Sugar Bunny Boulevard

Yarn Makes Us Happy!

A few days ago Emeline and Lila Pearl proclaimed "Yarn Makes Us Happy!" so of course I had to grab the camera to see if I could get them to repeat it.  This is how it went....

For Mom

I'm busy busy dyeing yarn, winding yarn, skeining yarn, twisting yarn, and tagging yarn. 

Hope you're all happy and well and enjoying your summer! 

 

Take good care of every little thing and I'll try to post a few pictures when I don't have time to write!  XOXOXOXOXOX

Where Is Spring?

Happy Friday Everyone!  :)

So it's supposed to be Spring.  The season of renewal.  All over blogland people are suffering from the fact that Winter doesn't want to let go.  Spring is trying to come forth and it's having a hard time pushing past the bully that Winter seems to be this year.

Spring appears to be the season when kids who play spring sports (track and baseball and tennis anyone?) are constantly cancelling practices games and meets because of rain - in some cases, snow.  Sheesh.  C'mon already, Spring!  Let's have a bit of tweeting birds and sunshine!  Where can we rustle up some flowers and butterflies?

Actually, just across the street Mr. W's pear tree is blooming - not quite all the way yet but looking oh so pretty and his yard is FULL of daffodils.  My favorite bulb.  I really need to be thinking Spring Flowers when the weather gets chilly this fall!

I nearly froze to death this morning getting a picture of the pear blossoms.

I've been dyeing and spinning a bit of Spring too.  Wanna see?

Sunshine.  This is the first time I've spun sock yarn that I felt really satisfied with.  How long did it take me to get to this point?  Thank goodness I didn't know how long it would take when I started spinning.  I feel like I've been spinning a looooong time and it's been what.... less than two years?  lol  Finally sock yarn that isn't too thick, isn't overtwisted - it's Just Right.  And beautiful.  Sunny and happy.  88 grams.  395 yards.  Not for sale.

New Leaf.  Dyed to sell but couldn't.  I'm keeping this one and dyeing more.  :)

Apple Blossom

I was trying to do a shop update today but the week got away from me and we've been sick, the rain is getting us all down, and really all I've wanted to do is knit.

Emeline loves to use my camera.  Yes, it horrifies me to see her walking around the house with it but she just begs so sweetly and promises not to break or drop it.  She usually sneaks it out of the kitchen but this morning I allowed her to take some pictures.

She actually takes very interesting and Good pictures!  Here's one this morning of me... what else?  Knitting.

I've been doing some secret knitting and guess what.... you won't believe it.  Pattern writing.  I'm writing a sock pattern that will be available as a kit very soon (I'm really hoping first week of May?).  Very exciting.  I have some other secrets - one that I know you'll find out about... another I'm patiently waiting to hear about.  Fun fun fun and it's all about yarn and knitting and fiber.  Yay!

Having the babies around keeps life interesting.  Emeline is, once again, working on potty training.  No diaper now for about three days.  Several accidents and some long awaited successes as well.  Hopefully Lila Pearl won't be far behind!

Everybody have a wonderful Springy weekend - whether you have rain or the coveted Sunshine!

And take good care of every little thing.  :)       XOXOXOXOXOXOX

Celebrate The Small Stuff

Today we celebrated because Lila Pearl didn't poop in her pull-up!  Yay!

She did, however, strip down and poop on the floor.  I had been out of sight for about three minutes.  It's just amazing how fast those special moments in life can happen.  Warning to new mothers:  Don't Blink!

I said "GREAT!" 

Emeline was horrified.

Daddy said "How can we keep her from doing this when I'm home alone with them?"

Afghan Delivery in Five Days!

Here we go!  The time is upon us - the time for Afghan Delivery!  Yay!

DATE:  Saturday, March 8, 2008
TIME:  5:30pm
LOCATION:  First Baptist Church of Greensburg
MAP:  If you are planning to attend please email me for info/directions
OTHER DETAILS:  The afghans will be delivered and presented at the beginning of a community event being held the evening of March 8th from 6-8pm.  They're hosting the Toney Brothers Quartet at First Baptist that evening.  I'll be setting up during the 5:00 hour and doing a brief presentation prior to the concert.  I'm not finished counting but I believe we have close to 50 afghans to take with us to Greensburg!

At this point, Jeff and I are probably the only ones going, though it's possible one or two others from church might come along.  If you have family in the area who you aren't certain will be at this event and you would like them to receive an afghan please contact me - we can plan to be in town early enough to deliver afghans to those families.

