Life in Color Photo – Page 96 – Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.

Stop being a weirdo

More quotes from the kids. They got a hold of my little gnome that you can record things on. Then it changes your voice to a high squeaky fast one. So far they have imputed these wonderful phrases:
"Karsen do you want to marry me?"
"Amber will you marry me?" (that one got huge laughs)
"hey hot honey." LOLOL That one cracked me up. Hot honey? What?
oh he just came in with "hey hot honey wanna marry me?" oh my god these kids crack me up.
Today we drove to the Children’s Museum up in Portland, it’s still really nasty weather and I wanted to keep them busy. When we got home they had to chill with me while I worked. Muffin tray snack time!

I totally copied this from another blog. What blog, hmm can’t remember.

Karsen had Hogan draw a pink heart on her cheek at the museum. She has real style (note the miniature 7 for all man kind jeans, I think I have mentioned before that I love picking out her outfits).

They were very taken with my handspun. I’ll do a real picture of it, but I couldn’t resist this. Tonight is english muffin pizza night, whoo hoo!

p.s. yesterday she told me why she likes my husband, "he always talks to me." Isn’t that sweet.

But are you serious?

After a Sunday of doing as little as possible I took on two busy kids to do as much as possible yesterday. Yup, I’m watching the little munchkins Hogan and Karsen again, now 7 and 3, I can’t believe it! They are as cute as ever, saying the most hilarious things to me. Their parent’s must have told them that this might be the last time I ever baby sit because Hogan asked me that, I said yes, I have my own baby coming now. And Hogan was very excited and said he would be really nice to my baby. Karsen kept saying, "there’s a baby in there? Are you serious?" to which I would say yes, then she’d say, "But are you SERIOUS?" So funny. Watching these kids play is so fun, they are so sweet to each other always saying they love each other, awe. They came over with me to work yesterday and were playing, Karsen made sure that every piece of ribbon I tied on her (arm, leg, whatever, this always is a huge hit with kids at my house) was shown to Bj, or Peeeee Jay. She tells me what she likes; "I like your shirt." "I like your house." "I like your husband." Hehehe, they did tire me out though and I went to bed at 10:30 and fell right asleep. Hogan kept wanting to know while I was putting him to bed if I was going to stay up and knit. He has been interested in my knitting since I first started watching them a few years ago. But I got negative knitting done, as I had to pull out the progress of a baby sock, I could not figure out where I was on the pattern. Then I couldn’t figure out the cast on (figure 8), so I switched to another pattern, and couldn’t figure that out (long tail). So ya, negative knitting. I’m going to find a video to follow along with and hopefully get it going today.

Things I can still figure out how to do, spin! And I got a bunch done on Sunday.

Finished this on Sunday. I decided to Navajo ply it, which I’m not so sure about. This is what the fiber looked like, and I’m not sure I made the best use of it. It’s growing on me though and is super soft. I’m going to have to swatch it up to see what it’s really like.

This Pigeonroof Studios fiber is ready to ply. Since I have to put a different head on my wheel to ply I’ve also got out a bunch of this fiber to play with:

I think I got a pound of it at last year’s Flock and Fiber Festival. Here is what it looked like in the big braid. Kind of a unique mix of colors. Bj is very unsure about how it will look spun up. So I took a chunk out, split it and pre-drafted it:

Here’s the other half already spun:

I think it’s going to be pretty cool. I’m not going to bring my wheel over to the kid’s house because it’s asking a lot for little hands and feet not to "check it out." 🙂 But they have a little camp thing today so I should get a little bit more done. And if I could ever figure out how to cast on I could maybe knit a little.

Wine-ing

Yesterday was a bachelorette-o-rama for a dear friend of mine, Tex:

We made her wear the veil, she didn’t protest too much. The morning started off at her place where I brought bagels and cream cheese. Which were overshadowed by Tex’s lovely sticky buns. She just couldn’t help herself and baked on Friday in 100 degree heat. She’s crazy. Not that we were complaining, mmm sticky buns. Then it was onto the eco shuttle for our tour of local wineries:

Party bus.

Of course I didn’t drink anything (not that I ever would, wine, ewwwwwwwwwww), so I practiced with the camera (ohmygoodnesslearnfestisgettingclose).

It really was beautiful country (all round Dundee, Oregon). One of the wineries set up a table for us and I had planned out a smorgasbord.

Everyone brought delicious fruits, veggies, cheeses, dips, it was so good. It was also SO HOT. Thus I think my favorite part might have been the tour of this:

The underground cellar. Mmmm so cold.

