Birthday Time!

Aurora is Four!

A fantastic celebration for a wonderful little girl. We are so lucky to have you Rory-Boo. You light up our lives and we've enjoyed every moment of your first four years.

Aurora's birthday table set up and waiting for her when she awoke

Number Four shaped pancakes for breakfast.

Scrapy fingerless mitts were one of her morning time gifts.

Ready to party!

The cake.

Recent Knits

In April, my name finally came to the top of a waiting list I was on to join a Three Irish Girls (my favorite yarn!) Yarn Club!!! This made me very happy indeed. I now have amazing yarn coming to me each month, in exclusive (I love that word) colorways. A necessary indulgence. Here are some of the recent knits...

Shorties for the lil' man. TIG roslea organic merino in Oberon. I love these, but was having quite a bit of issues with the short rows- kept getting holes. I'm working on a soaker right now (Vanilla, for anyone on Rav) and it employs a different short row techniques that's working much better for me- no holes! I have some special yarn set aside for fall longies for Liam that will hopefully come out a bit better.

Another Cap Sleeved Tee for Rory in TIG McClellan DK (merino/bamboo) hydrangea. Love this pattern.

A hat (with jingle bell) and sweater set for a toy dog (in TIG galenas merino Gingerbread House from a scrap bag someone sent my way). These things are totally necessary, you know ;)

Liam's fall hat, in my favorite kid's hat pattern SMSS's Fae Folk Hat in TIG Galenas Merino Tierney... knit from left over yarn from his coming home outfit. Which led to the sweetest picture ever:

and on the needles I've got a hooded cotton cardigan to finish up for Rory, the above mentioned soaker for Liam, and the latest club colorway was aptly named Aurora in a dreamy alpaca/silk blend... I'm waiting on one more skein of that being sent to me by a friend, and then a Tiny Tea Leaves cardi is on the list for Rory.

First Stitches

Knit stitches that is. My baby, ahem, I mean big girl, has been asking to learn to knit for quite some time. I wanted to start with finger knitting like any sensible mama, but she insisted on using needles. So learning she is... and quite quickly, too. She needs a bit of help holding the two needles together while she wraps the yarn... but, otherwise, she's doing it by herself!

She says she's knitting a scarf for her Nee Nee. This yarn has some sweet memories for me. It is the organic cotton I used to teach my self to knit two summers ago. I made a garter stitch scarf for Rory. I think she's picking it up quicker than I did, though :0

One Week Old

More...

Welcome Home Set

Sheepy Pants in TIG Galenas Merino 'Tierney' and Malabrigo Merino Worsted 'Bijou Blue'

Little Boy Blue Ribbed Baby Hat in TIG Galenas Merino 'Tierney'

BSJ Inspired Booties in Malabrigo Merino Worsted 'Bijou Blue'

Our Little Guy will be here tomorrow!! I have an induction set for tomorrow morning, due to complications relating to my past miscarriages. We were hoping he would come on his own (he still might tonight~ you never know!), but are so, so excited to meet this long awaited little fellow. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

WIP Wednesday and Martinmas

Happy Martinmas everyone! This is the first year we will be celebrating.... Aurora and I will be making a lantern this afternoon (she is very excited about this) and then joining some special friends for a twilight Lantern walk. I'll make sure to share the pics tomorrow.

I'll be sharing some of the stories/poems with her and following the lantern tutorial found over at Our Little Nature Nest.

Yesterday, Rory and I went to Ikea after preschool for lunch and to pick up a package of tealights for our lantern making. You should have seen my little shopper- she took the task of picking out the perfect candle very seriously and carefully sniffed each and every candle Ikea sells. It took quite a while, but she finally decided on some berry scented tea lights. Since she is so very excited about the candles, I think we will also make a table lantern of a glass jar with tissue paper glued on to have on our dining table.

And.... the incessant knitting continues (hmm... could I be nesting?!)

