Author: sajbat

Cozy Warm Sweater and Cowl

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For the last few weeks here the weather has been over 80 degrees, but for the last two days it’s been gray, cool and rainy with those sudden flash thunderstorms that characterize April and May in Denver.

I’m grateful that the weather changed just as I finished my latest projects, otherwise I felt sweaty just looking at them.

First of all, can I just say how gorgeous my daughter is? I try not to go on and on about it and make sure that I tell her that she’s smart and capable and all that, since so often all girls get are comments on their physical appearance, but I just can’t help myself here.

First up: Purply Cowl for my sister.

Pattern: Gaptastic Cowl by Jen Geigly

Yarn: Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky, 3 skeins

This is a great, simple and fast pattern to knit up and I love it for its versatility.  You can wear it looped once, as above.  (Note: my sister is just a bit taller than my daughter, so the scarf should come up to her knees at least.)

Or twice:

Or for those really chilly times, even thrice. You could even wrap it over your head and still have plenty of scarf left over.

The yarn is supersoft and feels good on the neck but is a bit foofy and if it gets too close to your nose, it tickles. Be forewarned, Sapana. Not much else for details-I used slightly smaller needles than called for in the pattern as the yarn is a bit smaller, otherwise just kept knitting until yarn ran out.

Next up: Finished sweater!

Pattern: Iced by Carol Feller

Yarn Cascade 220 Chunky, 8 skeins

This was tough for a few reasons-first, I was making a fitted object for someone who was not here and was over the age of 3, when that stuff starts to matter.  I hope it fits! Second, the recipient asked for thumb holes and that took me a few tries to figure out, but I liked the challenge of it.  (tip: put sweater on and note where thumbs actually are before creating, unless knitting for an alien species.) Third, when I made this sweater before, I wanted a deeper collar so I changed that here, and that I just sort of figured it out as I went along.  Was still a fun knit and I like how it looks.

I particularly like the buttons I found:

I’m not sure what’s going to be next–people keep doing all sorts of things like getting married or having babies, so there seems to be an endless stream of people to knit for!

Shoveling…excrement all day long

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This year, I hired an edible landscape designer (Susan Adams of Simple Roots Gardening) for some new ideas for the vegetable garden.  I love the plan that she came up with. (click to view larger)

It looks a bit…overly ambitious to tell you the truth, but if there is anyone who is an expert in biting of way, way more than she can chew it’s me. I mean, with 2 kids and a full time job, why not add a small farm to take care of.  In fact, why stop there? Maybe it’s time I get some chickens (so trendy) or a backyard goat (even trendier)!

Since I’m pretty sure the animals would die from lack of care and we couldn’t even eat them, being vegetarian and all, it’s probably not the best idea for that.

Susan also does a soil test and tells you what your soil needs, and in my case I needed a lot of composted material. In one of my conversations with her, I mentioned that one of the doctors I work with has an alpaca farm and had invited me to come get alpaca manure for the garden.   Her eyes snapped open and she had an expression on her face as if I had told her where she could find a free trove of diamonds. So, of course, I borrowed a friend’s Ford F-150 and went to go pick it up.

The alpacas (or more accurately, paco-vicuñas) were curious and cute.

Their poop was not.

If you have ever wondered (and I know some of you have) how long it takes a smallish woman with one shovel to unload a pickup truck full of alpaca poop, the answer is about an hour and a half and 1 beer. Watch for that on the next SAT.

Neighbor kids came scurrying over after it was all done, wrinkled their noses, and promptly declared, “It smells like a farm over here!” I love when kids use euphemisms.

Over the last few weeks I’ve managed to get some seeds in and the bamboo trellis up and the walls o’ water up as well. Planted thus far: peas, onions, green onions, radish, spinach, lettuce, beets, kale, chard, carrots and broccoli. The perennial herbs have already come up nicely and we’ve had fresh sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano and chives for weeks now. Until the other plants can go in, I’ll be modifying the irrigation system we have in place. Last year I tried to water less and I don’t think it worked well-I thought the plants were smaller with lower yields.

As a few wise people told me when I started the garden 2 years ago, the grassy area in the center is now a patch of dead dirt and will be converted into a path of some sort this year–any other ideas of what to do with that path? It would be nice to keep it something that we could walk on barefooted, which is why I’ve been unexcited about gravel or wood chips, and ground cover takes so long to grow.

As a side note, a different Susan keeps telling me that I need to go and get new dirt for the garden as well, but the thought of digging out all that dirt and then replacing it is more than I can take right now. Next year, maybe.  (Next year, though, we might annex some of the neighbor’s front yard since all they have there are weeds, and that’ll be project enough.)

More pics when other things start coming up, since right now it just looks like a field of dirt. Just be happy you can’t smell it.

Smelly Kid

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The girl today was stinky. There is just no other word for it.

My kids are often pretty stinky, I must say.  Not when they wake up, but by the end of the day.  I don’t generally  mind because I think it means they’ve had a good day. Whenever my kids are stinky, I think of 2 things. 1) The scene from “Big Daddy” where Adam Sandler realizes that his kid is the smelly kid. and 2) Phoebe Buffay singing “Smelly Cat,” except I substitute “kid” for “cat.” It still works.

When she took a bath tonight, the bathwater was murky.  It was that bad.  I even used my whirligig facial brush thing on her.

Yes, people, I exfoliated my 4 year old.  Her skin is so glowy she looks 3 1/2. In all fairness, I think I just got through a layer of dirt and didn’t remove any skin cells. Stop dialing CPS.

