"I feel like I'm taking CRAZY pills"

October has been a crazy, crazy month. What with the baby colds (while I and everyone else was sick in my family--nothing quite like taking care of twin babies while you're feeling miserable and don't have help), the birthday planning & cleaning, and another round of colds AGAIN right in time for their birthday! (By the way, Jake has a cold, again, right now). Sam was worse than usual for the wake-ups, but for Jake I started seeing every hour like it was going in fashion. *SIGH* Even now, young Jacob has learned how to throw temper-tantrums and while sick, I'm wondering why I'm not already clinically insane and bald.

Here's my most recent cast-on, the "Roundabout Shawlette" that I'm designing for a family friend who has been really thoughtful & generous to our family even though she's out in California. She, by the way has three sets of twins and a singleton...and I wonder, did she have a whole stockpile of tranquilizers or sedatives? I really don't know how she did it!

I’m pretty peeved at the ugliness of the roundabout circles. Maybe it’s just the pre-block blues, but I know that it will have to be blocked to heck to have the integrity it deserves. In retrospect, I should have chosen a semisolid…but you know how certain colorways whisper seductive lies to you while you're passing by. “You. Yeah, you....Come to me. Knit me up. Sure, I’ll look good knit up in lace even as a variegated colorway…don't you trust me??” I’m wondering if the lace would look better as a worsted though…probably. Oh well. Next time, something thicker, one color and silkier (and maybe beading).

You guys haven't seen this either, yet. It's the second of the Baby Ribbed Jackets. It's in tweed and I'm SLOWLY but surely getting to the end. I only have a couple of ribbing rows left to the collar and then sewing and ribbing on the bottom. Close, yet so far... I'm really dragging my heels on this one since I have Second-Sweater-Syndrome.

Here's pictures of the boys' actual birthday. The party was the day after and I still haven't taken the picture off yet.

YEAH---I do realize AFTER THE FACT that maybe sprinkles was NOT a good idea, as well as chocolate. They were lucky enough that I still had a few braincells left to remember to buy a cake after all the sickness going around.

Sam, interested.

Jake, not interested.

Sam, playing around.

Jake, stuffed up and miserable.
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...cry if I want to...cry if I want to...you would cry to if it happened to you!!!"

By the way, the boys are walking already... Sam randomly walks around the house more (looking like a drunken sailor though...lol.)

Candy Corn Djevellues

Now that the weather is starting to get chillier, I decided that I was going to turn the cute Norwegian knitting pattern "Djevellue" into something a whole lot sweeter to keep my little ones warm: Candy corns.

Funny, really, because the first Candy Corn Djevellue was knit in a size Adult as a test of how big the worsted weight will be as written. Exactly a largish adult size. From that point on, I roughly knew how many stitches to take away to form the 6-9 month version. Talk about deja-vu for knitting. Can you tell that I'm trying to plow through the "Warm Knits" for the wee-ones? It's like nesting, but knit-style.

On top is Jakie sporting the hat.

Sammie too.

Pattern: heavily modified version of "Djevellue", aka "sweet baby cap."
Needles: size US7
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in yellow, orange and white
Mod's: adult, 9 garter rows, the striping and yarn weight; infant, CO79sts instead, 8 garter rows, striping and bulkier yarn weight.
Started /finished: October 8th-9th 2011 (adult) and October 9th- 11th 2011 (baby)

Ribbed Baby Jacket

I finished this little Ribbed Baby Jacket up several days ago, but was struggling to find the camera cord to upload the photos! Of course, the junk drawer is a treasure trove. I would take a photo with the boys in the jacket, but it's a wee too big still and they will have to model it in the Wintertime when it fits better.

I was pretty pleased with the results. It's cute and simple. However, it took longer than expected, and seemed to gobble up the yarn!

I chose a size that would be large on them so that it will fit the boys all winter long. Maybe into Spring. Who knows.

Pattern: Debbie Bliss' Ribbed Baby Jacket
Size: 6-9 month, although it will be more like size 1 yr for my preemie boys.
Needles: Size US7 circulars
Yarn: 2 skeins of Vanna' Choice in Pea Green
Mods: 10 rows of 2x2 ribbing on the bottom, buttons, arm shaping (I didn't do the three sets of 8sts BO's. I did 1 set of BO8 and then 4 sets of BO6 for a smoother transition in the shaping)
Started: October 5th, 2011
Finished: October 7th, 2011

Some other little things

Remember the Baby Bears caps that I made last year? Well, it's been chilly enough for the babes to strut around proudly while rooting for their favorite team. I'm taking about The Chicago Bears, of course. ;)

I love the cap because it covers their ears completely and we can go for stroller rides without too much worry about earaches. (Just noticing the picture now, Sam did rearrange the position of the hat...it really does cover the ear.) However, the babes finally have their first cold, and boy has it been an experience taking care of two sick babies while feeling lousy from the same darn cold. Ick.

