eating out
As much as possible, we've been eating dinner outside each night. I came home from the thrift store with this old Coleman last week, and it's been working double-duty as my oversized picnic basket. Dinner each night feels like packing for a camping trip. But with each meal, it gets a little easier. I've got my routine down.
I'm a big fan of eating outside, even though it means hauling dinner across the yard. I'm not sure if it's the open air, the lack of crumbs on my kitchen floor, the carefree feeling when a glass of milk gets spilled, the ease of scraping of table scraps to the entourage of barn cats and chickens that hover while we eat.
It's not always glamourous. We're often swatting an over-anxious barn cat with no self-control from the dinner table. And there was the night that the baby starlings fell from the nest above our heads on to the ground around us. I try to forget that night.
Even so, I'm happy to welcome this season back again. My mother, who loves a well-set table and ambiance would be proud.
Meanwhile, a few little things worth telling:
*Birdy has begun to clearly call me Mama. I no longer have any power to fight her. I am putty.
*The IOU project sounds fantastic.
*Kami from NoBiggie recently went to the Creative Estates Conference. She wrote a post about what she learned. I learned a lot from her post.
*Meg shares some kid room inspiration. I really love that last house book shelf.
*On that same thrift store trip last week, I found myself perusing the shelf of records. Hello!? There was so much goodness for just $1. Flashbacks to my youth (Best of the Statler Brothers, anyone?) collections of classical composers, dramatic readings of fairy tales, Patsy Cline, John Denver….I didn't even have a record player but I bought twelve dollars worth of records. (I was holding back) And now, this week, I have a record player to go with it. I am in love.
*I'd like this in my downstairs bathroom. I'm pretty sure it's from IKEA (it is), but I'm not sure they still have the yellow.
*Over on facebook, they're helping me decide on a new banner. One is pulling in to the lead, it appears. I'll be doing some spring cleaning and shuffling on here later today, I hope.
Happy Wednesday, friends!
As much as possible, we've been eating dinner outside each night. I came home from the thrift store with this old Coleman last week, and it's been working double-duty as my oversized picnic basket. Dinner each night feels like packing for a camping trip. But with each meal, it gets a little easier. I've got my routine down.
I'm a big fan of eating outside, even though it means hauling dinner across the yard. I'm not sure if it's the open air, the lack of crumbs on my kitchen floor, the carefree feeling when a glass of milk gets spilled, the ease of scraping of table scraps to the entourage of barn cats and chickens that hover while we eat.
It's not always glamourous. We're often swatting an over-anxious barn cat with no self-control from the dinner table. And there was the night that the baby starlings fell from the nest above our heads on to the ground around us. I try to forget that night.
Even so, I'm happy to welcome this season back again. My mother, who loves a well-set table and ambiance would be proud.
Meanwhile, a few little things worth telling:
*Birdy has begun to clearly call me Mama. I no longer have any power to fight her. I am putty.
*The IOU project sounds fantastic.
*Kami from NoBiggie recently went to the Creative Estates Conference. She wrote a post about what she learned. I learned a lot from her post.
*Meg shares some kid room inspiration. I really love that last house book shelf.
*On that same thrift store trip last week, I found myself perusing the shelf of records. Hello!? There was so much goodness for just $1. Flashbacks to my youth (Best of the Statler Brothers, anyone?) collections of classical composers, dramatic readings of fairy tales, Patsy Cline, John Denver….I didn't even have a record player but I bought twelve dollars worth of records. (I was holding back) And now, this week, I have a record player to go with it. I am in love.
*I'd like this in my downstairs bathroom. I'm pretty sure it's from IKEA (it is), but I'm not sure they still have the yellow.
*Over on facebook, they're helping me decide on a new banner. One is pulling in to the lead, it appears. I'll be doing some spring cleaning and shuffling on here later today, I hope.
Happy Wednesday, friends!
a reason to have more children
There's this silly little thing in knitting called gauge.
Every pattern talks about it and for those over-achieving knitters it means taking the yarn you intend to knit with, the needles you intend to use, and knitting up a little swatch to be sure you're getting the correct gauge (stitches per inch) so that whatever you're knitting will actually turn out in the size you intend it to.
Jumping in to a knitting project without first checking your gauage is a bit like diving into an elaborate recipe without first checking your cupboards to be sure you have all the ingredients. A little preparation is required.
However, I am not an over-achieving knitter. In fact, I am more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-when-the-mood-strikes-embrace-it-and-don't-look-back kind of knitter.