I've arrived at a final decision about care labels.  I'm using a sew-in fabric label that I will print the label information onto.  It's special fabric for quilts that people print photos and everything onto - washable, permanent, etc.  Here's what the label text looks like.  What do you think?  Suggestions?  I'm probably printing these tonight or tomorrow and look forward to seeing how it looks printed on the fabric! (ETA:  I'm checking the date - I think it was actually May 4)

What else is going on around the Bunny Hutch?  Lots of yarn dyeing and I just got another shipment today of my Benjamin base yarn!  Yay!  I've been having fun creating ads for Ravelry too...

The babies have been wreaking havoc all over the house while I'm dyeing yarn and making Ravelry ads.  (sigh)  Here are a few pictures of them not destroying anything or flushing soap down the toilet or any of a number of other crazy things they've done in the past few weeks.

I've continued with with my EPS Immersion.  EPS2 has been knit and finished.  It's a teeny tiny little raglan cardigan made from just one skein of Cascade 220 - big enough to fit about... oh... I don't really know.  I don't have a little baby around to try it on but I think it'll fit up to a 12mo baby.  It's too small for Lila Pearl.  The simple but pretty buttons are vintage shell buttons that I bought at Twist.  That little butterfly of yarn is all that was left over from the skein.  This was my first steeking experience.  Won't be my last.  Won't do it the same way ever again - I had a major steeking panic after cutting when I realized that whatever I did Was Not Enough!  Cut ends floating around = panic! panic! panic!  heh  My biggest mistake was thinking I didn't need to sew the steek as agressively as EZ recommends.  Silly me.  Repeat:  Won't do it the same way ever again.  This is such an awesome growing and learning experience as a knitter.

EPS3 has begun and is a striped sweater with round yoke decreases, also child sized, with no color repeats in the striping sequence.  I've finished the body and one sleeve.  This is a slow one because I'm changing colors "X" number of rows, and increasing every 5 rows on the sleeves.  There's been a lot of tinking on this one sleeve that I just finished last night.  I need some good time with it so I can get the crazy thing finished - I don't want to do another quite like this again!  EPS4 will be a gray cardi with some kind of color work around the bottom with saddle shoulders, also child sized.  Most of these small sweaters will be on display at Twist soon to promote the EPS Workshop that I'm leading/teaching beginning March 22nd.

Time to get going - I've got a lot afghans to sew labels on to! 

Take good care of every little thing and I'll see you again this week with some afghan pictures and another shop update!  XOXOXOX

Firsts

Something that I tell people who are about to experience a "First" is that they should live every moment.  Usually it's regarding a first pregnancy.

There are many Firsts in life.  First love, first kiss.  First (and hopefully only) marriage.  First time to buy a home, a car, a computer.  First pregnancy, labor, delivery, child.  Every first should be savored because it will never be your first time again.  Another love, or kiss or car or home or child is always fun and wonderful and exciting and thrilling but it will never ever be your First again.

Emeline and Lila Pearl got a new wagon for Christmas from their Gammy (Jeff's mother).  The first time Lila Pearl layed eyes on that wagon she said "I get in it! I get in it!"  Sweet moment.  That was Christmas day.  Today we're having a beautiful warm day for January in Kansas (it happens) so Daddy took Emeline and Lila Pearl for their maiden voyage in the new wagon.  No, this doesn't mean it has replaced our trusty red stroller.... but they were very excited to try out the wagon for the First Time.  They took a ride to "Squishy Squares Park" as we like to call it - and everyone around here knows which one we mean when they learn what we call it.  The park has recycled rubber tiles as the "floor", which are squishy squares.  So the name.  I didn't go with them to Squishy Squares Park but I did take pictures of them on their way out.

The knitters among you might notice that Emeline is wearing a hand knit sweater/jacket that you haven't seen before.  That would be a First for me.  My First finished object knit from a pattern, that is.  About 13 years ago.  I could knit and purl but wanted a project that would teach me something new.  I picked up a "learn to knit" Leisure Arts booklet and decided I would knit this sweater.  Project cost was a very important factor for me so I used what was available and affordable to me - Red Heart yarn (less than $5 total), book (about $4), needles including cable needles (probably not more than a total of $6).  Low cost for a few weeks of entertainment.  Being a new knitter and just learning to increase, decrease, and cable - I was a concentration maniac.  Nobody could interrupt me for pointless things (except Benny and Katie who were babies) because I was CONCENTRATING!!  Woooo.... my poor ex husband.  Why did he bother me with unimportant questions when I was knitting?  He learned quick after I attacked him like a rabid dog a few times that it was a bad idea to interrupt me when I was knitting after the babies went to bed.  That was MY time!  ha  So I finished this beautiful hooded sweater, sewed in the zipper (I was much more confident with the sewing machine than the knitting needles) and it became my First Finished Object.  There was no fanfare.  No pictures.  No internet.  No Ravelry.  It now has a few pills that I pull off now and then, and the things fits Emeline to a T.  Just perfect.  All of my kids have worn it through the years and I'm sure Lila Pearl will too.  Or maybe I'll make her a new one.  With wool yarn.  I do still have the pattern book and it's even still sold new today.

