knitting fun

I learned to knit from one of my three older sisters. We've collaborated and learned a few things since the first style of hat she taught me to make. I don't know who to credit for some of the additions we have made over the years, so I'll just credit her. I learned a honeycomb pattern from her which was great for girls. I could sort through my pictures to find the first hat I knitted... Why not right?

But then there was the necessity for boy hats so we worked on striped pattens too. Which I find work great for boys and girls.

Here's one with ear flap ties and pompoms. We also tried rolled brims for girls.

Then, recently, I had a friend teach me how to knit in the round. I was hoping to avoid the seam.

So knitting in the round is so easy if you know how to knit at all. I proceeded to make my son a new hat (you'll notice that you can see the "seam" from color changes. I was using different weights of yarn and this was not only my first project in the round but also my first adventures in color changes in the round).

(since he has a head that is bigger than it used to be).

And talking to a friend. I decided to try just a chin strap style ear flap with button or snap closure for my baby and later for her new baby.

As you can see the latest one in the purples has better color changing in the round.

I also added a flower thanks to my mother in law buying my 4 year old a nifty knitter of the 3 inch variety.

My five year old has had the same hat for a while and as she's watched all these new developments she's requested some for her hat.

Before:

After:

She also insisted I add a flower to my own hat. I also tried another feminine brim on hers, one that would curve around the face, but could be rolled up if needed. I used this same technique when I made my hat.

And of course we all had to have "matching" hats at one point.

Then I learned how to make a really nice, strong cord. I'll credit my sister and mom and an elderly German lady for that one. Though I am still in the process of figuring out how to combine it and the ear flaps. So that's where I'm at now... and finding Zurich's newly made hat, did we leave it at Grandparents?

Oh! and not to be forgotten: The Fuzzy hat.

"Wow, that felt really relaxed, thanks Deb." -uncle Rico

Gary REALLY needs a hair cut.
For some reason this is most apparent at midnight, knowing he needs to go to work the next day. Last night as we were getting ready for bed I commented, "We shouldn't have been watching the Olympics, we should have been cutting your hair."
It was obviously too late to cut it now... so instead, being responsible adults, we messed around with it for about the same amount of time that it probably would have taken to cut it.
Oh the laughter
Gary's rubber face and his suggestion for a nice seahorse frame kill me.
Here's a look at some of what made me laugh so hard.
Oh I love this man and how he makes me laugh.
Find the "Uncle Rico," "Kramer" "Dumb and Dummer" "80's heart-throb" "Scrubs"


If you don't know what movie the post title is from, you really should get acquainted with Napoleon Dynamite.

Kindergarten Valentines

For Olea's valentines for Kindergarten we used our Cuttlebug and Cuttle kids machines. Olea and Zurich had a cutting fest. Zurich mostly cut motorcycles and Olea cut hearts. Lots of hearts. I cut tags and then Olea assembled the hearts and motorcycles on the tags. Of course we were so busy doing I never took a picture till we got home from EVERYTHING and only had two left. So that's all you get. Olea had a great time cutting, gluing, writing etc. Thanks Grandma for the tools to do this. Olea drew a heart and then her name on each of them. Then we stuck them on the dum-dum sticks. I hot glued a dab on the back so the tag wouldn't slip off and get lost in the hubub of handing them out. Then I stabbed holes in a Ritz box and put all the sucker sticks in for her to transport them to school. It worked out great and all of them on the box looked cool. You'll have to take my word for it. When I was using my awl to stab holes in the box Gary comes into the stuido and says, "I'm glad you're not the murdering type."

Ya, good thing.

Tutorials

Back in the day I submitted a tutorial for this post on Totally Tutorials and checked back for a few days to see if it ever got posted... then Christmas came and I forgot about it. The other day I thought about it again and got curious.

Well friends

It was actually posted on Christmas day. Here is the link to the post there.

http://totallytutorials.blogspot.com/2009/12/tutorial-how-to-make-embroidered-iron.html

YAY!

Heart Tattie Sale

Head on over to corettadeesign.com to see info on the Sale I am having on heart Tatties for Valentines Day. The sale Ends Thursday!

Projects in motion

Oft times when I read a blog and see all the fun projects people post, it looks so Viola, ten minutes, easy sort of thing.
Maybe it is for them.
Back in the day I painted Olea's room. No wait. Let me begin again.

Back in the day we decided to switch the kids' rooms while they were at Grandma's and paint Olea's for to make her not feel bad she was getting the smaller room. So here it is before as the baby's room.

And working on it

Gary did the patches the night before when we moved everything out and we installed a lower run of shelving in the closet. Then I painted.

I did a one color rag roll and then pink swirls and blue butterflies and swirl accents by hand. This took the longest. The rag roll took maybe two hours.

And moved in complete aside from hanging up the pictures and such.

It was the first room in our house to receive the gift of colored paint (besides the basement).

Gary said that he loved it, but then looked around the room and said, but nothing matches... SERIOUSLY?! It's all pine, I retorted and then proceeded to point out the things that did match, but he had a point. I can't go buy her a bed spread, the kid has a huge enough pile of favorite blankets on her bed. But I can re-finish the dresser, because we've been talking about doing so for a few years. Yup, Years.

(This used to be our dresser before we decided to celebrate V-day and save little gifts and buy a dresser on the President's day sales. Good choice, and Olea got a fitting dresser out of it). But it has that dumb wagon wheel on it. I also had quite a bit of leftover paint since the pink swirls didn't take too much. I toyed with the idea of Modge podge to match her magnet board. Gary suggested I also paint the mirror pink. So I pulled a drawer out and took it into the garage. By the time I came back in for another...

At first I was just going to do the drawers. Then I got into it, I guess.

Pull off ugly wagon wheel and pulls

Sand and patch

Prime

Paint

Then decide to do the top

and the detail on the frame

Detail on the drawers

Then I modge podged the mirror frame just like Olea's magnet board. We picked out new drawer pulls that make it much easier for my little 5 year old to open a big long drawer.

Olea and Zurich "Turning gold into cash" (yay, the infomercials!)

Dresser complete and moved in.

Room done. Olea Loves it. She says it's a Tinkerbell room. SCORE! And Gary thinks it goes together better. Whew! These last pictures are since she's been living in it a while. She's 5 I'm not going to pretend that her room is spic and span all the time. This is life.

And I'm going to link this up a few places: