Being a Soccer Mom is Definitely Labor-Intensive!

It's late, at least for me. Sweetie Girl and I have to head out tomorrow morning at 6:00 am for a soccer tourney, so I gotta get to beddie bye soon. We're crazy busy getting ready for school, but I just wanted to quick-post because I haven't said, "Boo!" or even "Hi" for a while.


Here's Sweetie Girl with her spoils from last weekend's tourney. Here's hoping her team has another good weekend filled with good soccer, good competition, and lots o' fun!


Needless to say, the Lacy Skirt with Bows is creeping along slowly and far from being done. I'm on my 7th ball of the yarn, Ella Rae Shibu, and it's also my last. Luckily, I just found an ebay seller for a good price, and we're gonna keep our fingers crossed that the dye lots are kind of close. Otherwise, I'll have this line going right across my butt. Nice. I'll try not to think of that and put my head in the sand.

In the meantime, here are some pictures to distract you. Madgik was kind of enough to felt my stuff for me, since I have a front loading washer. I was a bit overdue in some felting.



This turned into...



this. It's the Debbie Bliss Felted Bag made from 7 skeins of Alpaca Silk. Really nice stuff. I love it.


Here's another.

This turned into...





this. Camo felted clogs. Sa-weet!

I knit these up last Christmas for Sweetie Boy, and intended to make two more pairs, one each for Sweetie Girl and Hubby. Um, theirs didn't get made, but I decided to felt his anyway. Looks like a perfect fit. I've hidden them until at least Sweetie Girl's is made. Hopefully that will be before next Christmas.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, and please don't labor!

In the Absence of Knitting

Knitting is feeling like the stepchild around our household lately. Kids, back to school stuff, soccer tourneys, visiting family, all are contributing to the lack of attention on my knitting. I'm still working on the Lacy Skirt with Bows. Just an inch into the stockinette part, and it already feels like I'm slogging through the stockinette. I went down a needle size to 4s for the stockinette and it's going quite slowly. I work on it at our nightly soccer practices, weekend games/tourneys and my occasional knitting group. Can someone please remind me why I thought a second knit skirt was a good idea?

With the lack of knitting progress, I thought I'd distract you with other pictures. Sweetie Boy was a sweetie this afternoon and helped me make dinner: meatloaf! Ever since Madge has gotten into the crockpot thing, I've been interested too. Marie pointed us to a crockpot recipe a day blog. I had mixed results with some of the recipes, so I went back to a cookbook I already have, Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook.

I dumped all the ingredients in, while Sweetie Boy put away groceries. (Note: he's not usually this helpful, only when he's motivated to get stuff done so we can have time to buy new sneakers for him for school. But beggars can't be choosey!)

He squished all the ground beef together with the other ingredients, and we tossed it into the crockpot for 3 hours.

I dumped a bunch of ketchup on it, warmed up some leftover mashed potatoes, cooked green beans in the micro for 3 minutes, and instant meal was done! Not bad if I do say so myself!

Please ignore the crumbled up piece on the plate. My plating skills suck.

To reward ourselves and since it's the end of summer, we made stovetop s'mores. Of course, they are not as good as roasting them over the campfire, but these were definitely good enough.

Here's to hoping for more knitting progress and pictures in the next post.

It's Official.

It's official. The word is out. I'm a cro-tard. That's short for crochet-tard. Or we can use Madge's word, crouton, to describe me and my lack of crochet abilities.

I learned how to crochet in fifth grade. I can chain, single and double crochet. Or so I thought. A couple of months ago, I read on Cristi's blog that she had crocheted this cute shrug and I wanted to try. I convinced Madge to help me, and I finished a whopping two rows before going on vacation. Really, two whole rows. Whoop de doo. Because that's all I could figure out on my own. I tried it again yesterday at knitting group. Tried is the operative word. Because I tried Madge's patience in teaching me. And Marie's too in listening to me whine and kvetch. I'm sorry, dear friends. Thank you for your support and patience. From now on, I will only attempt to crochet square or rectangular objects, ones that do not require increasing or decreasing, or counting of stitches beyond the set up row. Washcloths and blankets only from now on.

This is where I was at the end of knitting group yesterday. It looks fine, but the gauge is way off. More importantly, I couldn't get my stitch count.

So I went home and did this.

And then it quickly became this, so I can jump right into another knitting project. That's how I deal with the pain... quick cast on of a new project. (Try this excuse when you really want to cast on a new project; it's a good one.) I think this one will attempt to become a Chickami.

Now I remember why I like knitting so much. I can actually do it. Well, if I can't, can you please not tell me?

The One Where I Forgot to Give it a Title

It's been almost a month since I last posted and I didn't realize it had gone that long. Thanks to those of you who have stuck around. I went on vacation but before that, just was too busy or distracted to post. Bad knitter! Bad blogger!

I went away to summer camp and you won't believe what I did there. I learned a new crochet pattern, and all they had there to learn on was... red heart ack!rylic. The pull of the crochet was too strong, so I had to give in and use the stuff. However, as soon as I had learned it, I tossed it aside for some bright green kitchen cotton. I whipped up a couple of dish cloths using this pattern and gave it to our friends' kids. Bad news is I had camnesia. I just love finishing projects and gifting them right there and then. When I do a couple more, I'll try to be good and take pictures.





This is Gary, who helped run the Arts and Crafts at camp, and my crochet teacher. He is a crochet and weaving madman and because of him, I'm hoping to do a bit of weaving on a loom at next year's camp. He's always working on a crochet project, and this is his latest charity blanket. In return for his crochet skills, I told him about a little thing called ravelry. Hopefully, he has had time to check it out by now. Gary, be prepared to lose days of your life, once you get your ravelry invite.



My project du jour while on vacation was the Lacy Skirt with Bows by Kat Coyle from Greetings from the Knit Cafe. I'm using Ella Rae Shibu, a nubby silk with shiny rayon ply, in a pale rosy pink color. Silvia and I had agreed on another cross continent mini kal, and I'm trying really hard to actually finish this one in the same season as she. On our last mini kal, she finished the sweater, wore it, frogged it and reknit the yarn into a different sweater, before I actually finished mine. Embarrassing, really. I hope not to be humiliated again, since I'm the one who keeps asking her if she wants to knit projects with me.


After doing the much necessary ravelry research on the pattern, I decided to copy Lilybeth and knit the skirt in the round, not flat in two panels as directed. I knit the six lace panels individually, joined them, and continued in the lace panel for two more repeats. I'm just about done with the panel, and about to start the eyelet portion. Jury is still out on whether or not I weave in ribbon and tie cute little bows on the skirt. It might be a tad too girly and distracting for me.



Single lace panel




All six panels ready to be joined




All together now


A better close up of the lace

Since I'm back from vacation, this means it's soccer tournament marathon time and back-to-school prep, but not before one last picture of our family trip to Disneyland yesterday with the cousins.