Knit Chick

June finally got to wear her lone 'summer' knit that I made while I was pregnant - she really loved it too!! She got to wear it for her first trip to the yarn shop and was a hit! She seems very pleased with herself.

Heaps of Handmades!

Yep - still just me here. No baby yet and I am starting to have the sinking feeling I am going to have a late baby instead of an early/on-time one. I have tried to tell her it's much more fun on the outside but she insists on staying put for now. I am 'officially' on maternity leave as of yesterday so I guess it could be worse but the sitting around is maybe harder than the working!

In the mean time, I thought I would show off some of the neat gifts she has gotten already before even being born! I must say, I know a lot of crafty people and I feel so fortunate that they have showed off their talents and skills by making the baby some neat gifts! I will let the pictures speak for themselves!

My grandmother crocheted this and set it to us as a surprise the other day in the mail!

My mother's friend Pam knitted a beautiful blanket and matching hat.

Peggy, the best camp cook ever from HPC (where Logan and I met), quilted this blanket - it is pink fleece on the back and very soft!

This wonderful Fair-Isle sweater was knitted by a lady we go to church with. It will be perfect when she is older! It makes me want to improve my knitting skills for sure!

Last but certainly not least, my mother knitted some super cute things for the baby!

Adorable knit bibs and a close up of the buttons attached.



Baby's first 'Easter' bunny!

It's a little hard to see the pictures but on the left washcloth, there are two cute little baby feet and the one on the right has a 'B'

I was hoping to have some more knitted stuff to show off myself but with working I was worn out at the end of the day. I might try to wrap up some unfinished things this week but the lure of being lazy for one last week. Hopefully the ball will get rolling soon but I am not holding my breath! Maybe the next time I post it will be to introduce the brand new Morrison? Let's hope so!

Finally!

I figured out the camera and software and we are in business! I am still majorly peeved that I "can't find" my old digital camera but I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new one. I got a Cannon PowerShot A1000 IS after playing with all of the cameras in the store. It has a HUGE viewing screen plus it also has a viewfinder as well. I debated getting a fancy-smancy srs-type camera, namely a Cannon Rebel digi since I have a 35mm Rebel and my lenses would all fit it but I just couldn't get past the convenience of a small 'pocket' camera. I can stick it in my purse or jacket pocket or whatever instead of having to lug around a ginormous camera bag. It is a 10 megapixal and does videos and all that jazz so hopefully it will have a nice, long productive life!

So, now that I have a camera, let me share some knit projects I have finished since the camera went on vacation. Of course it's all baby stuff since we now know it's a little Miss :)

I have very strong ambitions that we will still go to the beach this year and thought Miss Baby should have some nice little beach wear. This is the cutest little halter top and the picture really doesn't do it justice. I left the back unseamed so I can measure her once it comes beach time and either seam it then or my other idea was to add snaps so it can be adjusted width wise...


This was knit with Reynolds Saucy cotton in the prettiest sea-foam-green-color I could imagine!

The second project was just something fun and cute I couldn't pass up - it is a 'Tomato Beanie' :) She will DEFINITELY have to wear it if I go to the cannery this summer!


I used the green Reynolds from the halter top for the stem and leaves on top and "I Love this Cotton!" from Hobby Lobby which is absolutely the softest nicest cotton I have worked with, however it's a little shed-y. My nice green stem has a bit of red fuzz clinging to it but maybe it will help to wash it. We'll see.

Not much exciting baby news since I last wrote - I will work on getting a 'belly shot' over the weekend because I feel absolutely huge right now. My belly definitely 'popped' out all at once, even since Christmas there has been a huge change. I go Monday for my glucose screening - oh the joy! I am about to start every 2-week visits too which mean that it's getting closer! Time flies when you are having fun I guess :)

Updates

Here are some updates on what's been going on since I wrote last:


I am a little concerned (but not really!) at the amount of snow we have gotten so far this year and it's not even Christmas yet! We were out of school 2 days before Thanksgiving. We were supposed to go back to school Monday (yesterday) but have had 2 snow days so far. Not that I am complaining! I have gotten all sorts of things taken care of and semi-cleaned around the house (I shampooed carpets today!). The bad news is I think this means we are in for a nasty winter. The good news is that any days that are tacked on to the end of the school year - I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT! Not that I am rubbing it in anyone's face and not that I am going to have it so much easier with a baby instead of a classroom full of 4th graders...I'm just saying :)


We still have the kittens that we are fostering and I can't believe the change in them in the few weeks we've had them. The black kitten that was so timid and shy is now the first one to come out and jump on my lap to snuggle. They both run around the house at a million miles an hour to play and are an endless source of entertainment. We are currently looking for an indoor home for them (hopefully before the holidays) and I would really like them to stay together since they are so close with each other. Four cats sleeping on the bed is just a little too much for me - especially since I am starting to get to the uncomfortable sleeping stage where I can't seem to get myself settled...