Jake wasn't as much of a model, but he does make one cute sleepy baby.

Then we have the quickie beanies.

Jake standing still long enough for my camera to focus on him. 10 takes later.

Sam showing off the garter stitch and experimenting on how much it can withstand baby stretching.

Here's the "Monster Knee-Saver" that I knit them months ago, but haven't posted about it. I had a feeling it wouldn't stay in one place while crawling...but it looks cute to just wear it for fun around people.

Enjoy Fall. I just love watching the tree in front of our house sprinkle leaves every couple of seconds. Couldn't this season last a little longer than what it usually does?

Here's a funny picture from Halloween '08. Today is our 2 year wedding anniversary. Although I wasn't a corpse bride, I was enjoying my amazing reception right about now.

I love you Joe. To many more amazing years to come.

I'm off to start binding off a baby sweater.

BSJ 4

Another hibernating project down. Not long ago, there was a pile of 30 unfinished projects. Then I finished the Aestlight shawl, then the Morning glory shawl, and now the BSJ 4...I should be down to about 27 projects left to finish? *Chills*

My little Jakie is the model for the day (even though it will probably be Sam who will wear it since he is a little smaller). Such a cutie. He's sporting his 2 bottom teeth now for his photos.

This thing has almost been hibernating for 1 year. I started this October 21st 2010 (1 week before the boys were born. Prematurely.)

This BSJ is different from the last because it only has 2 yarns that are striping, but because the yarn's colorway does striping of its own, it does the work for me. The last one was a tangly mess while working with it.

I crocheted around the collar and to bind the sleeves together. I purposefully crocheted so that the wrong side faced the audience because it looked different. Fluffier. It meshed well with the garter stitch more in this particular project.


Project: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket
Needles: size US6 circulars
Yarn: Paton's Kroy socks, 1 skein each of "Clay" and "Cadet" colorways
Project Started: Oct. 24th, 2010
Projected Finished: Sept. 24th, 2011


Here's a good picture of the yarn I worked with. I did about 4 rows per color.

Stunning cute results, in my book.

Jake's favorite "no-no" toy. When he is free to "roam about the cabin" (or house), he always crawls across the the living room, into the front entrance and into my music den to get at the guitar. He loves using his pointer finger to push buttons or strum in this case. It's really a good picture of this little boy who will probably end up being a guitarist, and not a pianist like mommy. Funny, he never goes for the piano pedals on the floor or anything else in that room but the guitar. And boy does he crawl like no tomorrow when you are chasing after him when he's heading that way. lol. I'm thinking about buying him a kiddy guitar for his 1st birthday. Can you believe it, the boys will be turning 1 in about a month?

I'm just gonna leave you guys with this last pic. What a close call, wouldn't you say? Let's not cut it soo close next time...

Summer of lace

It really has been a summer filled with lacy projects. Boy do I have a surprise for you since I kept this project hush-hushed, unintentionally. After I finished the Aestlight shawl, I felt inclined to pluck another shawl out of hibernation to click away at. It took all my moments of freetime during nights or their naptime when chores were mostly done-which isn't a whole lot of time-but here be the "Morning Glory" shawl. Fitting, huh, with all of this Fall weather? Boy am I ready for some cool weather (and apple cider, and nutty carmel apples, and hot pumpkin lattes, and.....eek, it never ends).

The thing about this shawl is that I had an idea about what lace would look good next to the stripes (that would also be a no-brainer, cause goodness knows we like those types of lace), but the rest sort of morphed into this sun-ray like shawl that I adore. I was mostly freestyle-ling it. I started mentally taking notes of what I was doing, pattern-wise, but it wasn't too long after that I just decided that this shawl will just be mine and "screw" the pattern. It really is much more enjoyable when you aren't worrying about getting the correct pattern down or thinking you missed jotting down an important step somewhere in the middle of the pattern.

The shawl is knit from Alpaca "FrogTree" yarn from a little knitting shop in Prairie Crossing that sadly went under I think maybe a year ago. I bought a lot of orange and several other colors thinking I would do some cool braided scarf with multiple colorings, but I vetoed the idea not long after and it has been sitting snuggly with my other stash in a bookshelf. Luckily, I almost horded the color because I really went through a lot of skeins for this size of a shawl. I think I was on my 4th ball by the end.