Everybody have a wonderful rest of your weekend and I'm looking forward to my next few posts - WLC and the Letter A!  :)

Thankful

I'm feeling thankful for Hands lately. 

The hands in our house, big and small.

The hands around the world that made every stitch in every afghan square for the families in Greensburg, Kansas.

My own hands with their occasional ouchie twinge.  I just try to be as careful as I can so they don't get worn out before I'm ready to stop knitting.

The hands that type and send me comments and emails.  I'm so eternally grateful for those beautiful hands.

The hands that make things.  And bake things.  And knit and sew and write and drive and push and pull things.

Last Saturday morning was a Pancake Breakfast fund raiser for the band kids going to the Alamo Bowl.  Whew, we're inching upward to the goal ever so slowly.  Fruit sales were better for Katie this year than last year too.  She has also been given a special opportunity to earn a $300 scholarship toward the cost of her band trip if she writes an essay about her band experience and why she wants to go to the Alamo Bowl, etc etc.  She's earned around $200 so far, meaning we only have to come up with about $100 more.  We've got a few fund raiser ideas up our sleeve.  OH, and she got a surprise $25 for getting 1st place in the Science Fair last year!  Cool, huh?  She told me about it and I said GREAT! You can put it in your Band Account!  ha  That sort of deflated her shopping plans.

After the breakfast Katie stayed to help and we took the other kids to the park.  I took that opportunity to get a picture of Lila wearing her Fetching Mitts and see how she liked wearing them.  It wasn't TOO cold out but it was a good test.  She never once took them off which I think is fabulous for a toddler.  Anyone with toddler mitten experience KNOWS that toddlers first priority is to see how quickly they can remove said mittens.  Meaning, the entire hand is uncovered no matter what because they'll do everything in their power to get them off including chewing, screaming, rubbing snot all over them, etc etc.  Fetching Mitts are the Next Big Thing in toddler hand coverings.  Don't mess with mittens if you live in an area where they won't get frost bite between the house and car.  I took the girls to the doctor this morning for the FluMist (no shots! Yay!) and I was so glad Lila Pearl had her little mitts.  It was absolutely FREEZING COLD (air temp 35 degrees and wind chill...?? COLD!) but they stayed on her little hands.  I'm in love with them!  :)

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US.  I have been a horrible friend and haven't replied to the wonderful people who commented on my last post.  Kelly - girl, I am seriously not ignoring you!  I can't seem to get around to writing anyone!  I love you all.  Every single one.  And I know there are people out there reading my blog who do NOT comment and that's okay but I'd love to know who you are.  Every comment is so dear and sweet to me and is read by everyone in the family.  Even the babies love looking through the pictures on my blog and we tell them what people say about them and to them.  It's very sweet.

I'm thankful for the thousands of hands that have touched my life this year.  But even more thankful for the hearts behind them.

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving Day and safe travel for all! 

Take good care of every little thing and hopefully over the weekend I'll get the final touches put on Lila Pearl's birthday video to show you next time!  XOXOXOXOX

ETA:  I just got the my Entrelac Scarf Pattern pdf uploaded and I've added the pattern page to my sidebar under the heading "My Free Patterns".  Check it out and let me know if you run into any broken links or problems!  :)

What Would YOU Do??

I've joined a group on Ravelry based on the concepts at www.flylady.net where they use lots of acronyms like FLY:  Finally Loving Yourself.  And SHE:  Sidetracked Home Executives.

I like the ideas here and I've been reading about the concepts a little, trying to absorb them through my skin so that I really feel like I can DO IT rather than doing it once and stopping.  I'm getting my mind set in the right place about it.

And then today when I'm doing the dishes and trying to think about FLYing, blah blah blah... and I think the babies are watching Old Yeller.... I go to get them ready for their naps and discover this.

Emeline and Lila Pearl, the dear sweet angels that they are.... emptied the stuffing out of 2.5 couch cushions in the blink of an eye.

I walked into the room and they were both standing there with their fists full of white cushion stuffing.  I remained amazingly calm.  Picked up Lila Pearl and put her in the crib.  Same with Emeline who was screaming the entire time "I DON'T WANT TO TAKE A NAP!!!" as I calmly picked up all the cushion fluff and stuffed it back into the cushions then zipped them up and put them on the couch.  When Katie got home she sat on the couch and I asked if anything seemed funny about the couch.  She looked at me strangely and said "Noooo....??"  That's a good thing. 

Where does this fit into the FLY concept?  The theme for Monday is supposed to be "Home Blessing Hour" where you spend 10 minutes working in 7 different zones of your home.  Ugh.  Every bit of motivation was blown after this.

These two are determined to make me completely insane.  I'm sure of it.  It was definitely a "I'd like to run away" moment.

They're lucky they're so darn cute.

Life In Pictures

My view of the table last night after opening Monday's mail.  The mail from six days prior is hiding behind that big double-stack!  Gotta have the cordless phone, scissors, pen, paper, and Diet Coke.

The garden this morning.

Benny helping hold the entire triple-tower of squares that came over the past week - because it was falling down!  He had just come home from conditioning camp this morning so yes, his hair is wet.  You can see through the doorway into the den.... squares aren't quite taking over the entire house yet but they're about to explode out of the den!

 

Squares in the den.  Ten 20-gallon zip lock bags of squares plus boxes and bags full of afghans, hats, scarfs, cloths, seaming yarn, and all the special stuff y'all have been sending along!

And last but not least.... My Mitten Model.  Mitten made as a store sample for a class I'm teaching in September at Michaels about using DPNs.  I find it funny-strange (not really funny-funny but I do still have a little nervous giggle about it).... I find it funny-strange that I have planned and scheduled a class to make something I had never actually made before.  heh  This is my first mitten.  I'm pretty proud of it.  And Lila Pearl likes it.  :)

Does it count as a Finished Object if I never plan to make a matching one??  Hmmm.....

Eye Candy Friday, Comfort Shawl and Afghan Stats!

Since no ECF is complete with baby pictures, here's what we've got.  A pair of cheesy pictures and sweet smiles.  They were each saying "cheese!"

The Comfort Shawl is finished and blocked and here's a quickie photo - I'll tell more about this shawl soon when I can take the proper photo.

Afghan stats!  Yes!  But not stats from this afghan project.... how about a few details from the project that inspired "Rebuilding Greensburg - Block by Block".... the Hokie Healing afghan project.

• Hokie Healing was created as a project to make afghans to provide comfort and healing to the families of victims of the shooting that occured on the Virginia Tech campus earlier this year.
• Hokie Healing was created by one lady*, Gina Bonomo, who is the owner of Mosaic Yarns in Blacksburg, Virginia - the home of Virginia Tech. (*and supported by many others)
• To date the Hokie Healing project has collected 8298 squares!
• The first 32 afghans for Hokie Healing are for the families of the 32 people killed (I think they were all students but I'm not completely sure).  Obviously they have more squares than needed to make just 32 afghans so they will continue seaming squares until they have used them all up - giving the afghans to injured people, then others who were in the classrooms and witnessed the events of that terrible day.  You can see photos of those 32 afghans on display at the VT campus on her blog post here.
• Hokie Healing had a seaming event in June - you can see pictures here and some news video here (why aren't there any news channels in Wichita that even care about the Greensburg afghan project??) showing their seaming event.
• There were over 100 people at the Hokie Healing seaming party.
• The people... over 100 of them... seamed for seven hours straight.
• The people.... over 100 of them... seamed 20 afghans in that time.
• Oh.
• No.
• We need a lot of people to help seam 40-50 afghans in one day.  A LOT OF PEOPLE.
• We need at least 200 people or more!  I hope there's not something else going on in El Dorado that day because I'll be recruiting high school kids, ladies from the hospital auxiliary, every knitter in the state of Kansas, plus Kansas City and major cities of Oklahoma!  OH MY GOSH we need a lot of people.  The pastors.  Their wives.  Their children.  High school kids.  I already said that but OH - maybe I need to contact the 4H people in our county.  The Home-Ec teacher at the high school (if they even call it that any more - I don't even know).  I have to get a lot of help.  OH, I can call the Community College and see if anyone there will help - OH, I know someone in my knitting meetup group who works at the Community College!  That's a good thing.  Okay, it's very very good to know some of these stats so that I can be well prepared for the seaming event.  Hopefully I can get in touch with Gina and get some more specific information from her to help our seaming event be as efficient as possible. 

