Sunday, May 30, 2010

Yet Another Baby Gift

One of the preschool teachers where I used to work is expecting a baby girl, Aubrey, at the end of June. The original plan was to make a baby blanket of some sort. However, I decided this weekend I wanted to make a cute, girly baby sweater instead:


Pattern: Manda Ruth by Jane Richmond
Yarn: Spud & Chloe Sweater Yarn 
(50% wool, 50% organic cotton)
2 skeins made the sweater and a pair of booties (320 yds)

Isn't it adorable?? I'm particularly fond of the buttons:


I had about a half a skein (maybe a bit less) leftover after the sweater and so I decided to make a pair of adorable booties to go along with the adorable sweater:



On a very disappointing note, I have very hungry rabbits in my garden. Remember the picture of my radishes from a couple of days ago? Let me remind you what they looked like:


Here's what they look like now:


Don't let that rogue weed fool you. All Gone. All. Of. Them. There were about a dozen of them!! Apparently the rabbits are hungry. They devoured them in two days. I went out yesterday and half of them were gone. I went out today and they are completely gone. It looks like I never even planted anything down there. Tomorrow I'm going to install chicken wire around the raised beds. I will have a garden! A garden with actual vegetables. 

Love,
liz 

Thursday, May 27, 2010

At least the rain helps grow things..

We are having a very, very rainy spring. I've been told by the "locals" that it has been unusually rainy for this time of year. The mountains have been getting pounded with snow all spring! But I do have several rose bushes as well as other kinds of flowers hanging around the yard that make it more bearable!






Our little garden is starting to come along. Our radishes are well on their way and the green beans are looking pretty good. The carrots have just started to sprout, too. All the tomatoes are dead, as is the basil. Ugh. But I'm going to get some tomato plants this weekend and rectify that situation.

Radishes

I also discovered strawberries living in the raised bed with the grape vines:


Unfortunately, something has been nibbling at them. But there are lots of them left to ripen up, so now that we're home I can pick them before they get eaten. 

The weather this weekend is going to be nice (hopefully, fingers crossed!), so I'll hopefully be able to restore the garden a little bit and spend some time outside! 

Love,
liz

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Sock Monkey Complete!




This took way longer than it should have! But it is finally done, just in time for the baby to be born in a couple of weeks. I bought the kit at Twisted (a LYS in Portland) and it had 2 half skeins of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Heavyweight and the patterns for a large and small monkey. Seth thinks the monkey is creepy. I think she's kinda cute. I know the recipient will appreciate her (more specifically, the recipient's mother). Aimee and I lived with Kristen our sophomore year in college and she is due in a couple of weeks for her baby girl. Aimee made her a baby sweater and blanket, so I wanted something different to knit. I wish the body was a little bit longer, but I actually would have run out of green yarn if I had made any modifications.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I went to an Alpaca Farm near Seth's mom's house. There was a gift certificate promotion online where she was able to buy $50 worth of gift certificates for $12! We picked out some yarn to make slipper socks for her and then I picked out a couple other skeins of yarn. Then I asked about Alpaca spinning fiber. Well, she was mostly out of roving but had a whole barn full of alpaca fleeces (I'll have to turn it into roving) fresh off the alpacas. I was going to buy a pound and had picked out one that I liked. There was a second one I was looking at and the woman offered to just give it to me. I ended up with over 3 pounds of alpaca fleece for the price of a pound!


Sailor thought it smelled pretty awesome.


And then he decided to eat it. That's his nose at the top of the picture! He actually didn't consume it, just took a chunk out and threw it on the ground.



It's wonderfully soft. And it smells. It needs to be washed before I can turn it into roving. Some lovely ladies on Ravelry suggested mixing it with some sort of wool because alpaca doesn't hold it's shape very well. I'm going to get it all washed and then pick up some wool at the fiber festival near me in June.

Here's the alpaca yarn I picked up:


That's it for now! I'll post pictures tomorrow of all the lovely flowers in my yard and the things that decided to actually grow in my garden.

Love,
liz

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Beautiful Beach Wedding

*disclaimer* I don't have a good picture of Meg's dress and how gorgeous she looked. Seth had the camera, and was busy running all over the place helping out with wedding things (including kindly asking people to move on the beach so we wouldn't have half-naked sunbathers in the pictures!).  But Seth did take some photos during the ceremony and a few at the reception.





There were a few moments of crisis in the morning, including Sue's (the Maid of Honor) makeup looking like something out of Cirque du Sole show (Sue's words, not mine!). It was scary. I'm not sure there is any other way to describe it. I wish one of us had gotten a photo of the horrifying make up. When she asked the woman to "tone it down" she just put white over what was already done. Even. More. Scary. Thankfully, they did a wonderful job with Meg's hair and makeup, and the florist dropped off 2 fresh Orchids (though she told Meg in the morning she had ordered the wrong flowers), which looked beautiful.

The weather was perfect (although a bit windy on the beach) and the reception hall looked amazing. I'll try and get some pictures from my mom of the reception hall (she was able to get some great photos before people arrived). There was not a single detail overlooked. Meg and her Mom did a wonderful job decorating. And let's not forget the cupcakes. There were chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese and chocolate chip filling and white cupcakes with strawberry butter cream filling (all made by Mom Havens, of course) . Amazing.