I even got a picture with Tracy (we have the same due date):

I think I am stretching my "normal" clothes to their limits. I am starting to wonder if I will do permanent damage to them, will I? It was a great day to be around friends, but I did push myself a little too far. I was all day gone and on the road, and there will be no more of that for me, I think it was my last hurrah. I just got so hot and tired and uncomfortable by the end, I think I know better now what I can do. And right now that includes watching the Olympics and knitting 🙂

And the winner is – 343

Did you think I’d totally forgotten about the jars? No, no, there were 337. That is everything that was in the garage, which included a couple of boxes from another sale, and a few broken, but still what a haul! Now I just have to finish organizing them and get them full of ribbon and up on my site. So the winner is:
Hollye with a guess of 299
Hollye email me your address please (link to my email address in the side bar).

A couple more numbers: 105, the temperature it’s supposed to be today, it’s already 80 in our house, yikes. I’m using washcloths soaked in water and then frozen to keep cool, drinking lots of water, and standing in front of fans, but still, so hot! Bj’s taking a different approach:

Quick lunch time naps! We have both been getting up lots earlier than usual, so these can be necessary (especially when you get scared awake in the middle of the night, as we did last night. I had been setting twist in some new yarn with a full water bottle and when the yarn dried the water bottle dropped to the floor, scared the crap out of me!). Speaking of spinning: about 324 yards:

Some of that new Pigeonroof Studios fiber, adn the small skeins are leftover things I just plied together to get off my spools. My favorite is this stuff:

It’s so soft and squishy, superwash merino fiber (superwash means it’s been treated so that you can wash it in the machine with out felting). I have this on the wheel now, yum!

And thank you so much for all the baby love. We do think it’s the cutest thing we’ve ever seen, for sure!

It’s not a food baby!!!

Today was our anatomy scan, and what do you know? Our baby has all it’s parts, legs, arms, the whole bit, we’re so lucky!

Excited? Oh just a little bit 🙂

No Shoes… I mean it!

Today I had a very productive day… of the not so fun kind. Last week I had tried to scrub my floors but for some reason I just could not be at all comfortable bending over, kneeling and doing it then. I believe I called Bj at work and sobbed that I was a useless member of society or something like that, isn’t being pregnant grand? Anyway I felt much better today after getting up early (no choice in the matter any more hip pain makes me get up at the crack of dawn – 8:15 am!!!) so I thought I would tackle it. Turns out that the spot cleaning I’ve been doing is no match for a good scrub, so I learned my lesson there: thou shall not go months between scrubbings. And I do mean scrubbings, since I can only use vinegar and water (per the re-finishers instructions, and my mother’s infinite wisdom, of course). I do have a secret weapon called Mr. Clean that I use on gummy stuff I always find on the floor, where the heck does that come from (not Mr. Clean, but the gummy stuff)? So I got out my tools:

And hours and hours later ended up with this:

(actually a different room, the two front ones are pecan, and the bedrooms are white oak, so it looks a little different). All of that led to this:

No more messing around! Certain people, let’s call them family member A and family member B like to wear their shoes in the house no matter what I say! I’ve come up with a plan. If they walk in like always with an, "oops I forgot" I’m going to say, "no problem, I’ll go grab you a pail and rag so you can scrub that spot." Wa hahahahah I still have to do the bathroom. Which you may recall is about eight feet square, and linoleum, blah. Bj did do the kitchen floor this weekend though, so I don’t have to worry about that. I also did laundry, and made up the bed with fresh sheets before eleven pm, which should make Bj happy, for some reason it drives him nutso that I wait so long to put the sheets on the bed ("you wanted to go to bed now? like right now?").

Don’t worry all that cleaning led to some good:

More fiber from Piegonroof Studios. I don’t know how it happened! Oh wait, yes I do, I totally could not stop myself from buying it. So many pretty colors. I am going to stop now though, as I have the Flock and Fiber Festival coming up and I need to have some place to cram all the goodies I’m going to get there. I also got Debbie Bliss: the Baby Knits Book. It’s old, and out of print and after literally six check outs from the library it dawned on me to check Half.com (though it should have before, as Sciarrino is from there). What do you know they had it! This is excellent because I’m thinking the yarn Kay sent me would make a good double breasted jacket. Or maybe the cable and seed stitch jacket (mom, I know, I know, you’re allergic to seed stitch!). The dress I made V is in this book. I made it twice I loved it so much. And there is the simplest little baby sweater in here two that I’ve also done twice. My mom likes one of her other books better, but you really can’t go wrong with any Debbie Bliss baby pattern. I also got a package from a long time blog reader (thanks Rexanne!) full of little goodies. Phew, it was a good mail day!