Although I haven't showed anything in awhile I have several knitting projects going on. I am finishing up a pair of mittens and a matching hat for my sister-in-law for Christmas. These are my first mittens I have done. I am about halfway done with the second one - the snow days have helped keep me knitting-motivated. I have decided though I don't like knitting things that come in twos - like socks and mittens, etc...I think it gets monotonous after awhile because I already know how it's going to turn out. Here is a picture of the first finished mitten -

The yarn is a little darker than the picture leads on but it is beautiful. It's purple with mixed in pinks and blues which you can see up close. I hope she likes them (and hope she doesn't read this! If so - act surprised!!). I don't know why the picture is blurry there - it's not blurry on my camera or computer - I will look into that and get a better picture...

So that's about it that's exciting in the Morrison house. I have a Dr. appointment on Friday and am supposed to be getting scheduled for my ultrasound to figure out if it is a boy or girl baby Morrison. I really need to have Logan take a picture to show my 'baby bump' - it's getting there! I will be 18 weeks this Friday! Can you believe it? I will try to get a belly picture on sometime this week to help with my 'boy or girl poll' up in the corner - if you haven't make sure you vote! Hopefully next week the ACTUAL results will be revealed!!

Daisy Sweater - Finished!

What to do on a rainy, nasty Saturday? Finish my Baby Daisy Sweater of course! It's about time too! I have been working on this since summer and I feel like it has taken me forever! Mostly because I started back to school then of course there is the all-the-time tiredness so that hasn't been helpful. I finished knitting it at the beginning of the week and finished sewing the sleeves up and sewing in all of the loose ends and putting it's buttons on this afternoon. I still need to wash and block it to make the border lay down but I am very pleased with my work!

If you are a knitter and interested in the pattern, you can find it here.

I knitted it on size 6 needles with Paton's Shetland Chunky Tweed in Earthy Brown. I loved the colors for either a boy or a girl so it was perfect! The yarn is so thick and soft and will be a great winter sweater. I plan on making a hat to match it but that might wait for a couple of Christmas presents to be finished (oh yeah, and my Brea Bag that STILL needs to be sewn - will do before casting on anything else!).

So, here are pics of my days hard work. I am not 100% happy with the quality of the pictures, I think it makes the yarn look too shiny - which it's not - and you can't see as much detail but you get the idea :)

Starting Over

I got my computer back this week and I would have posted sooner BUT all of the programs had been wiped off my computer. Ahhhh! In order to get rid of the particularly nasty virus that was on my computer, Windows had to be completely wiped out and started over. I did save my files but all of my programs like my Kodak camera picture software and iTunes and everything else I had on here at one point were wiped away. I think after several days of working with it, I finally have everything back to almost normal....Which means I have pictures again!

Here is the Yoda Baby sweater I finished and got all stitched up before it was time for me to go back to school. It was such an easy pattern but the worst part was stitching up all it's little seams. I am really pleased with how it turned out! Now hopefully it will fit a baby!!



The sweater wraps kimono-style around the baby so you don't have to deal with trying to fit it over a wiggly baby's head - a neat concept!

I am about 70% finished with the next sweater of my new favorite yarn - Paton's Chunky Tweed in Earthy Brown. It is so soft and snuggly. I made this in a bigger size and all I have left to do is the raglan sleeves. The yarn isn't nearly as shiny as the picture shows it to be.



Other than knitting, school is back to being my life! I miss summer already but I do have a FUN weekend ahead of me next weekend when I get to meet up with old camp buddies at the Holston Camp Staff reunion! Now THAT I will take pictures of :) If you recall, that is the camp where Logan and I met and a lot of my best friends were made (City Mouse!). I can not wait and hopefully this week will fly by with students starting back on Wednesday.

Oh - one more fun thought - we have a ton of drawings for things at our Countywide Conference for school starting back and I won a $25 gift card to Starbucks! Now THAT will help me start back to school!!!!

