sherriknits

We’re still alive and kicking here.  We had company all weekend, my in-laws came to see little miss Sweet Pea.  It’s been fun.  The parents are tired but happy. Tomorrow is the new mama’s birthday….their birthdays are one week apart!  August used to be our easy month but now we have the new fiance’s birthday, little Sweet Pea’s birthday, a wedding next summer and the new mama’s birthday.  July was already a mess!  No rest for this mom!

Here’s a little snapshot of the new little family…

Daddy loves her little fingers.

Here’s the new uncle taking a picture of me taking a picture of him…

When big brother came home from Mexico, he brought something fun for him, can you guess what it is?

Daily, I have to act surprised at Spiderman in the midst of our house!

I loved the sunset the other night!

We’ve had alternating days of sun and wild rain.  Yesterday we had deep water running through the streets on our way home from church.  It was dry when we went there and pouring buckets when we came out.

And I actually have some knitting content.

I’ve started a Baby Surprise Jacket 4 times now!

This is 2 of the starts.  Actually, I started one before baby came.  It was in generic colors.  As soon as she came, I started one in the same yarn as the hat a few days ago.  I loved it in the hat, hated it in the BSJ.  So I started one out of this yarn.  The first one I think the needle was just too small and the fabric felt so tight so I went up a few needle sizes and am much happier with it.  I am almost to the end of one skein and will knit from the tight one next.  I’m sure it will work fine and I’m too lazy to rewind it.  I have been enjoying the knitting, though.

Do you remember my mystery stole from last summer?  I had never blocked it.  I wasn’t too thrilled with it and it just meant a lot to me that I actually finished it.  The pattern itself I wasn’t too wild about.  Well, one of my friends was with me the other day as I pulled it out to show someone and then stuffed it back in the bag it has lived in for this past year.  She said she felt it had too much meaning to me to be stuffed away so she took it home and blocked it for me!

I have to admit it looks a lot nicer blocked, but it’s still a strange pattern.

Hmm, I should have checked to see if it was right side out….I’ll look tomorrow.

The significance of the whole thing to me is it marked the end of a long period of time that was very difficult for me emotionally and I was determined to stick with something and see it through to the end.  I did it even when I realized it wasn’t going to be something I liked and that has a lot of significance to me.  I am very grateful that my friend insisted on doing the last step! Thanks, Lauri!

As soon as I finish the BSJ, I’m going to make a few Saartje’s booties now that I have a little girl to knit for!  Oh, the endless possibilities now!!!!

pictures are worth a thousand words…..

Yes, I have done it!  It was totally painless.  Of course, it was a sock and not a fair isle sweater….but how fun to have tried it and had it work!  I started Cat Bordhi’s Houdini sock at Stitch n Pitch and hadn’t worked on it since the game.  Tonight I finished the “footprint” and inserted the needles for the steeking.

Then I snipped and unravelled.

The sock fits!  I knit the inch before starting the pattern on the cuff of the sock which was to use another method (the name escapes me right now).  It took me so long to do 3 stitches even though I knit the previous row very loosely as she suggested but for all that work, I wasn’t horrible fond of the look so I’m going to find another cuff pattern.  I’m thrilled, though!

I got my Olympic knitting done….my share of the Relay blanket.  I think we decided to call ourselves the Friendship Knitters.  We are so far ahead of schedule.  I was 3rd on the list and the knitting started at 5 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 8.  I got my call to start my block at 12:35!!!!!!   I was no where near ready to start.  I had gone to get my hair cut and foiled and had barely gotten to work when I got the call.  #4 on the list was knitting there already so I traded places with her.  She, too, is a fast knitter so she passed the needles to me again in the early afternoon.  By then I was ready and got mine done that night.  I think we are on number 8 now.  Such fun!  I think we’ll do it again but maybe in a different format.

I love the color of these blocks.  We had 6 colors I think.  We each got to pick a page of patterns.  The garter stitch was my warm-up event.  The first square (triangles) was my relay block, and the checkerboard is my final event.  These aren’t blocked yet, but I’m happy with them, they are the same size and so far every one I have laid it up against it has been the same size!

Tonight I got to deliver a baby gift for Sweet Pea. 

I absolutely LOVE this.  The pattern is “Moonbeam” and it’s an adorable little cape with a hood. 

I love the little wall plaque.  This baby is fortunate to have 2 very wise parents….but I am so happy that this new father is going to make us very proud.

Isn’t the card cute?

And I love the little label inside. The designer is Kim Hargreaves.  I want to knit this myself.

Another friend gave her a copy of this drawing from the 40s.

I also wanted to show the little bear that daddy’s grandma made him when he was a little boy.  She just passed away so it is even more special.  His mom put a very sweet card on his neck.  I could just cry it’s so sweet.

#1 son and his fiance leave in the early morning for their mission trip to just south of Tijuana, Mexico.  They have been to the same village several times.  In fact, mama-to-be went down there and stayed for 6 weeks all by herself because she wanted to experience life in a village without having the comfort of her friends and team.  She stayed with a missionary family that our church as come to know quite well.  The kids are going to build a home for a family.  The only hard thing is they are sad to possibly miss the arrival of the baby that will make him an uncle for the first time.  God knows the day and the hour and He knows they were going to be on this trip so it’s all in His hands.

No, no baby yet although things are moving right along and the midwife said she is in a good place for this stage of the game.  We had a shower today and now feel all the things we were concerned about missing have happened except the fact that brother is going on the mission trip and really doesn’t want to miss out on the baby.

But first….we do have news.

Yep, another wedding!

So now we have another bride and groom-to-be!  We are very happy.

This time, I do not have to be the mother-of-the-bride so it will be much easier, so they say.  She also is pretty organized and has been collecting things for years.  It will be fun.  We have a year to get ready, too.  By then who knows if we’ll have more grandkids or what, our life has changed so drastically in the last 2 years!

This is the funny imp who knew right away that meant…wedding….when he saw the ring.

He’s happy….he loves his new sis-to-be.  She’s been part of our family for over 4 years so he already sees her that way anyway…but now he has to get straight the fact that she takes our name.  These name changes have been horribly confusing to him and he’s changed his own name with every wedding, or so he’s thought.  I used to hear him trying to work it out in his conversations with himself.

Not only did we have that big excitement today…but there was the shower, too.

It was a lot of fun once again.

Notice the little girl crawling across the top of the couch.

Notice another little girl sitting up on the couch this time.

Notice the little girls who never left her side.  They were just totally into it.  What’s cute is the mama-to-be said she got so hot because they were so close.  She loved it, though.

This little one found a place to plop down and rest.

And here is one of the games….what is in the diaper?  Hmmmm, it smells like…….

We got to play that game on the way to getting our food.  lol

I actually won one of the games.  We took the name “Sweet Pea” and had to come up with as many words made from them as we could in 2 minutes.  I came up with 29….love those word games!  I won the door prize, too, but they redrew names.  I got some sweet pea hand lotion and hand soap!  The mama’s best friend really picked up on the sweet pea thing.  She and I both had a bag full of sweet pea related gifts.

I am sooooo tired.  Tomorrow is my day off.  I am going to put together some clothes for us to be ready to grab if we have to go in the middle of the night.  The little imp will go to big sis’s house but he needs to be ready to head out the door, too.  I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep this week so I hope to manage that tonight, although I won’t mind one bit if we get a phone call!