The rest of the trip home was great. I'll do a separate post about all of the fiber and yarn I brought back with me. hehe. I got to see Eric, Becky and baby Lucas who is only a couple of weeks old. I forgot to bring a camera with me, so no pictures, but he is adorable.

Did you watch the LOST finale yet? Thoughts?

Hope orientation is going well!!

Love,
liz

Thursday, May 20, 2010

on hiatus



You know what time it is, don't you Liz?

It's camp time.

That means I'm dropping even further off the edge of the earth starting tonight....  The leadership team arrived today, meaning our small group of  6 year rounders have doubled.  We have a few days with them before program staff arrive, then den counselors next week for our 8 day orientation.  I will come back up for air June 4th. oy!

This also means that knitting effectively goes out the window, as does good sleep, healthy eating and my ability to limit my caffeine intake.

In non-knitting news, my weekend with F was amazing.  We were busy, but not too busy- saw two movies, went out for fish tacos and cupcakes, went for a hike at mammoth caves with the pup, cooked a kickin breakfast out of the new everyday food (the corn cakes with goat cheese and the spinach and cheddar strata.. amazzzing!!) went to Nashville to walk around and see some of the craziness surrounding a flood victim's benefit (creepy stalker people trailing Dierks Bentley... some people!) and ended up at the Station Inn (where I made quite a few new friends!!) for a bluegrass jam session.  Never have I ever wished I knew the words more than that night!


I do have a few knitting projects in the works which I will take pics of soon :)  In the mean time, hope the wedding was fantastic and the weather holds up!  Hi to all the Havens and the Limmers!

Back to orientation I go!

Friday, May 14, 2010

How long am I going to be gone?


This is the pile of yarn I'm bringing with me on my trip. Think I have enough? Obviously I need to have yarn for several projects for my 10 day trip. And this is just the yarn. Not the 2 sets of interchangeable needles, double pointed needles, notions, or patterns (need to be prepared for any knitting emergency!). I have a problem. :) 

In all seriousness though, sweater knitting can not take place in all situations, so I do need another smaller, less complicated project to keep me occupied. 

I've made some nice progress on my Alexandria Cardigan as part of the newest Purl Diva KAL.



I'm using Fleece Artist Woolie Silk 3-ply for this, and it is amazing to knit with. This will be a great summer cardigan to throw on in the air-conditioning and on cooler nights. 

In other news, my garden is becoming an epic failure. I'm too sad about it to even take pictures of the dead tomato and basil plants. All the seedlings that I transplanted have died. Okay, that's not quite true. The jalapenos are still alive. And so are the tomato plants I put in a big pot because I ran out of room in the garden. The good news is I still have some seedlings that I ran out of room for. They seem to be doing just fine, and I think I'll try transplanting them when we get back. Ah well. Good thing there is a farmer's market in town every weekend!

I dropped Sailor off at the kennel (Country Livin' Kennel!) this morning with a raging ear infection. He was at the vet earlier this week for shots and they said his ears were really waxy and needed to be plucked (Ah, the joys of owning a standard poodle). I brought him to the groomer to have his ears plucked and he cried every time they touched his right ear. Yesterday he was leaning his head to the side and whining when his ear was touched. So, back to the vet we went this morning. And lo and behold he has an ear infection. I had to flush his ear out with cleaner, put ointment in it and give him Antibiotics. He cried when I cleaned his ear out and then ran from me when I tried to put the ointment in. It was quite the ordeal. Thankfully, the kennel is willing to dispense all his meds. Poor Sailor! 

Well, I wanted to post before I left (we take a red-eye tonight that is already delayed about 20 minutes) since I may not be able to while I'm gone! Hope everything is going well!

Love,
liz 

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Run, Seth, Run!


Saturday was the McDonald Forest 50K, which was right in our little town of Corvallis! The race started at Peavy Arboretum at 8am which is about 5 miles up the road from our house. The weather was gorgeous and it was about 45 degrees at the start line.


Seth ran for Team Hole in the Wall! His super cool jersey came in the mail Friday, just in time for the race!


There were about 250 runners. It makes a non-runner, like me, feel like a lazy bum walking around with a bunch of ultra runners about to run 50K!

After the start, I went home and grabbed Sailor and went to the first aid station at mile 6.8. After that we tried to catch Seth at the second aid station, but missed him by a minute. The second aid station was 1/2 mile to a mile walk down a trail and because of the small parking lot and all the cars, I had to park a ways down the road. Of course, it didn't help that Sailor had to stop every few feet to pee on a bush :)


These cute kids were at the third aid station at Chip Ross Park. They had maracas and were jamming with the drummer and cheering on their dad. Very cute.



After a couple more jaunts to aid stations, I went back to Peavy Arboretum and waited for Seth to cross the finish line.



