. She doesn’t like to wear it and I’m not too keen on the kimono aspect of it. The ties bug us both and I need to sew buttons.

This isn’t a garment that she needs in Florida and I just don’t feel that it’s good enough to gift to someone else. So I think I’m going to frog it and make a sleeveless dress for her instead. For my first sweater ever it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

You’ll notice on the sweater there is a felted flower pin. I made that for my grandmother for her 81st birthday.

Up next are my very FIRST pair of two-up, two-at-a-time, magic loops socks. This was a fun and challenging pattern. I’m not sure how I feel about the yarn – it’s Happy Feet which is not as expensive as some sock yarn, however, if I were to become one of those knitters who knits a lot of socks I think I’ll need to find a nicer base yarn for my projects. These were for my mom for Mother’s Day.

More on the sock front – I made these for my sister (pattern from a sock book that I can’t recall the name of right now) for her birthday and I got them out to her just a day or two late. Yarn was kettle-dyed Essential yarn from knitpicks and it was nice but (there it is again) I think some fancier sock yarn will be needed for future socks.
The toes aren’t crooked – I just put them on twisted when I was trying to snap a quick pic.

Currently in progress (UFO – haha) is a Spider-Man hat for Jonah. The kid is obsessed with Spider-Man. He’s getting nothing from us but Spider-Man stuff this year and I think he’ll be in little boy heaven.

In regards to spinning fiber, I’ve been a busy, busy bee. I had a brief flirtation with a Hitchhiker Wheel that I bought via craigslist. I thought it would be perfect for me. It’s portable, easy to store and many people have said that they can make anything from bulky to laceweight on it. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t the wheel for me.

I think that if you have some experience with spinning and you have a good, solid wheel at home, then the Hitchhiker is a great travel wheel. But since this was going to be my ONLY wheel and because it does have so many “quirks” that one needs to adjust to, it just wasn’t the time for me to own this wheel. I sold it a few days later on Ravelry. So long, Hitchhiker, I hardly knew ye.

I was spinning some lovely BFL combed top from Knit Knackers up in Ottawa. It’s all finished now and as soon as I’m done knitting up Father’s Day socks I’m going to knit myself a pair of socks with this yarn.

I had a great time spinning a fabulous BFL batt from my friend, Marilla. No photo right now but it’s an aqua green color with sparkles and super soft smooshiness. That was spun with the idea of socks too – maybe yoga socks.

Right now I’m spinning up a soft and light grey batt of BFL and mystery fiber (I think it’s Corriedale) for Peter’s Father’s Day socks. One skein has been washed and finished and the second skein is waiting to be rinsed and dried. Photos coming soon!

The wonderful person who is loaning me her Ashford Traditional just brought her Majacraft Suzie over yesterday so I could play. This is a swanky, lovely wheel and I thought that if I tried this one, then all other wheels wouldn’t be good enough for me which would be super bad for my wallet.

Things were going smoothly until I tried to change the drive band to a different ratio. Now the drive band keeps slipping and it’s making me a bit crazy. Maybe she and I have just gotten off on the wrong foot? I have a few more weeks to practice and to see if I can get things to even out. 5oz of fiber should about do it, right?

And finally, my latest project was a nuno felted scarf. Nuno felting is when you felt fiber to a open weave fabric. It was quite a bit of fun but I think the scarf I had made it more difficult than it needed to be. Apparently, silk gauze is the best fabric for this and I think my scarf was organza – much more difficult to felt fiber to. I’ll try to needle felt the parts that didn’t completely attach and see if that helps.

Because the fulling causes the scarf itself to shrink, I don’t think that this will end up being something that anyone can wear. It is quite lovely, however, as a small table runner.

I have 3 rolls of 220 film that are judging me severely for not having yet developed them. It’s on my list to do this week. Hopefully I’ll have some more b/w film photos coming up soon. Yay for you if you managed to make it this far!

The Future’s So Bright

They gotta wear shades.

The kids practicing for Florida early one morning.

Nadia in a cute dress.

Btw, I’m sorry about the “related” videos on Nadia’s most recent walking video. I have tried changing the title and adding specifc tags to get rid of the icky ones that come up but stupid youtube is still showing nasty vids after her video is over with. Next time I’ll be more specific. I really wish there was a different video uploading site that was more private (but still free).