:: yarn along ::

Ginny, over at small things, has a great idea going. A single photo of a current knitting or crocheting project with a current read. I thought this was great! I read...a lot. And I knit...not as much as I'd like but I do have 2-4 projects going either on the needles or in my brain.

{Ravelry link}

So here goes.

On the needles :: tiny tea leaves from Madelinetosh. Love this pattern! Of course I first saw this sweater on Soulemama's site. Loved it. Wanted to make it for #1 but she doesn't wear sweaters. She didn't want a mama-made sweater. So I bought the pattern and cast on for Miss T's 2nd birthday. The birthday was in February so I'm a bit behind but as of now I only have three rows of garter, weaving in ends, blocking and adding the buttons!

On the nightstand :: A Horse and His Boy (The Chronicles of Narnia). I have never read the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Except once, when babysitting in high school the parents handed me a book before they left saying to read a chapter after the kids were tucked in. I remember butchering the names of the characters and places and not really getting this strange book. Shows you how much I knew... After the movies started coming out I would read each book prior to the premier of the movie. But the other day I walked by the rack of books at the library and thought I'd get the next one. But what if I finish before our next trip, so I grabbed the rest of the series. I'm reading them in order of publication.

That was fun. Thanks, Ginny for such a great idea. I'll be playing along again!

It's quiet time now so I think I'll go knit...or read!

finished

One of the handmade items I did for Christmas was dishrags for my mom and Mr. Wiedz's mom.

I got the pattern here. It was a simple and quick knit. I could knit in the car or in small pockets of time.

#1 also knit her grandmas a couple of dishrags. We put together a present for each of them, 2 from me and 1 from her. #1 picked out all the yarn colors and got to choose who used which yarn.

I got all but 1 wrapped and under the tree. I had cast on that last one and figured I could knit while driving back and forth to the family Christmas Eve party. But I turned out to be the driver as Mr. Wiedz stayed at my parents sick himself and with a sick #4.

So, my mom got 1 Stacy-knit dishrag and 1 #1-knit dishrag.

The cast-on but forgotten dishrag has been riding along in the bottom of my bag since then.

Until the other day at church. We were early (#1 has a commitment that requires her to be in class half of an hour ahead of the rest of our classes starting) and waiting in #3's class for the teacher to get there. I pulled out the sorry lump of yarn, de-tangled, figured out where I was, got a refresher from the pattern (love my iPhone) and used those extra minutes.

And a few more listening to the service.

Finished. And in the mail.

A gift

I whipped this t-shirt up for a friend of #2's from Cub Scouts. The party was this past Saturday. #2 picked out the guitar design, I'm not sure why. While we ran errands the other day we picked up the shirt...I was hoping for a colored shirt since white generally doesn't stay white for too long, especially on a 7 year old boy. It turned out cute and I was happy with it. So was the mom of the recipient...the actual recipient couldn't really care about a t-shirt, hand embroidered or not.

inspired by all my reading at house on hill road.

:: this moment ::

:: this moment ::  A photo from the week. Not too many words. A simple moment, extraordinary, special. Something I want to remember, cherish, to pause over. If you have a "moment" leave a link in the comments for others to find and share.

inspired by soulemama

A walk in the wet woods - but look, the sun...blue sky...moments and memories.

So we had a birthday...

Even though I was against it. #5 turned 1 a couple of weeks ago. And I will admit to him being a pretty terrific 1 year old!

I've said before that our home here in Eugene is a little on the small side, so the idea of putting a birthday party in here on a likely (it is Oregon) spring day had me a little nervous. So I asked my mom if we could hold the party at her house. Aside from being perfectly large it is closer to a lot of family on Mr. Wiedz's side so I was hoping for a good turnout.

The party was perfect! Little #5 charmed everyone with his cuteness. Little and littler cousins were there from Mr. Wiedz family and both Mr. Wiedz's grandma and my grandma were there.

"Grandma Great" (Mr. Wiedz's grandma) with all of her great-grandchildren.

Great Grandma Ruth with 5 of her 19 great-grandchildren. She was really excited to get to be a great-great-grandma this fall when my niece has her first baby.

We enjoyed our last alligator cake.

And opened gifts.

1.

Not sure how I'll manage to have this baby grow but I am sure lucky to have him.

**I know I'm breaking the "rules" with the above photos of the kids' (gasp) faces but the pictures are perfect and with the loss of my grandma just a few days later these are pictures I will treasure and I'm so glad I took.**

A mama-knit vest for #5

Wow! A lot of knitting posts right now...

I've finished up some projects the last couple of days. I'm so excited about this one!

I first saw this vest in a Soulemama's post. And the first one I made was the first actual garment I ever knitted. I loved it and put #5 in it nearly daily even though it didn't start really fitting him until summer. I think I even put him in when it was too small for him.

My favorite outfit: those monkey pants (!), striped shirt and mama-made vest.

But using Soulemama's guidence I cast on for another, bigger one.

And it has been sitting in my knitting basket in differing stages of done for many months. Lately it has been haunting me just waiting for buttons, which I actually had but hadn't taken the time to put on and weave in the ends.

Today! I got the buttons to replace the buttons I lost after it all sat around for so long. And during a blissful moment of quiet when baby was asleep and the big kids were playing in the yard (sunshine!) together (not fighting!) I sat and finished it! Ravelry link here.

When #5 woke up from his nap and the other boys had tried it on, they really want their own mama-knit vest, I buttoned #5 into it and took him outside for a little photo shoot.

Then we loaded up and headed to tee ball and softball practice. This vest is just right, I think, for all our early Oregon spring field-sitting.

Love!

A mama-made hat for #2

#2 has been (so far) left out of the mama-made knitting around here. Something he pointed out regularly and I was determined to fix.

Grammie N purchased some beautiful yarn from here but can't for the life of her figure out this knitting thing. (strange since she's so excellent at everything like knitting) She couldn't see keeping the dk weight yarn when it didn't really fit the crocheting she likes to do. So I was the lucky recipient of all this gorgeous yarn!!!! Lucky me!!!!

And lucky #2.

He has always said he wants a yellow and green hat. And actually wanted the yellow and green all mixed up together, not stripes (thank goodness! I just really didn't want to do stripes), like I did on a vest I've got mostly done (need to finish and post about that).

There just happened to be a skein of green (not exactly the green I would have chosen but a nice green all the same) and a yellow in the gift from Grammie so I cast on and not too long later #2 has his hat!

Ravelry link here.