One more FO post for the day!

FO = finished object. ;) These shorties are just a tad damp yet, but they will go in the mail tomorrow to a dear friend of mine who, fortunately or unfortunately, has 2 little boys almost exactly the same ages as my girls. Dougie is 2 days younger than Oh, and Liam is about 1 month younger than Evelyn. I have "known" this mommy for quite some time, and I am responsible for converting her to cloth diapers. Hehe!! Let's just say she has some wonderful blackmail photos of her boys in hot pink diapers that she can show future girlfriends. :D

The wool is called Rambouillet, which I guess a French merino. It's not a terribly soft wool, but it seems very sturdy and I would be surprised if it pilled very much. Feels sort of like Lion Wool, but not quite...hard to describe. The colorway is "Tangled Up in Blue" from Colleen/Spiffy Knits at their new store Tiny Lady Cooperative. She dyed the brown and shipped it to me so fast, it was fabulous!! Too bad I didn't win any of the grand opening lotteries though. Bummer. ;) The waistband is knitted-in elastic, with 2 strings attached for a "drawstring"-like look. She can always remove them if she thinks the bow is girly, but I like it. I'm probably going to add the same thing to Evelyn's elastic shorts! Then I can easily see which is front and back, lol!

Here is a picture of the back!

And a blurry close-up. Miss you, Delilah the D-100. Get well soon! :(

Gotta run. We have two major cases of crankies here this morning. Perhaps the small people should rethink the 5 and 6 am wake-up times!!! Ugh. Can we say early naptime?!

Seeing double....again!

Another set of matching twin soakers for a friend. These identical twin boys are very special, because they had a rocky start to their lives. They are survivors of TTTS - twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, which I don't know a whole lot about but the basic idea is that one twin receives all of the nutrients and the other twin is robbed of them. They are toddlers now and the cutest red-headed boys you'll ever see! Perhaps I'll post action pics if their mommy says okay. ;) Anyway, here are the soakers ~ knit with the Radiant Twist pattern again, size smalls (one is smaller than the other, that was actually intentional, lol. I finished the first one and decided it was too small!), wool is Lion Brand 100% Wool. The colorway is Majestic Mountain and the trim is Sage. I think they turned out well, and I hope they fit!

This is the scarf that never ends...

At least, that's how I felt when I was knitting it....but then I was out of yarn and I wished it was longer! Oops. The scarf is a birthday gift for my mommy, a week or so late. Who wants a scarf in July, I wonder? :D

The yarn is 50/50 wool/alpaca from Lonesome Stone Fiber in Granby, Colorado. The colorway is called "Shades of Raspberry." It was a nice soft but sturdy yarn to knit with and I enjoyed it! I did a Google search for "one skein scarf patterns" and came up with this pattern:

CO 30 stitches, size 10 needles
K first and last st of every row
Row 1: P across
Row 2: K2tog across
Row 3: K1, M1 across

Repeat until yarn is gone. BO. Ta-DA!

The photos are of course all washed out, since my D-100 is in the shop. Sniff sniff. :( I need some yarn photography tips too, lol. At least I can get it to sit still easily. Although it doesn't smile. ;)

I must be off now to finish packing and get the girls in the car to Minot to Grandma's. Watch for pictures next week of the much-anticipated "Dora cake" party!!

Guest Blogger, Annie's Mom in Minnesota: Annie needs an alpaca!

Disclaimer: No, I don't really need an alpaca. My mom just thinks I do. I think I have enough things to clean up after as it is. ;) Here's her commentary on a visit to an alpaca farm.

The Minnesota Valley Photography Club was invited for a private tour of Rose Crest Alpacas, in Webster, Minnesota, this week. They had two babies and seven other wonderful alpacas that we were allowed to photograph and get acquainted with. Kathy, the owner, gave a great presentation about alpacas, which are much smaller than llamas and incredibly soft and cute. Kathy let us browse through her store of "everything alpaca." She has new shipments of yarn spun from her own animals that is just amazingly soft and gorgeous. I'm such a beginning knitter that I had no idea what to buy. So, I guess I must go back. Visit her store or email her for information on the wonderful natural-colored yarn that she has in stock now.

