Derby Surprise

Last night was the Pinewood Derby for Bobby's Cub Scout Pack.  Rob and Bobby have been working hard over the past few weeks to create the car.  There were many trips to the hobby shop and the hardware store.  Books were checked out from the library.  Many coats of paint were applied.

 After I almost sent the precious car crashing into the refrigerator, I was banned from touching it.  When we arrived last night, Rob was getting tips from other dads (like glue the axels or they'll pop out during the races) and adding weights.  When he wasn't camped out in front of a scale, he was applying more graphite powder to the wheels.  This was serious business.

 The boys just ran around the cafeteria.  Until race time.  Then all eyes were on the track.  That super-shiny black car on the right is Bobby's.

 It was also pretty fast.  Bobby placed second among the Tiger Cubs, and third place overall!

 Rob is already planning next year's car.

Congrats to the Evans men!

A new year!

Happy new year to you!  This year, I'm going to give the 365 project another try--last year I took 250 pictures.  Not even close, really, but a broken camera mid-year will do that!  I'm going to shake it off and keep on going.

 Here's how my "tube top" is looking now. I have one sleeve completed, and I started the second sleeve a couple of nights ago.  This sweater is knit on size 11 needles, and my hands really do not like working with needles that big, so I'm giving myself permission to take it slow.

I wanted to thank you all for the encouragement and compliments on the hats and mittens that I made for Christmas.  Getting positive feedback during that process really kept me going!  And if you're thinking about trying stranded knitting, my advice is just jump in!  Mistakes can always be frogged--but you'll never know unless you try.  Start small--I think hats are easier than mittens.  Kristin Nicholas has some beginner projects in at least two of her books (whose names are escaping me right now).  I do not knit with both hands--it's recommended that you learn to carry a color in each hand, but I think that's more hard-core than I need to be.  [For the record, I am a left-handed "picker."]  I alternate the colors of yarn in the same hand, and occasionally I have to stop and un-twist the skeins, but it's not the end of the world.  As much as I enjoyed the end result, I am ready to put stranded knitting on the back-burner for now.

As I think about this year's knitting projects, I am firmly in the grips of a cable obsession!  As of now, my next couple of planned projects involve cables.  And now that Christmas is behind us, I am thinking of Valentine's Day and red and white material...

Happy, happy

Christmas 2010 is now in the books.  This room is a complete mess now.

 Here they go, ready to attack some wrapping paper.

All the nieces and nephews wearing their handmade goodies.

We really didn't get all that much snow.  Once the winds kicked up, most of the snow blew off our lawn and across the street.  Not fun for sledding, but pretty to look at.

I started a sweater.  After I tried this on, I decided to frog it.  It puckered at the raglan increases, and I could tell I was going to have big holes in the armpits when I started the sleeves.  The beauty of knitting is that I can stop mid-sweater and undo it!

See, I decided to make a cabled tube top instead!

And the paperwhites are blooming!

I wish you all a very happy new year.  See you in 2011.

Catch up

Hey there.  What's the quickest, most fun way to catch up?  Pictures, of course!  Here we go!

The Next-to-last set!  For my 16 year old nephew.  I wish you could see the hat in person.  So much texture going on--cables, seed stitch.  I may make one for myself.  And those mitts.  Simple and fun.

The "keeping it real" department.  Laundry is threatening to take over--but really, when is it not about to take over--it's always just in different stages: dirty, clean but not folded, folded but not put away... you get the picture.

 We tried hanging this pine garland outside.  The command adhesive hooks did not want to cooperate (I wouldn't want to hang out in twenty degrees, either.), so it came inside.  Looks festive, don't you think?

 Hey--this is the last pair of mittens!!!  The first one is done (except the thumb), and I'm on the second one.  Please, do not let me take on four sets of stranded hats and mittens again.  It nearly did me in this year.

 This is where I like to spend my afternoons.  At one-thirty or two, this is the warmest place in the house.  If I had a cat, this would be the cat's favorite place.

 This morning, I played with sugar and dough.  Always fun.

 Then I packed these up and went to the post office. Less fun, but now it's done!

 And then I started cutting some fabric.  I figure if I cut some now, I can take my time and have it ready for next Christmas!

And that's what I'm doing in between class parties and dance lessons and Girl Scout meetings.  Rob is off all next week, so my computer time will be limited...but I'll try to pop back in here at least one more time. 

Show and Tell

I think this season is going to be one of our more relaxed ones.  We put up our tree over the weekend.  That's a couple of weeks earlier than we usually do it, but I think it will be nice to be able to enjoy it for the month.

 Knitting by the fireplace is always nice.  This winter I want to make an effort to spend more time by the fire.

And yes, you can knit a sweater in a week!  I still have to weave in the ends and block it--on this version, the neck is not laying right.  I'm hoping some aggressive blocking will help that.  Now I can get back to knitting the last three gifts.

It's here!

Well, that was quick!  Yesterday afternoon, Bobby opened the front door, and guess what was sandwiched in between the front door and the storm door?  The new camera! Woo hoo!  Break out the batteries!

Let's view the celebration!

 I caught him off-guard!

 Quick shot of the Advent calendar.

 Caroline was ready for her close-up.

 And here are Sarah's mittens.  Aren't they cute?

 The littles were trying to stage a shot.  Caitlin wanted me to capture the cotton balls falling from her hand like snow.  I tried explaining that mama has to read the manual first.  And the headband?  Well, today is Eighties Day at school, so I had to go to Claire's in search of some early-Madonna gear.  And they had it.

And here's how I spent my birthday money.  A box of goodness from Webs.

The Post with the lousy pictures

As I type this, the lovely people from Amazon have promised me that my (our) new camera (that shoots movies) is on its way to our house. I *think* we're calling it an early Christmas present for me/us even though I was prepared to part with my birthday money to make it happen.  And it's "early" because there's no way I'm going to limp along with awful pictures when I know there's a new camera in the house.  Whew.  Deep breath.  So this will hopefully be the last post with lousy pictures!

Right before Thanksgiving, I finished this hat for my nephew.  He's a Steelers fan.

 I also finished the pink and white mittens for my niece, but Blogger has rejected that picture.  It was a very poor picture, so I don't blame Blogger!

Here's how our Thanksgiving looked: a little blurry and a lot of fun.  We even had huge, beautiful snowflakes falling for a couple of hours in the morning.

Dad brought his top hat.  Somehow this is a thing now.

 And after dinner, there was a lively game of Blokus.

I am slowly bringing out the Christmas decorations.  Our outdoor lights are done.  Would you believe that I forgot to put up the Advent calendar last night?  I hung it as soon as the kids went to school.  They can have their Hershey Kisses this afternoon.

And after all my bellyaching about a sweater for myself, I decided to use some of my 17 (!!) skeins of red yarn to knit myself another Francis--this time with long sleeves.  Can I just say how much fun it is to knit stockinette (in only one color!) in the round after so many stranded projects?   This sweater is literally flying off the needles.  And then I'll just have three more little projects to finish for Christmas gifts.