Mystery Project

So did anyone figure out what the knitted pieces went to? If you guessed baby sweater you are right!


I know what 99.9% of you are thinking right now and NO I am not pregnant - haha. I knew that was going to be the response to knitting this but I have an explanation. Because I am not a speed knitter and I want our future children to have some cute knitted goods before they turn 18, I am starting a 'knit-baby hope chest' of sorts. Huge projects tend to bog me down and cause me to start forty-trillion other little projects while I am working on the big project because I like instant gratification with knitting. Baby clothes are a good solution to this problem! If I have to knit for 30 hours straight before I see any progress I tend to get bored.

This pattern is called the 'Baby Yoda Sweater' and it was so easy - it took me just a little over a week to finish! I still need to finish the seaming and then blocking which I should be able to do this afternoon. It also has ties that you wrap kind of kimono-style and I think I am going to buy ribbon for that instead of doing the suggested I-cord. Of course it is in as 'gender neutral' colors as possible. If you are a member of Ravelry, you can find the pattern there for free - I am sure you might be able to find it somewhere else online but I didn't check. My luck I am going to have a behemoth baby that won't be able to fit it this even though it is up to 6 months on the pattern.

My next baby project will likely be another sweater - maybe in a little bigger size - because I just got some yummy brown 'tweed' yarn that is so soft and I love it so much - it is Patons Shetland Chunky Tweeds in Earthy Brown. I have a few possible choices that I like that I just need to narrow down. First thought I REALLY need to seam together the Brea bag and line it before I cast on anything else!

That was about my week - knitting, working in my new classroom, and oh yeah - canning! I canned 6 quarts of peaches by myself on Wednesday then went over to my mother-in-law's house and canned 7 more quarts of peaches and made 9 pints of sweet pickle relish. Busy! I got the peaches from my parents when they came down to visit this past Monday from their fruit tree! I hope our fruit trees produce as much as theirs one day!


Have a good weekend - I have chores awaiting me since Logan will tell you all I did this week was knit :)

Oh Please Not Yet!

I know I have been awful about blogging the past couple of weeks. It's all in a desperate attempt for me to hang on to the little bit left of my summer that is quickly coming to an end. Teachers report back to school the 20th so I have 2 weeks as of today. Depressing. What did I do with the last 2 months of my life? Ack! Not enough! I get this way every single year. I could have run marathons and cured diseases all summer and I would still feel this way! It really hit yesterday when I was able to (finally) get into my new classroom (I am changing grades) and start adjusting. I will be headed there shortly whenever my coffee kicks in and I feel ready to start new projects there.

In knitting news, I have everything I need to complete my Brea bag! I made a trip to Joanne's Fabrics yesterday and came out with a cream and brown patterned fabric for my lining and a unique bone button for my closure. I have to sit down and take the time to piece everything together now. In the mean time, I have started a new 'secret' project. Ok it's not really a secret but I will write about it tomorrow. Here are the current pieces for it - I still have 2 more pieces to make and piece it together before it's finished. Anyone have any guesses about what it is? (Mom you don't get a guess since you already know what it is!)


I wish you all could see our cats playing right now - hysterical! Cleo is rarely in the mood to tolerate playing with poor little Gabby but right now she is initiating it and then teasing her by hiding in the dining room chairs and swatting out the back like it's a jail cell. Too cute. I had better be off to school now :( Can't I have just 1 more month? (Maybe we'll get some snow ;) )

Cookin' with Cables!

I had all of the intentions of finishing my Brea Bag I had started knitting. I finished the front (back?) while at the beach and started on the gusset that connects the 2 parts together. The front and back went really fast but now the gusset is pretty repetitive which after all of the fun cables, has become a little boring. Hopefully I will finish most of it tonight - I am getting together with a friend to do a little knitting and chatting. After I finish that, all I have to do is trim the top with crochet (blech!) and add a button, handle, and lining. HOPEFULLY that will go fast once I get to that point!

So just for fun yesterday, I cast on a neat coffee mug cozie/hand warmer (I think it looks like a coffee mug sweater) and it was such a fun knit that I just about finished it all yesterday and did finish it this morning! I have fallen in love with knitting cables! I used to think they were really difficult and too much trouble but I can't explain enough how easy it is once you figure out which stitches to slip and hold them - not at all hard!