There are a few ways to combat this kind of knitting style. One is to have multiple children of the same gender. (check!) Another is to have those multiple same-gendered children spaced closely together in age. (check!) The other is to give birth to one child who is petite and seems to grow at a snail's pace, while later giving birth to a child who grows like a weed so that they can almost share the same clothes. (also check!)
So, the urge hit and I began sewing the In Threes sweater pattern for….Birdy. First of all, I looove the pattern. Beautiful. Easy to knit. Relatively quick if you tend to have time to knit or back epsidoes of a favorite knitting show (did you not cry the whole way through the season finale??).
I enthusiastically jumped into this project and decided to finally use, some five years later, two skeins of beautiful wool that I purchased from a quaint little sheep farm we visited when living in Wisconsin. I had two skeins. Only two skeins. But according to the pattern, enough wool to make the sweater. (this is where testing your gauge comes in handy)
As I was happily knitting along, I was struck that the sweater seemed a bit large for a 12-month old size. I also noticed that I was quite rapidly running through my two skeins of yarn.
By the end I knew that I had made a HUGE mistake (no pun intended), that this sweater most definitely was NOT going to fit Birdy, and I began to sweat over the ball of yarn that was getting smaller and smaller and ……
And so as I neared the last few inches I really began to panic. So I pulled in another color (which is looking aggressively pink in this photo) and added a few stripes which we'll pretend were all part of the orginal plan.
When the sweater was finished and blocked (no I don't do a gauge swatch but I have fallen in love with the way blocking so beautifully finishes a sweater) I began to walk around the house holding it up to various children to see who it might fit.
Turns out, the sweater fits two of them.
It's "hit you right at the hip" slightly cropped but oh-so cute for Mary, and a fits perfectly "was this made for you?" sweater for Elizabeth.
And Birdy? Well, that's fit's a few years off.
In the meantime, it will be paired with some amazing wooden buttons scouted out on etsy.
And now, my children are dancing around in shorts, tshirts and flip flops. I swear, I might make them wear this to the pool as a bathing suit cover up just to get some good wear in.
Thank goodness I have so many children.
There's this silly little thing in knitting called gauge.
Every pattern talks about it and for those over-achieving knitters it means taking the yarn you intend to knit with, the needles you intend to use, and knitting up a little swatch to be sure you're getting the correct gauge (stitches per inch) so that whatever you're knitting will actually turn out in the size you intend it to.
Jumping in to a knitting project without first checking your gauage is a bit like diving into an elaborate recipe without first checking your cupboards to be sure you have all the ingredients. A little preparation is required.
However, I am not an over-achieving knitter. In fact, I am more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-when-the-mood-strikes-embrace-it-and-don't-look-back kind of knitter.
There are a few ways to combat this kind of knitting style. One is to have multiple children of the same gender. (check!) Another is to have those multiple same-gendered children spaced closely together in age. (check!) The other is to give birth to one child who is petite and seems to grow at a snail's pace, while later giving birth to a child who grows like a weed so that they can almost share the same clothes. (also check!)
So, the urge hit and I began sewing the In Threes sweater pattern for….Birdy. First of all, I looove the pattern. Beautiful. Easy to knit. Relatively quick if you tend to have time to knit or back epsidoes of a favorite knitting show (did you not cry the whole way through the season finale??).
I enthusiastically jumped into this project and decided to finally use, some five years later, two skeins of beautiful wool that I purchased from a quaint little sheep farm we visited when living in Wisconsin. I had two skeins. Only two skeins. But according to the pattern, enough wool to make the sweater. (this is where testing your gauge comes in handy)
As I was happily knitting along, I was struck that the sweater seemed a bit large for a 12-month old size. I also noticed that I was quite rapidly running through my two skeins of yarn.
By the end I knew that I had made a HUGE mistake (no pun intended), that this sweater most definitely was NOT going to fit Birdy, and I began to sweat over the ball of yarn that was getting smaller and smaller and ……
And so as I neared the last few inches I really began to panic. So I pulled in another color (which is looking aggressively pink in this photo) and added a few stripes which we'll pretend were all part of the orginal plan.
When the sweater was finished and blocked (no I don't do a gauge swatch but I have fallen in love with the way blocking so beautifully finishes a sweater) I began to walk around the house holding it up to various children to see who it might fit.
Turns out, the sweater fits two of them.
It's "hit you right at the hip" slightly cropped but oh-so cute for Mary, and a fits perfectly "was this made for you?" sweater for Elizabeth.
And Birdy? Well, that's fit's a few years off.
In the meantime, it will be paired with some amazing wooden buttons scouted out on etsy.
And now, my children are dancing around in shorts, tshirts and flip flops. I swear, I might make them wear this to the pool as a bathing suit cover up just to get some good wear in.
Thank goodness I have so many children.