it’s about teaching first graders to knit

Okay, so it is just one contest that I won, not plural, and I’ve only begun working on the first dragon, but hey. I like my title. Leave it alone! I have actually put off this post until I took the time to have photos ready for it, hooray.

So onto the story of the contest, a few weeks ago Bea posted in her blog about a contest over on Knit Me To The End Of Time for her blogiversary, and I thought why not? And entered. I was one of three winners. Hooray! So since she didn’t post the prize on her blog as some bloggers do, I got to wait until it arrived to even see WHAT I won. All I knew was it would be good, because after all it was going to be a knitting related prize. And it was even better than I could have hoped! Blue wool! Magic stripes! SMARTIES!! (oh I am SO pregnant getting excited over chocolate like that) and yummy smelling soap. Lovelovelove. Here is your obligatory photo:

Now, as for the dragons, did I mention the dragon knitting that is going on? I decided one item in each easter basket would be a handknit toy, because I don’t do enough of that. So the boys are getting dragons knit from scraps of cotton, not in the crayon (double knitting in crayon does not sound fun) & the girl is hopefully getting a felted horse, I am quite frustrated with the pattern & set it aside in favor of dragons until I am ready to tackle it again - the critter queen can expect an email or questions from me soon! I would love to tell you that the photo you are about to see is the most up-to-date dragon pieces photo, but that would be a lie as there was knitting during Survivor tonight and the belly is now finished, while the back has been started on. This is dragon one, he will be yellow & red.

I think I’ll end this with some sweetness, here is ms. A sitting in her new underbed storage box, the lid opens halfway so it is half under the bed, it contains her "dress up" stuff - plastic disney shoes & cinderella dress & playsilks & hats. That rainbow hat she is wearing is one of the first few I knit, I bound off too early and then went back and picked up stitches without knowing whattheheck I was doing, it ended up too tight. It looked funny on the boys. No one ever wore it but it hung around for years now. And here it is, in a dress up box. I like this.

I wanted to share all three of the photos I decided to share, but flickr isn’t letting me upload tongiht, so I will just share the one that I put on photo bucket & be done. I need to sleep anyway. . .

 

I like them, I can only wear one of them on my right foot - it feels funny on my left toes. I didn’t have any issues with the kitchener but I’m not sure it’s as good as it could be, it can only get better though right? I am planning on a toe-up sock next, but I’m not sure what pattern I will use.

Next planned projects - another hat for toby using a chart from that book I got for Christmas (reason : to learn to read charts), the dice bag for my husband (yarn swatched - chose lion suede - must figure out the math part now), and toys for the kids (started A’s horse - felted pattern  from crafty alien - need to dig out the yarn for L & K’s dragons (norberta from knitty) and figure out what to knit Jer) . Uhm. Must finish moms shawl by October (that sounds funny to you, but are you having a baby in May? Nope. I am. So really add in the newborn time and see how much knitting time I have left … and let’s not forget that I’m homeschooling a visual-spatial/right brained learner who is a spirited child. Ouch. challenges. Knitting calms me, love the knitting).

So, it is a ’stash’ as long as there is more than you can knit with at one time right? Last night, I took photos of all the sock yarn I’ve got. Actually that isn’t true, but I already have one up of the other yarn so I can just pull that from before. So here it is, nothing compared to some sock yarn stashers, but hey i’m not even sure if I will like the socks or not yet, I won’t know until they are done. I have issues with how socks feel on my feet & in my shoes, so I’ve worried about comfort issues.

 

 

My Lorna’s Laces, I’ve wanted to knit with this for a long while

 

Not so sure if I like the KP essentials, it’ll be awhile before I try it again anyway…

 

My Jitterbug, from the Christmas SOWS swap

 

I am looking forward to working with this yarn - panda cotton

 

My newest, fell in love with the colors and had to have it, it likely won’t be socks. From Yarn Pig (I’ll get the link later, i’m lazy)

 

 

Toby’s yarn, dyed the day after I found out I was pregnant. He was heavily on my mind that day.

 

And finally what my socks look like as of last night

I am beginning to enjoy Fridays. You see, Tuesdays are my "night out" I go to knit night. I don’t make it every week. Fridays are my husbands night out, he goes gaming (yes, I will be knitting him a dice bag, as soon as I pull out the black caron simply soft thats been sitting in the closet for-ev-er and swatch it so the math whiz can help me figure out the mathiness of it). And while he is gone I play with the kids, we do movie/popcorn/typically pizza night & then they go to bed around 10 or so. ‘Cause it’s Friday, and Fridays = Stay Up So Late Night (phrase coined by my lovely friend, Tammy). And then, I put on a movie. And I knit & relax. Alone. So really, I get another full uninteruppted knit night because of my husbands gaming night.

So I am doing the toe decreasing, finally. And I looked up the kitchener and it doesn’t look so difficult, tedious maybe? Would that be a good word to describe it? I’m trying to just take this one thing at a time, so no worries about the kitchener yet. One of the sites says to do it when you have a block of uninteruppted time. And I laughed. Seriously? And when does one get that? Oh yes. Friday nights.

Well, till Toby comes anyway. Then Friday nights may not be so calm.

Anyway, the socks won’t be finished tonight - they may not be finished until after Tuesday depending on what I think about kitchener when I get there. But for tonight, as I said, they are being set aside. It IS 3:30 AM you know, and one of my littles has just awoken, and one is coughing. I have meds I might need in the middle of the night set on the dresser right over there, and plans to call the Pediatrician in the morning for a weekend appointment for my son with an ear infection (note to children - tell mom about the ear pain BEFORE five pm, not after, at least we have a ped with weekend hours). So, the socks have been photographed on my feet with about half the toe decreases done, for documenting and all that, and maybe sometime tommorow in between the things I need to do I will find time to knit them. Maybe I’ll be smart and wait until after bedtime again, when I can really give them my full attention.