Whew.  Got a little excited there, or maybe nervous.  This morning I was at the post office mailing something to Suzannah for her birthday (will not be there on time and does not contain the desired cell phone - I'm a terrible mother)... when at another window I heard a lady discussing the patterns she's mailing and how they don't qualify as Media Mail, blah blah blah.  Patterns?  What kind of patterns?  I don't care (well, actually I am curious now that I think about it).  She can probably seam afghan squares!  So I waited outside the post office and attacked this lady when she came out.  heh  I told her as fast as I possibly could about the afghan project and seaming and we need 200 people and blah blah blah and she was so cool and excited about it!  She has an eBay store and said she would link to the Rebuilding Greensburg project from her eBay store front and tell all her sewing friends!  Yay!  So anyway, I'm all about getting enough people to come help seam afghans now.  I wonder who I'll attack next?  heh

Daily Square Report - Thursday and Friday Combined:

Today we're adding 103 squares!  Yippee!!!  That makes 1837 received and 403 still needed!  WooHoo!!  But we have MORE than SQUARES!  We have Other Stuff Too!!  I've told you before that Fridays are FUN DAYS for afghan mail - my surprise today was a delightful box of good stuff from Jackie in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Jackie sent not only squares, but also 1 scarf that I LOVE and want to make one just like it for my son, 1 precious pink hooded baby cardigan, 10 winter hats in sizes ranging from child to adult, and 9 sweet little hats ranging from preemie to infant size.  What a fun package!  And all of the other packages were very generous!  I know I shouldn't do this but I'm getting kinda nervous about this project now - wanting to be sure that it all comes together as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  Some things I just can't control but I'm still very psyched up about it and thinking about details of the project constantly.  I'm always thinking "What's the next step?".

One thing I'm thinking about is seaming yarn.  The yarn company I contacted will not be donating the requested yarn for seaming.  So I need to decide how to handle that.  I don't know yet exactly how much yarn I need.  That will be determined more by how many squares we end up with!  And I need to decide whether I will accept random donations of yarn from people (y'all have already been offering)... or should I try to somehow get the money to buy all one kind of yarn?  Blah blah blah.  Oh life is tough when this is the worst thing going on, right?  Well, I'm just trying to get SO MANY PEOPLE to help with this and I don't want to get to a critical moment and realize I don't have enough seaming yarn or it looks like barf because we used random colors or who knows what.  I'm going to have to pull together probably every plastic yarn needle in the city of Wichita to do this thing too.  You probably wouldn't find 100 yarn needles if you bought every one from every Wal Mart and Michael's and Hobby Lobby in a five county area!  I have a lot to think about!  Not every person comes complete with their own Chibi and scissors.  I might just have to do a fund raiser.  Raffle?  Donations with prizes?  I need ideas. 

Any and all suggestions brainstorms and ideas are WELCOME!!  I will be chatting with my knitting group about this subject on Saturday morning at Panera, for SURE!

Today during nap time I have been burning a bit of nervous energy (good for the WLC which I still need to chat about but I don't think this will be the day).  During today's nap time I opened two days of afghan mail, wrote most of this post, and cut down a tree.  Well, half a tree.  But yes - worked on our backyard make-over.  I need to do a post about my favorite tools:  chibi, bamboo knitting needles, magnetic board for holding lace charts, and my chain saw.  Oh I do love my chain saw.  I did take pictures but the babies are waking up so I'm running out of time!

Today's squares came from the following people:

• Lora - El Dorado, KS
• Erin - El Dorado, KS
• Pat - somewhere in Kansas but I don't think I know the city - thank you for dropping your squares at Heritage Hut, Pat!!  :)
• The "H" Family - Wilmington, NC
• M.K. - Iowa Park, TX
• Barbara - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Monica - Hemet, CA
• Theresa - Zip 97402 (Is that Portland?  I don't have time to look it up!)
• Kirk - Lake Havasu City, AZ
• Jackie - Raleigh, NC
• Ruth Ann - Camino, CA (44 gorgeous squares!!!)

In addition to the great Other Stuff that Jackie sent, I got yet another box from the dear ones at Love's Many Cloths.  This time it was Char in Culver, Oregon, who sent a box of little soaps to go with cloths that we've already received!  Isn't that the sweetest idea!?  And the box smells SO GOOD!  heh

Everybody have a wonderful happy safe summer weekend and I'll see ya back here next time with more squares and hopefully a few bright ideas from my grrls at Panera tomorrow morning.  :)

XOXOX