Second Soaker... on my needles now

Started these Monday 12/17.... Paton's Classic Wool in 'denim'... Same pattern as the other soaker but I'm reducing the ribbing by 10 and adding 10 to the body and adding a few garter stitched stripes... you can't really see them in the pic though... This is also a thinner yarn and I'm using a 4.25 instead of a 5.0 so they will be smaller and tighter. -grin-

Joseph in his new soaker

He's so silly! The Junglebook movie was on and he was dancing around and being silly. Sam says little boys always act silly when they are only wearing their underwear!! (Cathy, ya may wanna take a note of that...)

...hears the movie going...
...playing with his belly button while watching JungleBook...
Silly. SiLlY. SILLY!!!

I love him so much!!!

My First Soaker

I finished my first item in wool! This is the soaker pattern from Ottobre. I haven't made the I cord yet for the waist yet. I'll get that done soon and get a picture of Joseph sportin' his new soaker! I started these Wednesday evening and finished them Monday evening.

Last Week... In Review... Part 2

Molly was a server in the wedding and Sarah asked that everyone wear the 'wedding colors' so Molly picked out fabric for a new skirt and I spent Friday sewing for my girls!

Of course MaryVance needed a new dress too... the boys wore navy plaid so she was our 'tie it all together' person with navy fabric with mauve flowers. She picked out the pattern and I Promise it does not look like a 'costume' on the pattern... but it sure does all made up. Oh well... she Loves it anyway!

I'm gonna have to work on the neck though. It's a tad loose. It doesn't look too low-cut until she bends over. I think it's just because she's so thin...

I really intended to have someone take a family pic for us at the wedding... but it was raining outside... So I intended to have someone take a family pic at church yesterday but it was Incredibly Windy and chilly... so...

I just need Lauren to come for a visit... Oh Laaareeen...

Buggy Grain...

Short story... ya wanna see what you do with buggy grain?

I wish I had thought to get pics when they were playing in the backyard with the buggy grain. They had three totes out there and were playing with cars and trucks and little men. They had a blast! And the chickens are now enjoying the buggy grain.

So... for the long story... we always order our wheat from Wheat Montana. Great wheat. Never any problems. But this time we got a "great deal" ordering from Walton Feed so we decided to give them a try. We bought two 50 pound bags and when we opened them this is what we saw:

Yummy... see the chewed up kernels of grain?Cute little boogers... not.

After many fruitless emails back and forth with Walton Feed (who basically "can't do anything" about this... I think we may be nearing a resolution... just a 'heads-up' if you ever plan to order from them...)

Last Week... in Review...

Sew... wanna see what I was up to last week??

Sewing.... Yep! Sarah is getting married and I offered to "help in any way" with her wedding and she asked me to make her flower girl dresses and dresses for two of her sisters.

Sew... I made two of these dresses... this is Hannah's but Emily's looks just like it only bigger.

And I made two flowergirl dresses... like this one... (the hem is straight - I promise - it's just hanging wierd on the hanger!)

We can't forget little Stephen... he needed a bowtie!

I also made a skirt for Molly and a dress for MaryVance. I'll get pics of those up soon!

It was a Fun and Busy Sewing Week! I do love to sew!! :-)

And we musn't forget the knitting ... I finished the pair of longies I started the day after Thanksgiving this week. I do most all of my knitting while we are traveling -- I was so Happy to get these done!! I finished them Wednesday evening.

As soon as these were done I immediately cast on my next project! A soaker in marine blue wool... I'm about 28 rows into them now. Pics to follow soon.

Yep, it's been a busy, fun and productive week!

MaryVance Sings...

"Do Right"...

MaryVance Recites Psalm 1

MaryVance gets in on the recording today too! Here she is reciting part of Psalm 1... with motions... she learned it from Rachel Wissmann (http://www.wissmannfamily.com/)

Elijah and Math

Oh goody! That worked! Here's one of Elijah practicing his math facts. Enjoy!



In case you can't tell... at the end he arranges the cards in numerical order...giggle

Elijah's Reading Lesson Today

Thought I'd try to post a movie... let's see how it goes. This is Elijah doing his reading lesson for the day.

mmmm... Rub a Dub Dub...

Wanna see what's in my tubby right now? Take a deep breathe and smell it... oohh... so so yummy!

We've been using soap from Faith Acre Farmgoods for about a year now. Tara makes the most scrumptuous soaps! They are made from fresh goat milk and all kinds of other wonderful ingredients.

You can see all of Tara's available products at http://hyenacart.com/FaithAcreFarmgoods/. You won't be disappointed! Her soaps and other products make the perfect gift for those 'hard to buy for' on your list!

Oh and Tara is having a blogging Give Away!! Check this out! Go to her blog at http://faithacrefarm.blogspot.com/ Want to know what's up? Here's a sneak peak!

What's on my needles now?

I know you are just *dying* of curiosity... LOL...

I am working on a pair of longies for Joseph. I'm working this pair in acrylic to make sure I understand the pattern before I use wool yarn. I'm using the freebie longie pattern from http://www.tinybirdorganics.com/ . I started these Friday evening. In case you can't tell they are upside down. The brown ribbing is the waist. These are knit flat so there will be two legs and then I'll sew them together. Make sense? Have I mentioned how much I like varigated yarn? lol

I'm also working on a shawl (or something...) for MaryVance. This is my mindless knitting... I need something mindless for knitting while traveling (not while driving, mind you!) I was knitting on the longies in the van this weekend and it was dark and the next morning I realized I had knit three rows wrong and had to pull them out. ugh.