I've got a sweet little baby gift on the needles now for a little guy who should be making his appearance any day now (not mine!).... but since his parents occasionally check this blog--- no pics right now....

But Aurora's sweater shirt vest thing is done- and she loves it!

Halloween and Knitting

Halloween first... not too many pictures here...it's surprisingly (or maybe not so) difficult to get a three year old to stay in one place long enough for pics on Halloween. But, I did get one of her helping to carve the pumpkin:


And one with Maddie next to the jack-o-lantern just as they were about to set off trick-or-treating. Aurora was Minnie Mouse and Maddie was a beautiful princess. Rory, as you can see, was more interested in trying to rip open some candy than look at the camera.... oh, well.

And, now knitting.... I finished two hats for the babe... both with the pattern from Rory's hat... I love this pattern, it offers such great coverage around the ears and back of neck. This one was done in Malabrigo Merino in Continental and was left over from a hat I made for myself, but have yet to photograph....
and this one was done with NaturallyCaron Spa, one strand each of Ocean Spray and Green Sheen held double. The yarn is an acrylic/bamboo blend, mostly acrylic though. I don't usually like to knit with that much plastic content, but the yarn was there in my stash, pretty, soft and my fingers were needing something to knit... I made this one without the loop on the top, to see how'd it look.... I prefer the loop, I think
All this knitting for the baby has finally got Aurora interested in me knitting for her- This is my current WIP- the Girl's Cap Sleeved Shirt which is also being knit in the same bamboo yarn as above, should be easy to wash at least. I've finished more since the pic, but probably still have a good 2-3 inches to go before it's done.

~Sorry about the horrible picture... Rory's not even all in the frame- but at least she's smiling for once~

Late Night WIP Wednesday Update...

It's all done!

WIP Wednesday

It's getting there. We were headed down to the shore last weekend (that post next :)), So i cast on while in the car... and before bed that night I had gotten this far:
Then I tried it on Rory.... TOO SMALL!!!!! argh! Just barely too. I had made up a swatch... adjusted my needle size, made up another and was ready to go making the size medium to fit 1-4 yrs. I kinda forgot that Rory's always been in like the 90th %tile for head circumference. Plus, I think in the actual hat, my knitting was a little tighter than in my swatch.

So, that hat was sadly ripped out, and I'm about 60% done with the second hat, a size large to supposedly fit ages 5- young adult. Hopefully it's not too big....

But I love the way the colors in her yarn are knitting up! She's quite the little dyer, isn't she?

WIP Wednesday....on Thursday

I love looking at everybody's WIP Wednesday (WIP= work in progress), they're always so inspirational and I have gotten so many great ideas from them. However, Wednesday is not a preschool day for Aurora, and I seem to be posting primarily on the days she does have school (hmmm, wonder why?). So, while I will strive to have the actual posts on Wednesdays, I anticipate that this won't be the last WIP Thursday ;)

We've gotten a start on Aurora's winter hat. She picked out the Fae Folk Hat pattern, which I think is so cute, and Tuesday we went to our local yarn store after preschool to pick out yarn. Being my Libra girl, she went straight to the higher end yarns. She really liked a particular color way of Noro Silk Garden Lite... and as I've been looking for an excuse to give Noro a try, said yes.

But.... this yarn is so darn thick and thin! I mean really thick and thin. It's a DK weight yarn, but parts of it were more like an chunky while others were more of a lace weight. I've seen hats done in Noro, but I could tell I was going to struggle with it, and I was worried it wouldn't be warm enough with all those thin spots....

So, the Noro is now being knit up into a lacy scarf for me, which I think its much better suited for.



And, Aurora and I got started Kool-Aid rainbow dyeing some plain white wool worsted for her hat. She had a blast!! I can't wait to see how it knits up and she is so proud. Frontier Dreams has a great kool-aid dyeing tutorial for anybody who looking for one.




And, just for fun, here's the first of the baby knits. A sleep sack in the Sheepy Sack pattern knit with Marlabrigo merino yarn.... so soft and yummy.