Remember how I mentioned that I picked a simple lace along the striping edge? Well, I really think that it helps the overall impression to being a stereotypical ray pouring from the sun. The edging on the shawl was another easy-schmeasy pattern. Really. It was almost as easy as garter stitch itself for the effect it gives. It has the same starting instructions, but because a certain yarnover, you are knitting just one more stitch after each increase row. It took nearly one minute to etch into my brain and I didn't even need the chart after that. Love it. Plus, I think I would use this edging pattern for my "Ripples" Reading Afghan as soon as that beast is done. Will we live to see that day?

PATTERN: Morning Glory Shawl by KUAS
(won't be available though)
NEEDLES: set of US5 circulars
YARN: FrogTree yarn, sportweight alpaca, in orange and yellow
Started: Oct 28th, 2009 (and put away soon after several inches)
Finished: September 14th, 2011

If you look closely, the point of the "star" on the bottom of the shawl is cabled and has a little bit of beading. It's really hard to see in the photos, but it's there. I did a little bit of crochet around the edge of the point. In retrospect, I would have done a line of eyelet holes in increasing sizes on the point of the shawl, instead of just 1 hole. Oh well. I enlisted my husband to help me block the shawl. We went through quite a lot of pins. In case you were wondering, he was happy to help, but he was happy to hurry the process up so we could get back to our HBO show.

My son Sam

My son Jake, the little "chief."

Jake blocking the shawl.

Messy style.

Hope you like it.

Look familiar?

This is one of the oldie-moldy ones from the college days, but I was asked permission a bit ago from the editor of allfreeknitting.com if she could post patterns, like this one onto the site. Of course I said yes, so here's at least one of them. If you happen to spot anymore KUAS patterns on there, let me know. :) Neat!



Click HERE to see the pattern on their site.

Bridal Handkerchief

So I got this idea in my head-you know how that goes-that I could "whip up" a bridal hankie for a friend of mine who is to wed this Saturday as part of her wedding gift to her. I mean, how hard and time consuming could a lacy border be around a small cloth? Well, with a deadline of one week I knew I was cutting it close, but a small project like that should reap instant gratification, shouldn't it?

Oh, ho ho-how wrong I could be. Apparently, the main part of the whole operation, the women's handkerchief cloth is a rare breed. I searched many stores like Kohls (first time-consumption). Then I went to JoAnn Fabric's and Michaels (second time-consumption) in search of some semblance of a hankie (Michaels only has white bandannas, which I started to use until I did my practice hankie). Then I finally bit the bullet and went back to JoAnn's to find thin cotton cloth that is soo thin, you can see your hand through it. If I was gonna do this the hard way, I wanted it done right. Then, the next biggest time-consumer was finding a way to punch holes into the fabric like the old lace book with a hankie I got inspired from in the first place. No one, not even the stores could figure out how to get those holes in the fabric to crochet an edging into. And the darn book mentioned that you could buy hankie fabric at stores. Lies. After spending much time and asking around, my second visit to JoAnn's proved fruitful from an employee's suggestion to buy lace and sew it on...which I didn't want to do, since it would discard the whole reason to make the heirloom-type of hankie in the first place. HOWEVER, when she mentioned it, it brought up the idea of a thin helper-lace to sew on, which was just the ticket!

It was all downhill after that. I did some practice rounds on scrap hankies to practice the embroidery of her initials and embellishments around the edging. That was...fun..., not. I must have done dozens of letters, using a pen to mark the direction I started. The key is: if you wanted the letter to face you from the corner, you have to turn that corner to the left before sewing. Seems counter-intuitive, in my opinion. For some reason, when you try to embroider a letter, it doesn't face the direction that you sew and the size of the letter seems to be up for grabs to when you haven't mastered it. Thus being said, after I spent all the time on the "final hankie" (hankie two, might I add), I watched in horror as the "E" was higher than her other two initials I did. After hours of non-existent freetime...I was just gonna live with that imperfection. After sewing the hem with a lovely design from the machine, I sewed on the tinsie eyelet lace as my helper holes to knit the lace edging on, and off it went. I really love the silver beading on it as well. It really adds a nice fancy touch.

I hope my friend loves the hankie. It has that antique feel to it. Even if she doesn't use it to shed "tears of joy," she has a really beautiful hankie for her wedding day and memory box. I wrapped it up in silver tissue paper and tied together with a green ribbon containing a "congrats and care instruction" tag.

My friend Kristi is getting married in a year in a half, so hopefully next time I'll have plenty of time to "whip it up" and master the art of embroidery placement.

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have one for my own wedding almost two Octobers ago. Wow....two years.
All the best to you, Miss Elizabeth. Soon to be Mrs. Elizabeth.