I'm loving Knitting! Have I said that about a thousand times already?!!

Playhouse Day Three

Yesterday was a short 'working day'. We had a fellowship meal after morning church and then had an afternoon service. Then we had to go to Lowe's again... grin... so by the time we got home we only had an hour of daylight. Here's what we got done yesterday.


Now we are all ready to work on the roof! Woohoo!!!

Playhouse Day Two

Whew. Another long day. I'm glad we had nice weather! Today our plan was to get the walls up. Here's what the littles did...

Framing up the first wall
What is it with little boys and water?...
Almost there... three sides done...
Woohoo!! The last side is UP! This shot is from the right side.



This is a shot of the back.

Ta da!!!

By way of explanation... I'm sure you are wondering "why in the world is this taking so long?!" Well, any *normal* people would have found a neat set of plans and followed them to build a playhouse. Fortunately (or not... as the case may be...) we are not normal!! :-) We drafted these plans ourselves... that should explain a lot... LOL. And we are constantly changing them as we go. See, originally the roof was going to slant front to back... I was going for Quick, Easy, and Cheap. But after we got the floor done and saw how small 6'x8' really is... we decided to do what any reasonable people would do and shift the roof line so it slants left to right.... in theory we are building Half of a Playhouse :-). Then in time (hopefully *soon*) we can build the other half and it will look like a Normal Little Playhouse! Can you envision that?

So, *No* we aren't normal... LOL. But we are having fun!! And it's gonna be SO CUTE!!!

Playhouse Pics... Day One

Day One:
We got the floor completed! You wouldn't think it would take so long... but it was hard getting the floor level and square...

Here's Isaac at our building site. He's so excited!!!

Elijah was cutting these big leaves for us to use as umbrellas!

Nailing the floor down.


The front porch!


(above) Elijah and Sam... using Sam's new driver! (below) Isaac is helping too!THE FINISHED FLOOR!!!

We are building a play house for the littles today...

Stay tuned for pics as we work!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day be filled with feelings of Thankfulness...

Count your Blessings today...
Go ahead... try... I bet you can't even count them all!

My First Completed Knitting Project

A washcloth... It measures 9x10. I thought it was a square but I guess I should have done one more row of squares. Oh well.

I'm pleased with it. There are still a few bobbles but my stitching is getting smoother finally!

Now do I dare start those longies!? Or should I do that shawl for MaryVance first? hhmmm.... decisions, decisions, decisions!!

I'm Learning to KNIT

woohoo!!!

I've wanted to learn to knit for years and years but thought it would be too hard to learn.

One of the ladies on HearthKeepers suggested buying a 'teach a child to knit' book and going from there. So I did! I bought a 'learn to knit this purse' kit geared for ages 8+. I figured if it could teach a child to knit then Surely I could learn, right? I have a very hard time learning from written directions.

We left Tallahassee heading to Jacksonville two Fridays ago. It took me almost the entire time (over two hours) to figure out how to 'cast on' and 'knit'. I don't know how many times I pulled everything out and started over but I finally got it!!!

I had some camo yarn with me and that's what I was using to practice. I made a long rectangular piece and stitched it together and told Sam it was an ear warmer for him. He's such a dear. He said he loved it and he would ear it every day :-). I told him he didn't have to do that and he (inwardly) sighed... hahahaha

So I got some more varigated yarn -- I have a real thing for varigated yarn... and practiced some more! When I bought the yarn (and that would be at a WalMart on our way Home from Jacksonville...snicker) I bought a book about knitting... oh and I got some yummy bamboo needles.





I started with knitting each row. Then I knit a row and purled a row to create a 'stockinette' stitch. After I got the hang of that I decided to try ribbing. See what I REALLY want to learn to knit is longies and longies need ribbing so I had to practice ribbing, right? After the ribbing I did a few more rows of knit then purl.

Then I decided to play with cotton yarn. I think my needles were too small because it was too tight and I didn't like using cotton at all.

But I figured that Everyone uses cotton so it must just be me and I tried again. Bigger needles this time and I was conscious to keep it a little loose on the cast on.

I guess this would be a Sampler Washcloth... I knitted some stockinette to get the feel for cotton ...

There are still some bobbles but I'm getting the hang of it. But it was kinda boring (I think I have Crafters ADD...) so I thought 'what would happen if I knit five, purl five back and forth?

It made a soft of 'checkerboard' pattern. Isn't that cool!

Then I looked in my handy '26 Stitches to Knit' booklet (that I bought at yet another WalMart --snicker--) and thought I'd try the 'cluster rib' stitch. I did something wrong because it doesn't look like the book :rolling eyes:

And let's not forget the beginnings of a sock that I have cast on size 3 aluminum needles. No pic of that one. I don't like it. Of course it's in varigated yarn (red/white/blue). I don't like the long needles. And I can't really see the pattern well enough with the colors of the yarn. But the biggest issue is that the needles are too long. I went to WalMart (do you see a trend here) but they don't have short #3s. Sigh.

I did fail to mention a trip to Hancocks in there. They had yarn 50% off so I got some wool to use for my first longies attempt. All of their knitting supplies were 30% off so I got a few more pairs of bamboo needles, two different sizes of wooden circulars, some little cap things that keep the yard from falling off the needles when you sit it down to rush to the bathroom, some markers and I forget what else.

I think I'm addicted.

Oh and I never did make the purse....giggle.