Mom

Victoria, the daughter's owner, and her alpaca

Double the fun!

Wow, I can't believe Evelyn is still asleep. It's 9:02 am. Crazy kiddo! But anyway, that means I have time for one more post, then hopefully she's up soon so she can have breakfast and we can go out for a walk.

These soakers I knit for a Diaper Pin mama with adorable twin girls. The twins are not that old, but unfortunately the soakers look HUGE to me. I have no idea why, seeing as my gauge was right on each time I checked. Ugh. I have loosened up considerably as a knitter, these were knit on 6s for the body and 4s for the waistband. They are from the Radiant Twist pattern, which I think you can buy on her Etsy cart. The yarn is 100PureWool in the "Blush" colorway, which of course I can't find on the website anymore. They've taken a lot of their colorways down for some reason. It was so fun to knit with, because it is sooooo buttery soft. This yarn is their new 3-ply merino; the 1-ply merino is known to be amazingly soft but also prone to felting and pills like crazy. I'm hoping the 3-ply is a bit better. I have 2 skeins of "Shades of Violet" for fall longies for Evelyn to knit sometime. As of right now, I only have 2 projects on the needles! Whoa! :D

Birthday present for me!

Okay, a very early birthday present. Joann.com often has 40% off on one item coupons, and I saw one online a couple of weeks ago, and just had to snatch up a ball winder. I don't have a swift yet, those are even more expensive, especially the collapsing ones that I want. But no worries - Olivia is quite proficient at winding and mommy can be the swift! She has already wound 5 balls with me and she often asks "Mommy I wanna make sumpin'!" which means she wants to wind a ball. ;) I'm gonna run out of yarn for her soon! She does get "tired" in the middle, which I figure just means she's bored, so sometimes she'll bail in the middle of winding. Little stinker!

The instructions were clearly written by someone who does not speak English as their first language. They're absolutely hilarious! These are direct quotes. I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.

"For setting yarn guide up: Thrust it in over a boss positioned at the reverse side of base until clicking."
"Fit bobbin in bobbin holder in a right position."
"After winding yarns up: 1) Take the wound ball out of bobbin after picking the first end of yarns up. 2) Alternatively take the wound ball with bobbin out of bobbin holder, detouching the bobbin by turning it to the right."

Okay then! Clear as mud?! I want to know what the "boss positioned" is! Luckily it's quite self-explanatory to use, because the directions aren't much help!

The family that knits together...

Is very close-knit? ;) Sorry, I could resist the pun!!

A few pictures from our Colorado vacation of the knitters. My cousin Melanie is knitting an old-fashioned sweater (the pattern is very old~ from the 30s? I forget.) with alpaca something-or-another, my grandma is reading my Debbie Bliss book to help me understand the sweater pattern I've started, and in the second picture my aunt and grandma are helping me to wind the alpaca farm wool into balls. My cousin Nicholas, in the background, is not knitting. ;) Yet! Hehe. My aunt Laurie has not been bitten by the knitting bug, either. Hrmph! Not pictured are two of my favorite knitters, my mom and my sister!

Soaker for Josh

5 minutes left to post! I should probably get going NOW, as I don't have Olivia dressed or myself dressed for that matter....oh well. Small town makes for short driving time to the doctor's office. ;)

Here is a soaker I did for a Diaper Pin mommy friend of mine Elissa. She and her two kiddos live in Arizona and I bet her son, Josh, wears nothing but a diaper a lot of the time! I thought I'd try out the new Radiant Twist soaker pattern for him. Well, I liked the pattern a lot, but I didn't read it quite right....ugh. I put the short rows on the side instead of the back. Oops. Elissa has shown me pictures and says it still fits, but I'm sure it would be better if the short rows were RIGHT. Urgh! Oh well. Live and learn!

