Birthday Party
I’m always wondered what you would do for a two year old for his/her birthday. They are not quite old enough to pick their friends to come over, but then they are not as little anymore to just have a party for the mom, you know what I mean?
Well, in the end, I pick the “having a party for mom” side, and invited a few of my friends to come over – knitting/stitching required, but gifts are optional. In the end, due to the super early snowstorm we got and the virus going around, only WifeMomKnitter and Crystal were able to come. Of course, Grandma too! We have so much food left I think I’ll be eating them for the rest of the week!
Look at the pumpkin cupcakes in the back (regular and mini size)! With the maple buttercream!
Little Lady’s new friend!
mmm… food!
Thanks ladies for making the Little Lady’s day.
RHINEBECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AKA New York Sheep & Wool Festival!
I know, that was SOOOOOOOOOOOO last week! But when I got no time to blog, I’ll take what I can get.
CostumeChick, WifeMomKnitter, backstageknits, hedwigbc, lisau99, jessilyn28, nutmegknitter, little nutmeg and I all met up at a commuter lot Friday at noon, and caravan up to the Secret Bat Cave, aka our retreat house. We picked up fakeknitter midway and met Anphoe, Anphoe’s DH and Little V at the our regular stopping point – Harney & Sons Tea Shop. We sampled quite a few tea and I settled on these:
Photos from Harney & Sons website.
I really liked the Chocolate Mint, but I have a lot of mint tea leaves at home, so I decided to blend my own with the Chocolate tea.
When we finally arrive at the secret bat cave, we enjoyed some yummy lagsana (Contributed by WifeMomKintter’s DH), garlic pull apart bread (contributed by fakeknitter), and some really good salad (contributed by lisau99). We sat around and planned out our plan of attack for the next day, and did some knitting/hanging out.
We got up bright and early, but still didn’t beat the crazy traffic going into the fairgrounds. Immediately going into the fairgrounds, we were interviewed by Knit 1, heart 2 podcast for our crazy looking hats! And here is a group shot of everyone:
We ARE missing one hat – Archiknist. She was called away by the yummy goodness of artichoke.
Last year, after CostumeChick finished one of the fat hats, we all decided that we all need to make the same hat, so we can easily find each other. And this was us last year:
Well, SheShoopSheep took some picture of us last year, and guess what!? We ended up in her book: Craft Activism.
We are in the front holding the ravelry sign! And we did again this year as well!
We had a ton of fun, got home exhausted, but had a party of our own – Anphoe’s birthday! We had a Thanksgiving style feast and cupcakes, with blueberry wine and tea! (Big thanks to CostumeChick who coordinate and made dinner for both nights!)
Sunday we said goodbye to hedwigbc (she had to take the train home to Virginia!) and went back to the fairgrounds. Well, you’ll see that the hat in the above was red, but then I had a yellow hat on Sunday:
Photo curtesy of WifeMomKnitter.
I originally was making it for babysquared, even though she didn’t come up this year, and stayed home with daddy and grandma (they had their own fun with the Renaissance’s Fair, but of course, leave it to daddy with no photo evidence!). But while CostumeChick and I were at the Skaska booth to figure out the yarn we need to make our crazy wedding ring shawl, the owner/designer Galina took interest of my hat, and wanted to trade the yarn for it! I didn’t go for it then, since I apparently wasn’t thinking, so I finished the yellow hat Sunday morning in the parking lot while waiting for the fairgrounds to open, so I can barter with Galina A. Khmeleva on her books! (and may I add that I was successful!!!!)
Here is a picture of us in our hats! 
Photo cutesy of WifeMomKnitter. For the hat, I received two signed books by Galina and also a copy of the PieceWork magazine where an article on repairing the Orenburg Lace Shawl. A side note: She is going to have a lace knitting retreat in Colorado and I REALLY want to go! But I don’t think I can do it this coming year due to budget constraint. We’ll see.
Another author I took photo with is Anna Dalvi. I first started following her on her mystic serious mystery shawls on yahoo group. It was super awesome to finally meet her, since I love all of her designs.
I of course had to purchase her new book… Shaping Shawls. And here are my other loot from the weekend:
In addition to the books mentioned, I also bought the Complete Book of Drafting by Madelyn Van der Hoogt, 2.8 oz of purple/green roving (I think it’s BFL) from briar rose fibers, 4 oz of organic cotton roving, 6 skeins of Plymouth Mira Mira (wool and metal!), a skein of four play by Brooks Farm, and 1/2 cone of cobweb weight wool by Jagger (photo shows the whole cone, but CostumeChick and I are splitting that!). I also got babysquared a lamb book that has wheels. That book has already been played quite a few times and babysquared won’t let me take it away from her to photograph.