Seth is hurting a bit today, but for running 30+ miles...I think he's doing pretty well! We went up to Portland today to meet up with Keith and Kristine, which was wonderful! They are living in Denver now, and hopefully we'll be able to plan a trip out there to see them. We had lunch at the Stepping Stone Cafe (which apparently was on Man vs Food) and took a walk around Powell's Books.

Oh, and I just have to share this picture:


I came home to grab Sailor after the race started to find him in the chair laying on a knitting project and cuddling with the yarn that was attached to it. Silly doggie. 

Bed time for me....Sailor has an interview at a dog boarding place tomorrow! 

Love,
liz

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Lean, Mean, Rototilling Machine

The weather was gorgeous here today, so Seth and I decided we'd better take advantage of the sunshine and rototill the garden. Sailor was pretty antsy this morning and chewed the strap on a pair of my shoes, so we took him for a nice walk in the woods to wear him out a bit. Seth wanted to find some "hidden" trailhead, so we drove around for quite a while and ended up in a neighborhood on this huge hill where there were at least a half dozen deer just hanging out in people's yards! And one of them was a baby deer...so cute! We were unsuccessful in finding this "hidden" trailhead so ended up at one of Seth's regular running spots. On the way back to the house we stopped at the garden store and ended up with 4 huge bags of fertilizer, a hummingbird feeder, suet for the birds, organic fertilizer to sprinkle, potting soil for the blueberry bush (who grows a blueberry bush in a pot? We do!), and a few garden tools. Cha-Ching. 




Then we came home, ate lunch, and I headed out to the garden to pull weeds. While weeding, I figured out what the heck Sailor keeps obsessing over in the garden area every night (he jumped the fence into the garden the other night). It's gotta be either squirrels or chipmunks. There were empty nut shells all throughout the garden beds. And I'm positive they weren't there last time I weeded. I can only assume that they are also living under the deck, or at least hang out there from time to time. 


While I was weeding, Seth went and rented a rototiller. 



Notice how it looks as though I'm being pulled by the rototiller. Well, that my friend, is because I was. It literally just pulled me up and down the garden. Sailor wasn't sure what to think of the rototiller. He kept running in and out of the garden like a crazy dog.

Now, notice how Seth is actually able to handle the rototiller:


When all was said and done, the garden beds looked mighty fine:



I was too tired after weeding and being dragged behind the rototiller to actually plant anything. The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow though, so hopefully it will get done tomorrow.


Our raspberry bush is growing like crazy and I'm pretty sure it's going take over the whole yard by summer's end.




And I found these pretty flowers hiding among the mutant raspberry bush:




Nothing new to share on the knitting front. Still working on the sock monkey, and I haven't started the newest KAL yet because I've been having some swatching issues.


I was making some good progress on your needle case until the sewing machine and I had a little argument the other day. We're taking a break from one another until tomorrow. :) 


Seth is running his 50K race here in Corvallis on Saturday, so we've been carb-loading. Perogies and potatoes tonight (yes, potatoes in addition to the potato filled pasta) and a heaping plate of spaghetti tomorrow (with garlic bread, of course). Sunday we're meeting Keith and Kristine (from HH!) up in Portland for lunch!! I'm so excited to see them, it's been way too long.


I'm glad your driveway is all fixed and you aren't stranded in your house anymore! Although it looks like you got quite a bit of knitting accomplished! I love that scarf you made from the leftover malabrigo. 


I suppose I should head to bed and rest up for a day full of planting tomorrow! 


Love,
liz 

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The flood…


So I got stuck at home Sunday morning… couldn’t get to work if I tried… As I’m sure you heard or saw on the news, it started raining here on Friday night and didn’t stop until Sunday night… We got ten inches on Sunday alone!  My driveway was impassable, but thank god I live on a hill, right? 
So here are some pics… on Sunday…







And Monday, when they came to dig me out… had to pretty much lay down a new driveway, as my old one is now spread all over the field.  







Not that it was a complete loss… Sunday, as I was wide awake and ready to leave for work at seven, when I realized I was stranded, I got quite a bit accomplished!  I cleaned the house (up until I sucked a dog toy up the vacuum hose, which has left me with some nasty carpets and rugs!), steam mopped, cleaned the fridge and freezer, did three loads of laundry (hooray for clean sheets!) and ended up taking a nap around 2…  I also did quite a bit of knitting..

Nothing as impressive as your collection of projects, but…
I finished F’s hat (which is awesome as it got in the mail on Monday afternoon and might make it for his birthday today!). 


I also finished fat baby pants for the munchkin just in time for mother’s day.  Hopefully they are long enough for her chubbo legs ;)





 I finished a small scarf with the left over malbrigo which is rather sassy, but alas, it’s 80 out now, so no chance I’ll be wearing it for a while..


I also made a great RR recipe from her show on Monday.  Louisiana Style Chicken.  Yum…
Now, time to get crackin’ on work- I have T-7 days to get totally ready for the staff arrival, as F is coming in for a visit next Thursday!!

I still have maren’s other hand (gloves to compliment the hat for Christmas) and dad’s vest- which I still need to buy yarn for.. oh and baby charlotte’s birthday dress (got till august!)
I’m trying to restrain myself from yarn shopping online… ugg…