Anyway, here's the mug cozie - the first picture is darker - doesn't show the yarn colors accurately - to show the cabling. The last 2 are the cozie on the mug. The only hard part about it was finding a mug to fit it - it takes a pretty big and tall mug to make it fit right and the handle has to be wide enough for your had to fit due to it being the handwarmer part. If I make any of these for gifts, I will definitely take them to the store to fit them on mugs!




If you are interested in the pattern, it's free and you can find it here:
http://aproudusafwife.blogspot.com/2007/11/cabled-coffee-and-hand-warmer.html

Hopefully tomorrow I will be a little closer to finishing my handbag!

Sick Knits

Fever...chills...headache...sounds like a miserable winter illness huh? Nope - that was my week this week. I don't know what I caught but it knocked me out flat for most of the week - Tuesday night through Friday my day was spent either curled in a miserable ball in bed or curled out on the couch when I could stand light and noise. I have the feeling I caught something at the pool but there is really no telling. So that is why I have been M.I.A. for most of the week with posts.

While I was sick I did a little bit of knitting when I could stand to do something. Since I didn't have a lot of energy I needed something easy and taking a pointer from my mom and her new knitting class, I did a few dishcloths - just something kind of mindless that would help me pass the time on the couch (while my house WASN'T getting cleaned)

The first is a cute little watermelon dishcloth - I plan on going back and sewing on 'seeds' and I still need to weave in my ends on this one

The next is the 'classic' knit dishcloth and I added a little crocheted loop on the end so I can hang it up to dry.

So nothing exciting, but what can I say? I was near death. I am in search of something new to start. I have a sock pattern I am toying with but I don't know if I feel like starting a sock quite yet after the last 'sock'. So I am off to search patterns and watch the rain moving in - thank goodness. Our garden needs it!

Sock-tastrophy

Ok, it's really not that bad. The sock looks REALLY good - one done...But I don't know if I will be doing it's mate. I learned a difficult knitting lesson this week. If a pattern calls for size 3 needles and worsted weight wool, you can't use size 2 needles and sock yarn and expect it to turn out the same size. DUH! I don't know what in my brain made me think it would. The yarn-shop-lady assured me that everyone uses size 2 needles when knitting socks so I believed her...and the yarn was on a good buy (bargain bin!) and I didn't have enough wool at the time (do now). Let's just say this sock won't be fitting my size 9 boat...

I will do this pattern again - it was so easy and the sock turned out beautifully. It has an after-thought heel which means you knit the whole sock without the heal and then go back and 'unzip' the yarn where the heel will go and knit in the heel just like you knit the toe.

I will see if my sister-in-law can wear it and if so I will finish the other. Otherwise, I have a good test sock!


This is the sock before I put the heel in - the white yarn is where I 'unzipped' it and added on the heel.


Appy inspects my finished work and ponders if it's for her.


Tah-Dah! Finished and not bad for my first sock if I do say so myself.

Run for the Wall and a New Knit

Today was a very busy, hectic, stressful yet fun day at school. Wytheville is the second to last stop on the Run for the Wall motorcycle trip and is a huge event with our school. Our elementary school sort of 'hosts' the bikers as they come through and present the bikers with a program before they depart.

First, for everyone who isn't familiar with Run for the Wall, here is a brief description from their website: www.rftw.org:

Run For The Wall (RFTW) was started in 1989 as an effort by James Gregory and Bill Evans. They were a couple of Vietnam Veterans who traveled across the heartland of America on motorcycles, talking to local radio, TV, and newspapers about the fact that we had thousands of men and women still unaccounted for from all of our wars. The need for this awareness continues today and we continue this tradition every May.

We don't give political speeches or stage demonstrations. Run For The Wall gets its message to the public across by riding through the United States. We obey traffic laws and treat all citizens with dignity and respect.

But the issue of public awareness is only part of the benefit of Run For The Wall. We also give Vietnam Veterans and all Veterans the opportunity to get their own welcome home and start their healing process...

The trip takes ten days to reach the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where our Run officially ends on Sunday evening before Memorial Day. Additionally, we have things scheduled for the weekend, ending with participation in the Rolling Thunder Parade in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. It is quite a sight to behold, 350,000 plus motorcycles all starting from the Pentagon parking lots, parading through downtown Washington, and ending at the Wall.

Along the way across the U.S. we make stops at Memorials, Veteran's Hospitals, and schools. We enjoy parades, escorts, and welcome-home receptions from many of the patriotic towns.