And I continue to work on the baby blanket in spite of the clear evidence that I will not have enough yarn:

Cool pattern though. 🙂

Thanks Brent!

Yesterday morning my brother called to tell me they had just been to an estate sale I should check out, full of sewing and crafty goodness. So Bj and I decided to take our walk early and go to it. Boy am I glad he called us, the house was a weird sort of time warp. It was right across the street from the big park (about a mile from our house) and looked like it hadn’t been touched since 1972. It was very strange, and we were not the only ones who noticed. Yes a lot of times people have most of their things from a certain period if they are elderly, but this went beyond. One woman was pointing out to her friend that the canned three bean salad was from 1969 in the cupboard. Even the boxes of tissue were old and of the mint green variety. And unfortunately for me her fabric stash was nearly completely 100% polyesters. And there were a lot of them. But she wasn’t just a hoarder, she used everything. She must have been tiny (judging by the pattern sizes), and quite proficient. It think almost all the jumpsuits were handmade. It was so interesting. I did get some great weird orange fabric to make monsters, and this:

A vintage boys pattern, a homemade jumper (love the button details), and some flannel fabric I’ve been looking for to make wipes out of. My favorite find was this:

A little vase with buttons. I cleaned the vase after I took this picture and it’s a very lovely shade of chartreuse.

The buttons are fantastic. I started looking for ones that would work well with the yarn Kay gave me, but couldn’t stop there. I also got some jars with neat lids and a vinyl tablecloth with that flocked backing. You may tell me that the odds of my water breaking in bed are slim but the thought of anything happening to our Tempurpedic (a wedding present from Bj’s parents) sets my head spinning so come December I’m taking counter measures, JUST IN CASE.

I stayed true to my original plan to knit up some handspun I made a while ago instead of diving right into my new stuff. It’s my old thick and thin:

It’s going to be a baby blanket (per Sciarrino’s suggestion), but here’s the thing I very much miscalculated (and I was actually calculating with a gauge swatch and everything) the amount of yarn I have left. Now it seems that I will only get halfway. Of course I’m still knitting on it, why stop now? I’ll have to spin something up to go with it I think, but don’t have any more of this fiber… well, I’ll come up with something. I do love how the fabric is turning out:

Hmm what else is going on besides me getting in a fight with Bj about paper towels (I blame hormones for the over reacting, but really how can you scrub something clean with a paper towel? They are for spills, and besides it’s wasteful). Well my friend Matt came over on Friday and I told him we were having trouble coming up with a good idea for the front pouch. Matt just happens to be an architect, and drew up this in a few minutes:

(not the line drawing, that’s something I did in Photoshop, but the orange). I love this idea and so does Bj. We were so perplexed with what to do with the weird angle of the one side of the roof and I think this will be a perfect solution, AND give us a bigger porch than we thought possible. So excited. I emailed the Cadman to see if he could do some specific drawings. What do you think?

Spun and Done

I finished this yummy yummy yarn, it took a while to dry as it is a bit damp around here (thank goodness, hot gets old to me).

There is so much yarn here! I did about 718 yards, 2 ply, fingering weight? It’s 17 wpi, which means when you wrap it around a pencil for an inch it gets around it 17 times, so it’s pretty thin. I’m thinking socks maybe? There is enough to do something bigger. I mean check out the size of this cake:

HUGE! Here is a Ravelry link for details. I also got something else to tempt me:

I ordered from Pigeonroof Studios, and oh my goodness is it fantastic. Check my flickr page for more of the fiber I could not pass up. Her shop sells out mega fast so I just kept hitting refresh whenever I would walk by my computer. I was going to knit, started swatching some of my older handspun for a baby blanket, but now…

Baby Love

Since I’m not done with the "yarn that will never end" I thought I’d share some lovely little things that I’ve gotten lately. My dad and brother might be more excited than anyone about the little one.

My dad got baby that little mini Roots shirt. I think the days of him coming back from vacation with things for me are over. He was so excited about this shirt, and yesterday he said, "um, it’s not on the blog." hehehe, well it is now. My brother and his girlfriend got us these mini little socks. They are so ridiculously tiny, seriously. As if that wasn’t enough I got a lovely package from Kay yesterday:

All these little sweet things. Including some oil for mama! I think I am going to line that fabric and make up a sling with it, it’s pretty thick. The little onsie is so cute. I am going to need new words for this stuff, but cute just seems right. It almost looks like faded denim, lovely. And I love it when the snaps are off center. The little booties are so so cute too. I just can’t believe the smallness sometimes. Oh and she threw in a little something extra:

Oh my goodness five beautifully soft balls of Jaeger Baby Merino (Ravelry Link). Can you believe I haven’t made baby anything in yellow? I think I might do a cabled jacket and little pants. I haven’t done big cabled things before, but I think I’m up for the challenge, and this yarn definitely calls for something special. Thanks again Kay!

In other baby goodness news Emilie and I wen to Portland yesterday so I could finish registering at Little Urbanites. A few weeks ago Bj and I went there when we were doing our stroller searching (I don’t know if I said already but Uppa Baby’s Vista had everything we wanted – and fit in the car!). I loved going through little toys, lights, blankets, and especially the clothes. Though Emilie did try to tempt me by showing me every single cute thing they had for girls in the shop (including Chase n’ Sky Hawaii, a line by a friend of mine, so beautiful). I kept saying, "no Em, we’re going for gender neutral!" She might have muttered under her breath that she was going to get me a certain ruffled jumper no matter what. A girl after my own heart. One thing is for certain no child of mine will have a "daddy’s little princess" or "mommy’s troublemaker" shirt. I’m not so much a fan of that kind of thing. Organic jumpers? Miniature hoodies (and we already have a cute cute mini white one from Bj’s mom)? Hand knit things? Yes please! I figure I can be a bit picky about the first child, as hopefully I’ll be the most organized this go round.

And it looks like we will be able to do the second story. Check it out:

See that way down there? A footing, boo-ya as Bj would say. We may still be required by the city to jack hammer up around one of our pilings in the basement to check the footings there, but we are almost positive that they are there because we replaced the top part (remember?). So it’s good news. I also have an architect friend coming over tomorrow, and he might be able to come up with something for the front porch (we’re having trouble coming up with a roof line that won’t cover the window at the top). Now off to finish that yarn!

Spinning and Digging

Super busy crazy weekend. Good though, wedding + visits always equal good. On Friday night Sciarrino took me for an early birthday present to Eugene. We went to see this. So wonderful! Beautiful stories of birth, and strong woman we are not afraid to enjoy it! We also went to a fabulous yarn shop (check my ravelry page soon if you want to see the increase in my stash size!) and had Thai for dinner. Thanks Sciarrino it was awesome! We drove to and from Sisters, Oregon on Saturday (2 hours away). Remember that awesome weekend Sciarrino and I had with my mom’s friends a month or so ago? It was at that house, and so beautiful. No I didn’t bring my camera, but it was a perfect day. Picture sun, lots of lovely people, and a beautiful couple. After that excitement I got to see Brett, Michele and V on Sunday. I was just going to pop in, but they were headed to the pool so Michele and I got to have a wonderful chat while V played with her dad in this cute indoor pool. The rest of Sunday went by fast since I was spinning like mad, and yesterday I worked and Sciarrino and I ran some errands. I love having her in town, SERIOUSLY. Although she does try and stop me from buying things sometimes, what’s that about Sciarrino? Mostly I’ve been working on this:

Thought you might like to see how the back yard is coming along. Yeah, right! Well we do have one thing going on back there.

My younger brother Taylor. And two hours later:

Thank god for that tree casting a shadow, it’s about 95 out there. We have to dig down to see if our house has footings. Won’t you please send good thoughts that it does? If not we’ll have to dig down all the way around the house in sections and pour in a footing. That equals time + money. We did get approval for a loan, but didn’t include this in it, yikes! It’s nice to have Taylor here. He doesn’t like to spend a ton of time talking to me (I think it’s the double whammy of me being 10 years older and not that cool, what 17 year old dreams about knitting?). But I got him lunch and we chatted about how excited he is for his senior year, and things he wants to do in college, good stuff. He’s a pretty cool kid I think. What else?

Things are starting to come between me and my feet shots. Well one big thing: baby. I get those daily emails and it is 8.5 ounces now? Something like that. I might have felt the baby, but more than that I feel the uterus, it’s weird, I feel like it’s a big water balloon lodged in my belly. I like to poke it, but I don’t like it when other people do. Yuck. Except Bj, he’s really cute and likes to say hello to the baby all the time. Well off to update Ravelry…

Yummmmmm.