The boy is now 7

Here is my brand new 7 year old holding the awesome treats we made for him to take to school.  I did brownie cupcakes, then did a squish of frosting on the top.  The boys all helped make the candy sea shells.  I bought one of those candy molds from Hobby Lobby, although I bet you can find them lots of places.  We got the vanilla and the milk chocolate meltable wafer things, and the boys went to town.  For most of the shells, they painted the mold with one color, partly a thick coating, partly a thinner coat, and then filled in the rest of the mold with the other color.  It gave it sort of a swirly see-through look, and really beautiful.   Here’s a closer up view:

I had no idea that these candy mold things were going to be so much fun, and look so amazing.  Look at them; can you believe they were 1. made by kids, 2. made by BOYS, and 3. one of them is only 5??????

I think I may have a new addiction.  Odd thing though, I didn’t eat any of them.  Smelling them and playing with them all that time, I was just sort of over the whole thing.  This could turn out to be a good thing.

OK, some more pictures of the birthday boy opening up presents:Funny story here.  My sister calls before Christmas to ask what the boys want.  She talks to them a little, and Patrick somehow pulls out of his you know what that he wants a green dragon.  Um, ok, she asks, where the heck do I get a green dragon?  And what kind does he want?  has he been reading/watching the Harry Potter stuff?  Is it that kind of dragon?  Or are we talking about some sort of stuffed animal that he can sleep with?  Or a lego one?  They have those you know.  Christmas came and went, and she never found one.  Birthday rolls around, and she calls again, and talks to Patrick again, and he says, ” you know, I thought you were going to get me a green dragon…”  Thank you, Guilt-Trip Boy, you’re amazing.

Know what’s amazing though?  She found a green dragon.  It’s a remote control thing, and it flies, and it’s unbelievable.  Wait here a minute, I’m going to see if I can find a link or something…OK, hubby’s right again, you can find anything on the internet.  Here’s the green dragon.

Here he is opening up the first Lego car from Russ.  He loves these little things.

The second lego car.  Russ thought it’d be a good idea to get Patrick 2 of them, to better the odds that he might let Russ play with one of them.  Smart boy, huh?

This is David’s present to Patrick.  It’s a cool treasure hunt thing.  There’s some block of chalk/sand/something that he has to chisel to get to the treasure, and it comes with a book and the tools and I think a pouch to keep your treasure in.  The book has all sorts of interesting information in there, pirates, gemstones, gold, treasure maps, even a game to play.

Here’s Patrick opening up his card from my dad.  Or, more specificaly, he’s carefully ripping out his name  from the front of the envelope.  Look at the expression on his face here, and compare it to the one on his face when he sees what’s in the envelope down here:

Interesting, huh?  Looks like he had way more fun ripping his name off the envelope than he did discovering the $$ my dad sent him.  He’s an odd child.

But it was a fun day.  He can’t wait until the party.

Let’s see if this still works…

I don’t know if this shows up real well in pictures, but this yarn was absolutely amazing.  A friend gave it to me, and it’s the most buttery soft yummy stuff ever.  Turns out she spun it, and the colors couldn’t be more perfect for me.  Deep forest greens, sapphire blues, magentas, and even bits of deep amethyst purple in there too.  It really defies description.  I had over 200 yards of it, and really struggled with what to make to make the best use of it.  I decided on this cowl, which did not quite use the whole bit of it.  So, with the leftover, I made this:

I’m calling it my mini-calorimetry.  Again, don’t know if this shows up, but when I got to the end, I had a bit of yarn still, but not enough to do an entire row.  I surely didn’t want it to go to waste, or to just be thrown away, so I made sure I used every teeny inch.  I cast off, and pulled out my C or D hook, I don’t remember now, and did a ch 10 or so, and did 3 dc in each ch, then still had a little more left, so I did it again.  That made me only have a couple of inches left, which I wove in with the hook.  So, I have a mini-cali, with 2 curliques on it.  Nice, no?

Slippery socks, from knitty.  They are both past the heel, and I’m working off of 2 charts with 2 different row repeats on them.  Right now, it’s ok, because I started them both at the same time, so row 5 o one chart is row 5 on the other one.  Pretty soon, I’m going to have to re-label the other one or something, because when the one begins again, row 8 on one chart will be row 13 on the other one, or something like that.  I’m wondering if these might be fair-worthy when I get them done.

Here’s the no purl Monkeys I made for hubby’s mom.  She loves loves loves them, and actually has requested more.  I told her about bamboo yarn, and she thought that sounded interesting, so I’m on the lookout for that, and she admired my Imagination socks so much that I told her I’d make her a pair as well.  She even liked the colors I chose, but they’re really not her.  I think I’m going after some green colorway for her.  Here’s those very socks now…

That’s them when I sneakily started them.  It was one of those “I need a plain thing to work on that’s portable, and oh this yarn is so yummy” moments.  Stop laughing, you have them too.  Here’s the socks all finished, and already worn.