Our whole school (grades preK-5 with one preK and 6 classes of every other grade) all go over for the ceremony and program. I always feel super stressed trying to keep up with 20+ kids with hundreds of other students, bikers, and other spectators down there. It always works out though and these are honestly some of the nicest men and women I have ever come across. Many of them will walk up and hug you just to be friendly and appreciative of us as teachers and Americans. Here are some pictures I took in between wrangling students and praying they didn't touch a bike and knock them over like dominoes:


The Motorcycles were lined up all the way around the park on the walking track


One of the trailers that ride along with the bikers


Just a little taste of HOW CROWDED it is! Ahh! Luckily I didn't lose a kid!


Afterwards we all sent them on their way - they rode through the town before making their way back on the interstate headed to Roanoke before ended at D.C.

After that morning and then trying to keep the peace through the rest of the day, I needed a little retail therapy and headed over to the yarn shop which is almost right next to the school (very convenient!). I got brave and decided I was bound and determined to try to knit a sock (or 2!). I have thought about starting several different patterns this week but nothing appealed to me that I already had so I picked up a cute 'footie' sock pattern. I ended up getting 2 skeins of sock yarn - one neat orange and yellow color and the other a self-striping yarn as well as a partial skein in the 'bargain bin' of another self-striping sock yarn. Yea! I also picked up a set of size 2 dpn which should cover basic sock-ery. While waiting for Logan to get off of work, I cast on and started the first row. After dinner I sat and finished the cuff - moving very quickly and after learning how to juggle the dpn I have hit it off. I *heart* socks!



Hopefully I will still love them after this one is finished!! I had better with what I paid for yarn today ;)

A Quick Knit and Growing Peeps

After the marathon knit of the draft-stopper, I needed something I could whip out and have immediate satisfaction before starting another longer knit. I am not the fastest knitter by far - I get easily distracted, spacey, and sometimes sleepy when I knit - I can't knit for hours on end unless a good girl friend and a lot of coffee is involved and around here, there are always a million other things to be done. Yet I love to sit down in the evenings, sometimes in front of the TV, other times by myself, and knit my troubles and stresses away.

So, I did a super-quick seed-stitch headband. I started it on Sunday and thought I would finish it that day but, refer back to paragraph 1. I ended up going to the tack shop in search of a bridle for Jetta, grocery shopping, buying new chairs for the deck, putting together said chairs...Get the point? The knitting didn't get done. Yesterday, I worked a little but was just wiped out after a school Monday. Today it got finished rather quickly. So, here is the cutesy little headband - knit on size 8 needles with nothing-too-special acrylic yarn - Caron's Simply Soft in Autumn Red.


I am a big fan of the seed-stitch pattern - I like the pattern of the little 'seeds'


Watch out! Professional headband model in the makings!

In 'farm news' the chicks are growing like crazy. Most of them have their little wing feathers in but are still fluffy every where else. They are getting fast too! It's a 2-man operation to catch one for a health check-up. We should get the other batch next week. We'll probably put the first 5 in a separate box and let the 15 new ones have the big box to themselves.




Check out my new fancy feathers!

Adventures in Felting

I finally finished the knit draft-stopper I have been working on (and off) for it feels like forever this weekend. I started it in the winter when our house was like an ice box and the door to our mud room has a 2 inch gap under it (why?). There isn't any heat in the mud room so the heat from the living room got sucked out. Enter: draft-stopper.

It was a fairly brainless knit - nothing fancy, just stockinette stitch and all I had to do was count rows to know when to start my next color. I used 100% wool (Lopi by Reynolds) because it would need to be felted. It was easy but it felt like it went on and on forever! So, here is the draft-blocker in pictures and explanations!



This is the draft-blocker pre-felting. I felt like it was miles long and it was difficult knitting near the end because it was so long and heavy and it took more than just a second to get everything adjusted to knit a new row.



A close-up of the pretty stitches pre-felting to show you the difference with the next picture...



A close-up after felting. Felting 101: Felting is a blending together of wool yarn to make it into more of a fabric than a knit. I placed the draft-stopper in the washing machine on a hot/cold cycle (it's the hot water that does the felting) with several towels to help it along. After washing I popped it in the dryer for just 5-10 minutes to get a majority of the 'wet' out and then stretched it into shape and let it dry the rest of the day.



Here's another shot of the whole thing laid out after felting and drying - notice that it shrunk (it was supposed to) and isn't rolled anymore. The miracle of wool + water!



AND the final product - sewn and filled with kitty litter. Tah-dah! It's not a sweater but I am still pretty impressed with it. On to the next project...