Here is the "sneak peek" picture I sent her:


Artistic mountain-in-background photos!



With that, my time is up, and it's time to get moving! Thanks for looking!

Finished Belladonna Shorties

Lots of posts from me today. :) I have exactly 11 more minutes before I need to wake up Evelyn and feed her breakfast before her 15-month appointment (and shots :( ). Let's see how many posts I can catch up on, haha!

Here are some shorties I finished while the girls were at Grandma and Grandma's bed, breakfast and Ruby house:

They are knit with hand-dyed BFL (Blue-faced Leicester) wool from Michelle at Belladonna Designs in her "Strawberries and Lime" colorway. I did her pattern as well, but with an elastic waist and slightly different gusset. They are a tad big, my gauge was a little too loose (oops) but perhaps they will fit next summer as well. Or Olivia could wear them! They are soooo soft and I am happy with how they turned out!

The kindness of others!!

One of my pasttimes is reading/posting on a few internet message boards (rather sad, probably) and among my favorites is The Diaper Pin. The crazy knitting mamas there have helped me a LOT with knitting shorties and I always admire their work!

One of the moms dyed her first yarn recently. I oohed and aahed over it, it was so pretty. It didn't turn out at all how she wanted, because she has a little boy, and it was just too girly. I begged her to sell it to me! ;) She didn't bite. Bummer. Then, she posted pictures of this darling skirty she was knitting with it. I had no idea ~ but she was knitting it for Evelyn!!!! I was so amazed at her generousity. Hours and hours of knitting went into the skirty, I'm sure. It fits her like a glove and it's so beautiful. We are sure to get compliments on it wherever we go!

Here are a few pictures of Evelyn, who apparently only wanted to run away from me:







Classic thumb-in-mouth, curly crazy hair, sweet-looking Evelyn!



Thank you again Patti!! You are so sweet to knit this for us. We love it!

Yummy Colorado yarn!

Oooooh aaaahhhh! Isn't it gorgeous?!? We spent last week with family in Grand Lake, CO and it seems that a person can get a LOT of knitting done in a 15-hour car ride....sooo...I was anxious to buy more yarn and not run out of knitting projects on the ride home! ;) My grandma asked about a LYS at the quilt shop and she directed us to Lonesome Stone Fiber, an alpaca farm in Granby, CO about 15 minutes away. It was soooo cool! We petted a lot of pretty yarn...my grandma bought some 100% alpaca and I got the above yarn ~ 2 skeins of the blue which is 100% superwash merino and slated for a sweater for Evelyn. The pink is 50/50 alpaca/merino and is soooo soft!! They were my birthday present from the wonderful knitting Grandma! Thanks! :D

Oh, and I did not run out of yarn on the way home....I don't really enjoy knitting with teeny tiny weight yarn. Blah! :P

Pathetic Quilt Square Attempt!

Okay, so I've been a REALLY bad blogger. Sorry. We had a wonderful family vacation in SD/Colorado and the week before that I was childless but had a whole long to-do list that I tried to finish! (Didn't really. Bummer.)

So here is the first of many posts of crafty stuff. It may take me a few days to get them all done, lol!

First, my first ever quilt square. Ugh. I am not cut out (haha! sorry bad joke) for quilting. See how one edge isn't square? Um, yeah. I first sewed the blue fabric on backwards (doh) and then it wasn't quite big enough all the way to the end and I did not feel like ripping it out. I sent it off to Pin mama quiltlovinlisa to make into a quilt for a mommy who unfortunately lost her 21-month-old daughter just recently. I can't even imagine her pain. We are putting together a "healing hearts" theme quilt for her.

Good thing I'm not going to take up quilting - I bought the fabric at my local quilt shop (and got waaaaay too much, too) and it was spendy!!! Sheesh. Yarn is almost cheaper. ;)

Here's the end result: