My first FO of the year

I am so excited to announce that I have my first FO (finished object for you non-knitters) for 2008! Introducing, the Guernsey! Levi has been wearing it for a few hours today and is all smiles. That makes it so fulfilling...there's nothing better than having the recipient love your knitted garment as much as you hoped they would! It's difficult to see the details here in these pictures, but it was my first sweater with a stitch pattern. I really like how it turned out. I added an underarm gussett, and knitted the sleeves from the top down.

Here are more details:
Pattern: Basic Guernsey pattern from Knitting in the Old Way by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts.

Yarn: Plymouth Encore, worsted weight, wool/acrylic
Needle size: US 8
Started: January 6, 2008

Finished: January 20, 2008

I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's sewn cast off for the neckline and it's beautifully stretchy! It was so easy to do and looks nice and neat. There's a great tutorial for this method here. If you haven't tried it before, its perfect for cuffs on toe-up socks and necklines!

Now, on to my newest project. I have decided (with some gentle prodding from Marmee)

that I will make something for myself. I already have some yarn that I bought for the Tomten (and I decided not to use)..it's Marine Heather. The sweater I am making is Age Of Aquarius by Kathy Zimmerman. You can find it in the book The Knitters Stash. I got it from Interweave Knits Fall 2001 issue. I did find one picture of it here at Ravelry. So, I haven't gotten very far on it yet, but wish me luck! :) I am trying to make some photo jewelry with pictures of my Bailey. I found a few adorable pics that I just have to share!

Thanksgiving Lapbook and other ramblings

Well, as I promised, here are the lapbook pictures. Didn't they do a wonderful job on this one?! We all had a really good time working on it. It's one of the many lapbooks from Live and Learn Press. They have several free ones (they refer to them as Learn 'N Folders), you should go check it out!

We have now put up cork board in our dining room and it has quickly been filled with drawings of all different Christmas themed pictures. Isn't this a beautiful sight?! :)

We have had a lot of fun with that. There is even a crayon drawing of mine up there, but I will leave it at that, lol. I have had a chance to get somewhere on my puzzle, here's what we've got so far:We always do a Charles Wysocki puzzle during Christmas/winter time. This one will eventually look like this. I love Charles Wysocki's artwork and it's so fun to put these puzzles together!

I have entered a contest over at the Lady knits, you need to check it out! Lots of goodies to give away!

I have also decided to join June's great idea of the Pay-it-forward exchange. Here's the low down: I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So there you have it! Won't this be fun?!

I will end this post with a picture of the cutest little blue merle sheltie you could ever want to see!

Lapbooking, knitting, and jewelry

First of all, let me apologize for the delay in my posting. Among other things, we have gotten a case of the sniffles, sore throat, coughing thing amongst our family that is not bad enough to do much damage, but enough to make you feel icky all day. I've been loading up on the Emergen-C so hopefully that will help. Well, onto other news, I received my blog contest prize the other day! Isn't it beautiful?! It even came with a wonderful packet of lavender blossoms. It's heavenly! Thanks Carol!! I can't wait to see how it knits up...but I am not touching it until I can actually work up a pair of socks with it. I finished the orange boucle scarf and sent it off to it's Christmas recipient: my sister-in-law :) She and my brother live in Hawaii but are spending all of December in France, so she will be able to use it then. I will have her take a picture of herself modeling it and will post that asap, i promise!



Right now I have begun (again) Mackenzie's socks. It's wonderful to be knitting socks once more. I am finally able to do some knitting without the wrist brace and its so freeing! I still have at least 2 pairs to do after I finish these so I am really trying to get after it. I am doing these toe up once again and it's going well so far. It looks a lot like blue in this picture but there's also quite a bit of purple in this yarn. Purple is her favorite color and she adores this yarn. Fortunately, her feet aren't very long at all for a girl her age. She wears a size 2 1/2 and she's 12.


Now I know I mentioned this a couple of posts ago, but the littles and I got their Halloween lapbook done by Halloween! I promised pictures for those of you who don't know what a lapbook is, so here you go!

Here is the front of one of them. As you can see, they go all out with the decoration and stickers :) Now there are 4 pages in this particular book to accomodate all the things we made to go inside.









Here's the first 2 pages. There is a recipe for English Soul Cake, a Halloween timeline pop-up book, Halloween Symbols and their meanings, and a recipe for Mexican Bread of the Dead :)











The last 2 pages have a map with details of how people around the world celebrate Halloween differently, a book of pumpkin facts, a pouch with their favorite candies written inside, and last (but of course not least, lol) a skeleton put together with brads.

