Finally Finished Something

I've been knitting a sweater with this yarn longer than I have been a mother.  Yep, I'm that indecisive.  In my defense, though, the yarn (Jaeger Matchmaker 4-Ply) is yummy but an odd weight.  It is somewhere in between a lace weight and sport-weight and it took me a long time and a lot of false starts to find a pattern that worked, but find it I did, and I love the results.

The pattern is the Lace Saddle Tee from Interweave Knits Summer 2010.  The pattern is shown in a linen/cotton blend with short sleeves, but since my yarn was merino wool, I lengthened the sleeves to 3/4 length and it is a perfect "dead of winter" sweater for here in the southwest.  I made the smallest size (33 1/2 inch bust) and it fits well.  I was a little scared when I finished it that it would be snug, but a good washing/blocking smoothed out the much-frogged yarn and it fits well.  It even stood up to the grumpy-kids-hauled-to-Vigil-Mass test because Daddy had a race this morning, so I'm really pleased.

I went to cut out my Vogue 8379 and realized I didn't buy enough fabric, so I'll place an order for one more yard and wait anxiously for it to come.  Luckily there are enough small pieces that I won't get burned too badly by my cheapskate nature.  In the meantime, I've started goofing with some acrylic yarn from my very small stash to make a pillow cover similar to one of these from the latest issue of Country Living.  Don't ask me why I'm obsessed with it, but I am.

Two New Holes in the Wall

After two plus years in our house, I can probably count on both fingers the number of things we have hanging on the walls (if you don't count the random printouts taped up in the boys' rooms). After we did some cleaning up and cleaning out in the garage over the last few weeks, I discovered a box of pictures I had forgotten about after we moved, so today I hung a few things, put some pictures on the piano, and updated the little frames I had on the table in the entry. The end result is this:

It still has a way to go.  Now that I see the pictures, I think the table needs a little more and maybe I need to find one more thing for on the wall.  Unfortunately the front door comes just to the right of the light switch when opened.  I'm afraid if I try to put up something bigger, it will get smushed when the door gets slammed open.  It is definitely an improvement (and a free one at that) and I love seeing the pictures of the kids from our trip up the mountain at Christmas.  I'm amazed I got pictures of all fo them smiling!

{pretty, happy, funny, real} - The Craftastic Edition

I got a box of fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics the other day thanks to Jen, who gave me a gift certificate for my birthday.  It's pretty much been the highlight of my week!

{pretty}

I love this jersey, which is going to be a wrap dress from Vogue 8379.  The color is aubergine and it's a fabulous deep greyish purple.

{happy}

These two sweaterknits and a grey jersey will be tops of some sort, although I'm not sure quite what yet.  Sounds like a good excuse to search the web looking for cute tops.  If you need me,  I'll be on Pinterest :-)

{funny}

I scrubbed my tile floors downstairs yesterday.  Normally I just mop, but every now and then (not really often enough), I get down there on my hands and knees and get all the corners and baseboards.  Why funny?  Because I think it's funny (and more than a little sad) how happy it makes me to see my (relatively) pearly white baseboards.

{real}

I'm holding out my new dress project as a carrot for after I finish this sweater.  This is the sleeve that never ends.  I have 8 more lace repeats and if I could manage to knit more than two rows at night before I fall asleep, I might actually make some progress.

They Finally Made It!

Happy Feast of the Epiphany! 

Our Wise Men finally finished the arduous journey from the family room entertainment center,

across the kitchen,

along the living room,

to the piano to see the Baby Jesus. 

It was nice having the nativity out after everything else went away at the beginning of the week.  It helped remind us that with all the cleaning out and putting away that comes with the new year, we are still celebrating Christmas.  Hopefully you had a wonderful Christmas season and are having a great start to 2012!

PS:  Yes, I know my walls need paint.  All of them. :-)

{pretty, happy, funny, real} - What We Did on our Christmas Vacation

  We were lucky enough to have Daddy home with us for the past two weeks, so we got to have all sorts of Christmas and winter fun around here, even if we did have to drive 1.5 hours to find some snow!

{pretty}

Two handsome boys and a beautiful princess in (hopefully) the first of many mama-made holiday dresses.  I've been hoping for a girl ever since my oldest son told me at the ripe old age of not-quite-three that he didn't like the overalls I was making him for holidays.

{happy}

Aunt Jenny got Elizabeth a shopping cart for Christmas, thus putting her one step closer to world domination walking on her own and finally catching her brothers for a change.

{funny}

Last Thursday, we left our desert home and drove about 1.5 hours across town and up the largest nearby mountain to find snow.  Rather than storing sleds we use once a year (if that), we use the lids from underbed plastic boxes.  They look a little silly, but I at least get points for being thrifty, right?!

{real}

This was the view of my living room on Christmas night.  We are very fortunate to have grandparents who love their grandkids so much, but oh my!  We spent a day a few days later going through and organizing and donating toys, so it looks much better now.

My First (and Probably Last) Sock Knitting

Behold my first, and as the title says likely last, pair of knit socks.  They are Hedera by Cookie A from Knitty.  The yarn is a sockweight superwash wool from Tucson Yarn Company, although I can't find the band to tell you exactly what it is.

I'm going to claim victory on this project, as I actually wore them when we went up the mountain to find snow the other day.  Yes, that's long underwear in the previous pictures - my legs are not (quite) that white!  They are pretty heavy, despite being made of sock weight yarn and lacy, so I don't know how many more pairs of socks I really need here in Tucson.  They were also REALLY fiddly and took way longer than I expected.  They turned out nicely, though, and fit well.