Oh, one more thing I did on Sunday – I went to the Hansen miniSpinner booth. I have a miniSpinner for almost a year now, but I had yet to figure out how to spin lace weight on it. I had a little chat with Mr. Hansen (Kevin) himself, and in a few minutes, he had me spinning this:
See that blue yarn? yup, that’s a 2-ply lace from me! For comparison, I put a dime underneath, and the pink is JaggerSpun Zypher, the orange is Schaefer Yarn Andrea, and the bottom white is the Jagger cobweb that was in the picture above (in the cone, there were 55,000 yards in that thing!). The trick I learnt was slower speed and lots of twist! I can’t wait to get on my wheel next time. I thinking to spin the purple roving into lace weight since I only have 2.8 oz of it.
I’m sad that the weekend was over so soon, but it only means one thing: Looking forward to Rhinebeck 2012!
————————————————————
You can see some other photos from WifeMomKnitter, NutmegKnitter, and My Grandmother’s Knitting.
Three Years
It’s hard to imagine that three years had gone by since our wedding.
And this is probably the only photo evidence that we will ever have that you actually have a ring.
Love you, babe.
Fall
Do you feel the crisp in the air? The temperature has dipped down below 50s in some nights!
To celebrate fall, we went to pick apples and pears at High Hill Orchard. I’ve done some research on organic orchard, and although High Hill isn’t certified, but they practice as one.
We climbed hills to find apples and pears!
What are you looking at, Mama?
Apple!!!!
More apples!
A little help from daddy up top.
Woooooo... tractor!
Just a note – David was cut out of frame so he really was next to her. No baby was left riding the tractor alone.
We also got apple cider and pear cider from the farm stand, along with Cinderella pumpkin, which we forgot to take picture of. We had a ton of fun and probably will be back before the season ended!
And did you notice that cute sweater she was sporting? It’s the Baby Hepburn Crop Coat by Crystal Guistinello. It was a test knit – way overdue. But it is done, and super cute on babysquared! Now, if I can only get her to wear the other sweater so I can take some pictures…
A Quick Check In
Summer had flew by! During the summer, I completed two sweaters, and currently working on an adult vest. I also hosted a mini skein swap. My folks had come to visit and now they are gone. And! School has started. Which means no more knitting with the bitches on Thursday night.
I promise something to come soon. There are some major decisions that I need to make for my career life, that can really affect my personal life. When the decisions are made, I’ll be sharing them, and hopefully with some cute baby pic with the pretty sweaters too!
Sock Mini-Land
OK. Apparently, working a full time job, a part time job, and have a toddler is too crazy to spin everyday for almost whole month of July. ::sigh:: But I at least got 10 days out of it and got to the roving I needed to do, so not too bad, if I do say so myself.
Back in June, I had signed up on Ravelry a mini sock yarn swap on Sock Yarn Round Robin group. I even volunteered to be the host. What that means is that I will receive everyone’s mini skeins of sock yarn, weighing 10g each, then I will mix and match them for everyone, taking one from each person’s contribution and give them back. So you start with 10 mini skeins of your yarn, and you end up with 1 from yourself and 9 from other people’s mini skeins. It’s rather fun!
Of course, I wasn’t slacking and didn’t get to the stuff till now, August. Canadian Post is at fault! By going on strike! When the strike was over, there was a backlog and one of the participant didn’t want to mail her stuff until the backlog was done. But the wait was worth it, just look at this:
It is all sorted and bagged. I just need to get a moment to go to the post office! all these minis are gonna enable me to make the Beekeeper’s Quilt!!!!
Tour de Fleece – Day 11
Today, I plied. Usually, I just do the center pulled 2-ply, but this being such a beautiful colorway, I didn’t want to muddy the colors, so I went on the handy dandy youtube and found a tutorial on Navajo plying and this is what I have as a result:
I still need to take it off the bobbin and measure it, wash it and then twist it to a hank and admire it’s fully pretty-ness. Then send it off to its merry way to its owner. But that’s work for another day!
Rest Day… With a WIP
Today is Day 10 of Tour de Fleece, and it is also a rest day. So instead of spinning, I spent a little time on this little cutie:
It is a test knit that is due 7/20. I’m making it for the little lady in size 2T. I’m still debating on the collar color. Luckily I have a few days of knitting before I have to decide. Oh, and I knitted those buttons in so I don’t have to sew them on! Aren’t I lazy clever?
And of course, how can we speak of the Little Lady with no photos of her?
Tour de Fleece – Day 9
- Fiber: BFL by Woolgatherings
- Spin Date and Time: 7/10/11 1:30pm to 4:00pm and 9:20pm to 10:00pm
- Spin Amount: 3-3/8 oz
Tour de Fleece – Day 8
I skipped Day 6 and 7. I’ve been pretty stuffed up from going in and out of hot and cold air, so I took the couple of days off to rest and sleep. Today, I took the white corriedale off the bobbin without plying, so I can start something pretty!
- Fiber: BFL by Woolgatherings
- Spin Date and Time: 7/9/11 10:22pm to 11:55pm
- Spin Amount: 7/8 oz