Seriously, that yarn is amazing.  When I order hers, I’m so getting a few more hanks.  I sort of want to make that cowl they have a pattern for.  Cause, you know, I need more projects.

Just a couple more WIP’s to post, and then I think this one’s done.  These are Maureen’s slippers.  See that ribbed section in the center?  You seam it up there, by folding it in half, and use the garter stitch parts to tie it onto your foot.  Cool huh?  I’ll be sure to post an “on foot” picture when they’re done.

Socks for Maureen, in progress.  Hard to see, I know, but there’s a little eyelet rib thing there on the cuff.

And the last one for tonight…

Oooohhhh, pretty alpaca….These fingerless mitts are so fun!  If you haven’t yet, go print off this pattern and make them.  They’re very cool and make you feel very smart for figuring out such amazing cabling.

Ok, I think that’s it for tonight.  Tune in tomorrow for pictures from Patrick’s birthday, and the amazing treats we made tonight for him to take to school to share.

Test for pictures, YAY IT WORKS!!!!

Oh my gosh. I think this is finally working. See that up there? That’s that local alpaca I tried to show a picture of a long time ago. See those graduations of colors? Each hank is from a different alpaca; they don’t normally blend the fleeces before spinning. It has already spoken to me, and requested politely to be something like the February Lady sweater. I’m already making one out of the yarn I won last year at the fair, let’s see if I can get a picture of that one up…Hold please…

Are you kidding me? This one worked too. OK, perhaps this is now due a small explanation.

Our upstairs computer was apparently affected (or is it infected) by a virus, or several. That’s the one that the camera plugs into. The downstairs computer works fine, but it needed some special plug thing that I’m sure we have one here but have no idea what I’m looking for so therefore wouldn’t know if I found it. I have literally begged and offered favors of ALL kinds to hubby to either un-virus the upstairs computer (which I thought would be rather time consuming and possibly costly) or hunt around in a couple of cupboards/drawers/boxes of cords and wires and other computer paraphernalia that we have around here (which I thought was the easier way to go, but silly me).

He fixed the upstairs computer.

He installed something, and it found something like 126 viruses. And now I can not only load pictures off the camera, the computer accepts them, and shows them to me, and allows me the privilege of uploading them onto this here blog. Which will then allow me to slurp them onto Ravelry and update my sad projects page.

So, grab something to drink and perhaps a snack; I’m gonna upload pictures and type until my fingers need a knitting break.

These are the plain vanilla socks I made my sister. I had gone up to visit her in IL, and she took me to a great yarn shop in Geneva called Wool and Company. We found the sock yarn corner and both liked this colorway, called Blackwatch, from Lorna’s Laces. See those measly few inches of scraps up there above the socks? That’s what’s left out of one hank. I included them when I mailed them up to here, and she knew immediately what they were, and was suitably impressed. Her co-workers, though, thought that was interesting.

That’s another Armando Hat, this one for my 3rd boy child. He thinks it’s made from wolf. I haven’t had the heart to correct him. Actually, it’s some bulky something from Knitpicks; I’ll have to look it up, and if I can get my act together after getting this all posted, the link up there should take you to the project page on Ravelry and that’ll say what it is there. It was really really nice and squishy yarn. And apparently not wool at all, but instead “wolf”. It is more manly, if you think about it.

This is a great story here. I finished the purse (almost) for Maureen while I was in FL with the boys. It only needs a strap and to be seamed up. I thought, after looking at it, that it could use a lining, so Steve’s mom told me I could go through her fabric stash. I thought of a jewel-y type green, shimmery fabric, but we found this silver one, and just thought it looked fantastic. Then I remembered the button Maureen picked out has a silver stripe on it. Then Dulcie told me that she had made some sort of wall hanging for Maureen and she used that fabric in it, so this purse will have a very special meaning. I can’t figure out what sort of strap to make, but I’ll figure it out.

Another FO, finished long ago. Patrick wanted some fingerless mitts like the ones I made Russ and David. I used some Patons SWS, and he wanted 2 of “those twisty things” on them. Didn’t they turn out cute? He loves them.

Patrick’s hat, take 3. Good thing I love this pattern. I’ve now made it for him 2 times, once for Russ, and once for David, who promptly lost his.

Alrighty then. It is said Patrick’s birthday today, and we’re about to have supper and then open presents, which aren’t wrapped up yet. Tune in tomorrow, there will be more pictures. Yay!