How, you may ask, did she get this way? I’ll let a deeply cleansed girl tell you herself.

Sweater and Cowl

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I have been slowly working on a few pieces, even though nothing’s been blogged. It’s sort of an old joke now–if you do something and don’t broadcast it online, did it really happen?

Here’s a sweater for my friend Judy that I told her I would knit…oh…18 months ago. It’s just about done–I only need to add buttons. This is a picture from a mid stage where I put it on scrap yarn to see if the collar was big enough. If it looks familiar, it’s because it’s the same sweater I knit for myself near 2 years ago.

And I’m working on a cowl for my sister, which is a fast knit and should be done soon. These are famous last words in the knitting world, and now that garden season is starting up I’m sure it’ll be ready for her in time for December. Of 2013.

Purple Purple

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So, a little over 4 years ago, I had a baby girl. (yes, 4. I skipped the obligatory birthday post.) At this time, I thought, “I will not buy only pink and purple for my little girl. I’ll do things that are bright colors, but not girly.”

And so I painted her room orange and yellow, partly to reflect the pattern of the beautiful quilt that my friend Emily stitched for her. I didn’t do much else in terms of decorating, since I think doing a full nursery is cute but silly since the baby doesn’t care and once that baby gets a bit bigger they’ll have opinions. I also feel that doing a full nursery is what the marketers want you to do–do a full nursery, then get all new stuff for “big kid” stage, then get all new stuff for “preteen” stage, then get all new stuff for “teenager.” But I digress.

That little girl grew and grew, and stated her love for all things…pink and purple. And thus did she get things that were pink and purple. And these things ended up in her room, so her room ended up being orange and yellow and purple and brown and pink and white and just all sorts of garish.

(The dresser has already been painted in this picture; it used to be the same dark brown as the handles.)

And then, a few weeks ago while I was at Bed Bath and Beyond I saw a beautiful dark purple comforter with hot pink stitching and knew that it would make my little girl all sorts of happy. I also realized then I’d have to paint her room otherwise it would be really ugly. Such severe life problems, I know.

Dear reader, I painted the room purple. Benjamin Moore AF-615 Violetta to be precise.

I painted the dresser and side table white and painted the handles a deep pink. I also painted the inside of her closet the same pink for a little pop of bright color.

Mirrored butterflies on the wall, floating away on the walls over to the top of the bed.

And as for the inspirational quilt-well, as a creator of handmade goods I always feel sad if I think they go unused. As it turns out, the quilt that Emily made for Atticus happened to be a dark purple, and thus we could put that one up instead! So pretty.

Overall, I love it. In my overachieving painting world I would have loved to paint it with an ombre effect, but it’s probably prettier this way. I was also going to stencil on some pink and purple butterflies onto the dresser but decided against it. We need to get better bookshelves and add real shelving to the closet, but that can wait. And did the girl like it?

Yes! She did!

And then she promptly put on an orange suit and clashed with her own room.

Fashion

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Outfit rules in our house for the girl:

1) Must be weather appropriate

2)Must sort of kind of fit (lots of wiggle room with this one)

3)Must wear leggings/bike shorts under dresses or skirts so that hanging upside down on the playground is easily done.

aaaaaand, that’s about it.  (Special occasions are, of course, slightly different.  For that there is only one rule and it is this: 1) You will wear 1 of 2 outfits I have chosen.)

Clothes are often inside out, backwards, and more often than not both. Socks never, ever match. The boy, incidentally, is quite traditionally stylish and puts together outfits often complete with accessories, Remember, he’s the kid who wore a 3 piece suit nearly every day for almost a year.

Here’s a typical one:

That is, of course

if I can get her to keep anything on at all.

Two Views on Inheritance

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The Girl

One day, while I was getting dressed, the Girl came into the room. Pointing to my engagement ring, she exclaimed, “Mommy! I wan’ wear dat flower wing!”

“Kid,” I said, “You can have it when you’re a grownup.” I reconsidered that, and said, “Actually, you can have it after I die.”

Displeased, she said, “No! I want it now!!!”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I replied.  She left in a huff.

The Boy:

Eric was putting the Boy to bed, and put on Coltrane for him to listen to as he fell asleep.  Feeling somewhat wistful, he said, “You know, one day, you’re going to be in grad school, sitting around drinking beers with your friends, and someone will put this record on for you and you’ll say, ‘Oh, my dad used to play this album for me,’ and it’ll bring back memories of home.”

The Boy’s eyes light up, and he asks, excitedly, “So, does that mean when you die I get all your music ?!”

Mickey and the Dragon

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At school, the girl’s teachers write down stories that she dictates.  They do this in yellow highlighter and then she traces over the letters.  I love reading these stories, though sometimes they can have some, er, surprises.  Here’s one from last week:

“A dragon went by a huge, huge monster. They were friends together. Now Mickey Mouse was coming near the monster to eat. So the monster ate Mickey’s eyes. Mickey was in the monster’s belly. Now the giant (yest, giant) was so tired. The nice dragon did fire at the giant. He was dead. Mickey Mouse came out of him. Then Mickey went back to his family.”

Betrayal, firefight, friendship, loss–it’s all there, people. (Or did someone have an alternate analysis?)

Performance!

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The other day, the kids put on a “performance” for us, and the girl sang. She does this a lot these days, making up little impromptu songs about whatever is going on at the time.  It’s sort of like living in a musical.  My personal favorite was the one where she warbled “My Mommy is mad at meeeeee…..and I don’t caaaare…”

Here’s one that’s a bit more affectionate, from that night: