Spinning.

As I mentioned before, I ordered a spinning wheel for myself for my 31st birthday. I spent the first 2 hours swearing.... and suddenly it clicked.

I've been having a blast. Someday I'll take pictures of my wheel, but for now, you get pictures of the yarn I've spun.

 This was my first attempts at spinning.  It wound up being 28 yards of horribly over/under spun and awfully plied yarn. I'll keep it for fun, but it's not likely to be made into anything.

 So, I tried again. This produced a "much closer to yarn" product. 216 yards of it!  I still struggle with overspinning but I'm doing better. This particular fiber is Corriedale (the variety of sheep it came from). It's sheep colored. I could overdye this if I'd like and even ordered the acid dyes necessary to do so... We shall see.

 For my birthday, my mom sent me a beautiful braid of fiber. It's a Superwash Merino Tencel blend. 253 yards of light fingering weight. I love it and have a project planned for it!

 For kicks, I attended a Fiber Conference/Convention (way nerdy, eh?). While I was there, I purchased a couple of braids of fiber. One being what you see below. Ashland Bay Colonial Teal Multi. Whatever that means. This yarn is 166 yards of worsted weight. The perfect amount for a hat or possibly some mittens.

So.... uh, that's the yarn. I made it. Yes, I'm doing a little "I am so totally awesome dance."

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Miles is 5!

Friday was the 5th birthday of my oldest son.

As some of my friends would like me to remember, it was a mildly traumatic birth in that, he was nearly born at home, the car, the parking lot of the hospital and finally, the elevator. My labor was a mere hour and a half (which I went on to beat! Thank you Libby!) and he was born a quick and scary 12 minutes after arriving at the hospital.

Worth it? Sure.

A couple of months ago, we decided to sign him up for Soccer through the YMCA this fall.  It was a weird choice to have to make. Sign him up to play with the 3-4 team or send him off to fend for himself with the 5-6s. We opted to go with the 3-4s.

When you're talking about 3-4 soccer it's like the punchline to an untold joke.  You expect flower picking and bird watching and very little actual soccer playing. So, you can imagine that we were pleasantly surprised at the amount of soccer played and the fact that Miles, who is a total spazz, did quite well.

 Miles's team is in the red. They call themselves the Fireballs.

 Miles scored 3 goals that day.

 And got really really sweaty. We're super proud of our spazz.

And as mentioned, he had a birthday. Happy 5 years of living on this Earth, Miles!

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PFMP: Lotsa

As in, lotsa stuff to share from my phone, apparently.

 1. We joined the YMCA. I took Miles and Lucas to an Itty Bitty Sports Class. In case you were wondering about how A. Nerdy and B. Tiny my Lucas is...

 2. A sweet 4th of July Hairdo!

 3. Please pardon my extremely weird child. This reminds me of the fact that there's a mom whose child attends Preschool with Miles. She has a bumper sticker on the back of her car that reads, "WEIRD LOAD." I am fairly certain I need that bumper sticker... and I would TOTALLY put it on my car.

 4. Same day. When nature calls, eh?

 5. Right after I discovered that my children had left the garage freezer open for over 24 hours, thus ruining everything in it... I discovered Lucas as such... it brightened my day just a teensy bit.

 6. Sometimes I knit stuff that never makes it to the blog. This is one such case. I knitted a square that is being included in an afghan for my local yarn store. They will be auctioning it and donating the proceeds to some such charity.

 7. Libby loves herself some electronics.

 8. Chinatown, NYC & Boba. Mmmm.... Also, how hot is my husband?

 9. At Crumbs. Notice that each cupcake was $3.75. Yowza.

 9. Just outside the Manhattan NY LDS Temple. If you weren't looking for it, you'd like miss it.

 10. Ew. A concoction from the bowels of Abbie's imagination. I decided to let her make it. Two layers of rice crispy treats, covered with blue frosting (her favorite color) and strawberries. It was uh... nasty.

 11. Lucas enjoying his payday Friday lunch. McDonalds at Walmart. I actually really hate both places.

 12. Back to school haircuts for both Abbie

 and Anna.

 13. For kicks, I scribbled this moustache on Lucas. Good thing it was dry erase and came right off.

 14. I like to pretend like we're potty training. We're not.

 15. Check out these awesome shoes my sister sent for Libby. So so Cute.

 16. Abbie came to me at about 1am. She told me she couldn't sleep. I told her to go read her scriptures. Yeah. It's like that for me too.

 17. Negligent mother uses her cell phone to take first day of school picture of her oldest son. (((LOSER!!!)))

 18. Why yes, I do take knitting everywhere with me, why do you ask?

 19. Not to be outdone, Abbie demanded I teach her how to knit. I did. She made this...

 20. My husband loves himself some fire engine red skinny jeans. I love my husband.

 21. Ever watch the worlds most spastic reader? She cannot and does not sit still. She might start out sitting like a normal person, but within a minute or so, she's flipped herself upside down... she fell off the stairs immediately after I took this.

 22. I love learning new knitting stuffs! More to come on these!!

 23. An impromptu campout in our back yard. It rained. A lot. By 11pm, all of our children were tucked into their beds. Matt slept outside anyway.

I hope you enjoyed that. It's a real load off my phone.

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Testing...

My very awesome friend, Kami, spins yarn. Like, she uses an actual spinning wheel and fiber from actual animals. If you had asked me six months ago, I would have told you that that was utter ridiculousness. 

Today I am telling you that as I type, I have a spinning wheel on it's way to me (for my birthday). 

The reason this is relevant: Kami spun the yarn that these armwarmers were made out of. The pattern for these armwarmers is not actually published yet.

 I was contacted by the designer and asked to test knit the pattern. They are SO comfy and super cute.

 And completely superfluous here in Florida. Especially this time of year.

I guess I'll put them in my "Christmas Presents" stash. Don't you wish you were on my list?

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My Baloney

 The name of this sweater pattern is Abalone. But I love to be weird. Hence, the name Baloney.

 I knit this out of Knit Picks Comfy Worsted yarn. It's a SUPER soft Cotton blend and it is perfection for this Florida weather.

Again with the super large chestesses. Sorry. Anyway, this sweater/cardigan/whatever was really simple. I think if you can knit, purl and do a simple increase and are willing to learn to pick up stitches, you could TOTALLY make this. It was almost mind-numbingly boring, which is great for watching lots and lots of old movies on Netflix. Anyone else love watching the stage version of Peter Pan?

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