Momma on the brink

Yes, a friend sent me a comment to that fact.

Okay, so I have been trying to update my blog, but a strange thing happens every time I sit at the computer. I get sucked into the Ravelry parallel universe. Yes, I too have become a ravelry junkie. Creeping into the site after midnight and spending hours looking at famous patterns done in almost every type of yarn you can imagine. I have been neglecting everything except the bare essentials... eating and sleeping and sometimes feeding clothing and bathing my kids.

Since to day is Monday, I made a vow to do some laundry, vacuum, and at least comb my daughters' hair. I am also updating my blog (Yay!)

What have I been working on.....

Well I started yet another shawl made out of Homespun. This one is for one of my good friends. The pattern is from the Lionbrand free pattern website. I looked at the pattern a while back and was not too impressed, but when I saw some examples on Ravelry I decided to give it a try. I must admit it looks pretty good so far. It's also a good way to stash bust a couple of skeins of Homespun. I post a picture when it's done.

I also made a Baby It's Cold Outside Sweater. It took me only 5 hours to make it (completely) and I am satisfied with the outcome. I have seen some not so hot examples of the BICO and I really don't like to crochet with Homespun. Yet one night cruising through Ravelry I saw some pretty cute ones and gave it a try. Now I have a spare baby sweater to gift.

I think my kids are up to mischief so I better make this short. Here arte some finished products of late....

The baby bolero from One Skein

Overall this was a pretty easy pattern. It only took me two months to seam it up. I think I will follow a fellow knitters advice and not block the next one. The sleeves were way too big after blocking and difficult to seam as a result. The yarn was WW cotton (Peaches and Cream I think).

The cute cotton tank from KnitandTonic's Blog

Also a very quick knit that I took my sweet time on making. It would have taken me only a couple of days if I hadn't got distracted with other projects. Also made out of WW Peaches and Cream yarn. It's been washed twice and air dryed and still looks nice.

Gotta go save the house.....

Yes this week was Pud Nooney's week. An aside- Have I ever told the blog how Pud Nooney and Sugar Love got their nicknames? Well my mom's family is from Louisiana and in Louisiana everybody has a nickname. If it's not a nickname then your real name is butchered almost beyond recognition. Case in point - My aunt Elsa is Eelsie and my Aunt Madaline is Aunt Maaaa-line. Other nicknames are Aunt Tee, Aunt Put, Cousin Nut, Uncle Badee, Uncle Bon, Cousin Tiger-Rooney you get the picture. Well in keeping with tradition, my Aunt Y gave my babies their nicknames. I am Niecey Poo.

So Anyway Pud Nooney had her kindergarden graduation ceremony today. Yes it's quite a big deal because in private school there is no such thing as 'No Child Left Behind'. If you don't make the grades you don't get to pass (and there is no money back clause). We were very proud of our girl today. And wait just one minute, yours truly ex-fly girl was honored at the awards ceremony with a gift certificate for her class contribution. See all those crazy people back in college who said that my heart was as cold as ice can take it back. A fly girl can be domesticated (reluctantly). Here's Pud Nooney posing with her trophy.

She also got her orange belt yesterday.

And she placed first place in a Karate tournament this past Saturday.

She is posing with her cousin . See the serious Karate face. Pud Nooney has a thing for her cousin . For the longest she has been saying that she wants to marry him. I told her that first cousins who marry have babies with three eyes and and a hump on their back. A while back she proclaimed to my BIL that she was going to marry her cousin and they were going to have babies with three eyes. I need a new approach (obviously). Oh and L's Earth Kids shirt - does it scream Austin, Texas why yes it does.

Oh man. I just can't seem to get my pictures to look pretty. Some say it's user error (a phrase I heard quite a bit in my IT days), but who has time to read the freakin manual. I got kids to feed, dishes to do, laundry to fold.....

So I came across this tutorial on how to set up a macro studio on the cheap. Well, I tried it and I am still not feeling these pictures.

A Citrine Herringbone bracelet

Some Ruby Zoisite earrings

Now if my jewelry had cellulite then this type of thing would be great.Everything is go gloomy not bright. To me these pictures just look washed out. Oh well back to the drawing board. I promise, when out out the secret to taking good pictures I will share.

Pud Nooney got her trophy!!!!!!!!

Yes these last couple of weeks have been rough. She did 18 practice tests last night. Now I can concentrate on more important things like finding a better way to take pictures. I am currently working on a shawl for one of my mother's friends. It's a feather and fan shawl made from homespun yarn. I am really getting the hang of this pattern. We took the girls to see Disney on Ice and I got in some quality knitting time. Here's a progress shot

That's a little over two skeins of homespun. I plan on using three so the shawl should end up being around 58 inches long and 20 inches wide. The pattern is here. The pattern calls for size 11 needles, but I'm using 10 1/2 needles. It looks dense and drapes so so, but I wanted it longer.

This is one I starting for myself out of some mill end cotton yarn

The colors are very fall, but the drape is really nice. Let's hope I can finish it before fall is over.

And last, but not least a so so picture of my clapotis.

Done in lovely silk garden. My next one will be in knitpicks Andean Silk Twist.

I haven't been blogging, but I have been busy. School ends in two weeks and Pud-Nooney is frantically trying to win her math trophy. Basically her kindergarten class has timed math tests and those who can graduate to answering fifty problems in one minute wins a trophy. The class starts out at plus zeroes and continues to plus tens and so on and so on. Pud-Nooney is very good at reading and writing (yes she is reading the Chronicles of Narnia at 6!), but she really has to tackle math. I came to grips with the fact that we may not win the trophy last month and told her it would be okay. I also said that we would work on math all summer to be ready for first grade. When she realized that she would be doing math all summer, she really picked up the pace on winning her math tests. What she doesn't know is that regardless of whether she wins the trophy or not math will still be on her summer schedule. I know, I'm a terrible mother aren't I? So I have been spending most of my afternoons copying and pasting practice tests and going over math flash cards. If I had forgot about addition in the past I have definately become familiar with it now.

As for my knitting...

I finished my clapotis! Yes it is lovely. I don't have any pictures to share yet because, I need to take it out and snap up something nice. Hopefully I'll get a chance to take a picture with it this weekend. I have also been knitting up baby goods

I made this cute little sweater a week ago. It's a very easy crochet pattern made out of simply soft. I don't think it took me two days to make. The picture really isn't that great, but if you crochet give it a try.

This is the ultimate quick and easy baby sweater. The pattern is not free, but worth the price. It uses one skein of Read Heart Light and Lofty and takes about four hours to actually knit. The hard part of course is seaming up the sides, but you only have two seams to do. I usually steam block this sweater before I seam it (and yes you CAN lightly steam acrylic).

These are some booties I knitted for one of my husband's coworker. I am tempted to say that this is my favorite baby bootie pattern, but there are just so many good ones out there. They are made from simply soft yarn and are from this pattern. I beliee the simply soft makes them a 3-6 month size, but that's what I was going for.

And I did some sewing!

This is a purse I made for one of my cousins who has a birthday coming up. A very easy pattern, but too much ironing for me. Funny how sewing has a lot of ironing. Do I need to feel even more like a housewife?

I also found a really cool pillowcase dress tutorial online, so Sugar Love got this

So, now I am trying to get my mom's argosy scarf done before Mother's Day. This is such a cool scarf pattern, very easy to memorize and looks really good in the Noro Auroa that I bought. Had enough for now? I'm off to tame my wild girl beasts.

Okay. I don't like finishing knits. No, you didn't hear me- I really don't like finishing knits. Just the thought of having to seam up something, makes me get really anxious. So much so that I have to find an instant gratification item to crochet or knit just to bring me off the ledge. I guess I hate the fact that I have knitted up this nice item that will no longer be nice one my stubby fingers start with the needle and thread. Take for instance these booties:

They could be cute booties. They don't look too bad now, but wait till tomorrow (or the next day, etc) when I get the courage to seam them up. Maybe I'll just staple them together. Oh, babies eat staples- my bad.

This is a tank I'm knitting for Pud-Nooney. I got it from Knit and Tonic. It's not really a pattern as much as it is a recipe. I just made a swatch and took some measuremnets. Did I mention I'm not real good at taking measurements also? We'll see how it goes, and cotton does have a shrink factor. If all goes well, I'll be making one for Sugar-Love also. Then I'll move on the Knitty's Monica.

Pud-Nooney got sick. Twice. No fun in this house lately. I have been overloading on the Airborne, so hopefully I won't catch the bug (Again). As for knitting, I am making progress on my clapotis. Yes, I caught the clap-itis bad. I am already planning on making at least two more. The first one was out of Silk Garden. Definately an overpriced yarn. Nothing special to write about. Yeah, the color transitions are great but the yarn is not a consistent weight and there are twigs (and berries) in the yarn. Come on now, I may like twigs and berries in my cereal, but I don't want to wear them. I have bought some Andean Silk Twist to make my mom one for her birthday and I am debating on making one out of a cotton silk blend of yarn I have for the summer.