So, there you have it...a lapbook! The are so many really great things about lapbooks:

-The kids remember what they are learning because it's integrated into a craft project

-The information is broken down into manageable chunks to make several different little books

-They are able to have a wonderful time decorating and expressing their creativity

-They return to the books they have made time and time again, cementing the knowledge they have gained.

-They have something that they can show off proudly to Daddy or company about what they have learned.




Bailey got a bath today, and she's getting so pretty and fluffy. She will be one year old on the 15th and they say that a sheltie's coat will continue to get filled out until they are about 18 months old.

I'm stuck on the computer lately playing a new game. It's Luxor 3, and I bought it as an early Christmas gift for my mom, but I have gotten addicted to it too. You have to try it, but be warned! It's too much fun!! :)


I have been thinking pretty seriously about trying to make money off of what has previously been a hobby of mine; jewelry making. Here's one of the sets I have made so far. I am still looking into all the legal stuff and I would really like to be able to sell online, but it would be nice to have some that I could sell for consignment maybe. Anyway, I have a few things already made but I am not wanting to think about it all going forward until after the holidays. What do you guys think? I have pictures of some of my other things here.

Well, this has been a very long post, but I had quite a few things to catch up on :) Have a great weekend everybody!

Knitting again!

Welcome me back to the land of the knitting! :) Last night was my first knitting in almost 2 weeks...it's been tough! I only worked on my project for about 30 minutes, but it was still wonderful to have the needles back. I am working on the orange boucle scarf that I talk about
here.

On another note, Bailey has yet another new outfit! Here she is in her new pink coat. Isn't this SO cute?! She wasn't too terribly fond of it, but I love the fur trim on the collar. It's just too adorable!

The kids and I are finishing up the lapbook on halloween today. We got everything all cut out and prepared on Friday, so we should be done today.

Oh, by the way, my mom is doing a giveaway, so be sure to head over to her blog and check that out. She's giving away some handspun (some alpaca and some merino) as well as a book on slip-stitch knitting.

I got myself a new cd the other day that is awesome! It's by Emmy Rossum, who you may know as Christine Daae in Phantom of the Opera. She has an awesome voice and her style is somewhere between Enya and Imogen Heap. I would highly recommend checking out her album, Inside Out. Here's one of her songs...her first music video from the new album (released on the 23rd).

Tiger, Cables and Laundry

I am so jazzed tonight...Tiger won the FedEx Cup! My mom and I watched the tournament this weekend, and it was beautiful up there on our new Tv :) We always root for Tiger and this weekend he was on fire. He beat the runner up by 8 points, it was a blast to watch, and there was much cheering here at our house.

Watching golf is a great time for knitting, and I have run into my fair share of woes with these blasted legwarmers. I mentioned in my last post that I was practicing cables on them and I did get to do that. I was really displeased with the texture of the cables however, and have now decided to just do stockinette stitch the whole way. I feel pretty good about my first cables, though and am encouraged to try them again someday. So, I have begun the legwarmers once again and am doing them two at a time...like I love to do :)

It's hard to believe that the weekend is almost over. The weather has been so wonderful and fall-like that I am totally getting into the fall mood of things. I know this week is supposed to get warmer -in the 80's all week - and I will miss these cool temperatures. This Tuesday is homeschool coop once again and knitting class! We will see how much our students have done over the week. This ought to be interesting! :) I am hoping to remember to take the camera and get pictures for all of you out there in blogland, we'll see!

I got my Knit Picks order yesterday and that was exciting! My yarn ended up being significantly darker than the website portrayed, but I still like it and will be using it for my Tomten. I also ordered the beautiful colored wooden needles and I love those! I am starting a pair of socks for Aubrey, as soon as I finish the legwarmers, of course :)

I finally cancelled my Ram Wools order after 2 months of waiting for my self striping sock yarn to finish up a pair for Mackenzie and Zach. I ended up going to Knitting Warehouse and getting almost the same yarn. Hopefully their supply is more ample than at Ram Wools, lol. Wish me luck!

I have gotten stuck in a book series and I am so involved...it's been hard to put it down. It's the Alosha Trilogy by Christopher Pike. I only started last night and finished one of the two books written so far in the series, but now I am in the middle of the second and can't wait to read the rest! It's so hard to read and knit at the same time. It's pretty tricky to find books big enough to lay open in your lap - on their own, lol.


Oh, and Bailey loves laundry time. She is such a big help...what would we do without her?! :)