My family came down from Houston for a short visit. I got to load off some recent knits including my grandmother's Serephina shawl. I made one of my cousins a clutch from One Skein. One skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky, and I was able to felt it in my front loader. It felted quite nicely, a true testament to Lamb's Pride yarn. A bought a nice flower pin for the front, because I didn't really care for the button version in the book.

I also made one of my little cousins an Anthropology Inspired Capelet. This has to be one of the easiest patterns I have in my knitting collection. Let me clarify- one of the easiest patterns with the best results. There are easier ones, but they always look like poo-poo- when I knit them up. The capelets I knit up look really nice and I feel quite good about gifting them as a bootilicious gift. It took me about one day on and off to knit up this one. I used one skein of LB Jiffy yarn and I sewed a cute purple button at the top. Here's Ju-Ju Bean sporting it:

She doesn't look too happy right now. The awesomeness of her bootilicious knit has overwhelmed her senses.

What's next? Knitty has some very cute kid patterns out for the spring, so it looks like I'll be knitting some goodies for my kiddos. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, lets see what happened over the weekend.

Thy name is littleknits.com and I love you.

For all of you out there that want that silk garden clapotis, but don't want to pay $80.00 for it, your prayers have been answered. I got my silk garden for $6.05 a skein from littleknits. Yes, I have found a yarn web store that speaks my language- champagne taste on wine cooler budget. I don't know if I caught this store during spring cleaning time, but they have fantastic prices. I also ordered some Atacama alpaca for $4.40 a skein. It also feels quite lovely.

Saturday at Town Lake.....

Once in a blue moon my family feels the need to drag me outside to the park. My husband knows how I am about the outside. I don't like it. Parks... Not me. So what does he do? He lures me outside with the promise of margaritas and Mexican food. Then on the way home he takes a detour and heads to the park to feed the ducks.

As you can see, Sugar-Love ain't too happy about the outdoors either.

Feeding the ducks.

Pud-Nooney contemplating the universe. ( I guess)

Sugar-Love cheered up as we were leaving.

Oh joy. I get stuck carrying all the stuff.

I also managed to finish my grandmother's seraphina shawl over the weekend. Although the colors are not my style, I think she'll like it. She favors light bright colors. I used around three skeins of LB homespun yarn.

Now, on to my silk garden clapotis.....

Yeah, that's a basket of laundry in the picture. A domestic goddess has duties.

Okay, I know that I am suppose to be frantically trying to crochet my Grandmother's seraphina shawl to get back into her good graces. It started out good. I started the pattern and got to the sequence rows, but I just wasn't feeling the homespun yarn. Let's face it , LB Homespun is cheap yarn. Hey, I am not a yarn snob. I can appreciate all types of yarn and I know that every type of yarn has it's place. But there is something to be said of nice yarn. Sometimes you just need to get your hands on some nice yarn and knit something up with it. It's suprising how the same pattern knitted in different quality yarns can yield such different results. Case in point: I knitted up a pair of wristwarmers last week in some Caron acrylic yarn. They were allright. Nothing to brag about. I didn't even take a picture of them. Then yesterday I decided to use the same pattern with some Patons SWS yarn I recently purchased at Michaels. These came out better. I took a picture of the new wristwarmers. I'm not saying that SWS is all that, but it gets a picture on the blog.

I had a extra skein, so I also whipped up this hat.

I finished the Crazy Aunt Purl's basketweave scarf for my BIL birthday (which is today), now on to something else. I really would like to start a project for myself. You know something just for me. Like a pair of fetching wristwarmers (I'm really into wirstwarmers lately). Or a pair of socks for me (I just bought a skein of Opal sock yarn at Hill Country Weavers for $9.00).

No me projects today, but....

I started on another seraphina shawl. This one's for my grandmother. Its a belated birthday gift that I need to get done like yesterday. I have to get this project in the mail and load off the guilt that I not only didn't get her a gift on time, but I just outright forgot her birthday. I really didn't mean to, but my kids are giving me brain damage. I am hoping that when she sees the hard work that went into the shawl she'll cut me a little slack. Hey, she had kids... shouldn't she have some brain damage too?

Here's the WIP picture of the shawl. I'm using LB Homespun (I gotta get rid of this stuff!) and a size N hook.