crossing ONE WIP off the list, just one

Three down, three to go. Duck Soups that is. This is my third installment of the Duck Soup pattern. Another one for Mr. W since the first one I did for him stretched out and became a full length evening gown. I learned a hard lesson. Don't use acrylic, soft acrylic. At least not for this sweater. The second one, for Mr. B was knit out of Knit Picks Swish bulky and has held up well. Except when it was washed with bibs, that had velcro. Mommy needs to learn to wash hand knits by themselves or, at least, without velcro! See those leaves? This one is done just in time. For 90 degree weather forecasted for this week! Ahh well, fall is coming. The particulars are on my ravelry project page. Still love this pattern. Good thing since there are 3 more in the works. A neice's little guy and two granddaughters!

Miss S is cranking out shawls for the hospice faster than I can knit Duck Soups. Of course, she doesn't have to worry about the three 2 year olds that come to Nonny's and Deega's house Monday through Thursday. She can just spoil them and crochet! This is shawl #6. We give Miss S yarn and let her pick out color combinations. I am still amazed at what she puts together and love to see it.

DRUM ROLL please!!! It is only fitting that our church celebrated our daughter's big accomplishment only two days after she dotted the last i and crossed the last t. She has her Master's Degree!!!! We are so very proud of her accomplishment and her hard work. It has been a sacrifice of time and money on her, and her husband's, part as she worked, finished her degree, started their family with not one, but 3, went through a huge tragedy, and still finished. To say we are proud doesn't even begin to cover it.

Evidently little S is also proud of her aunt Yoyo (or she wanted in the picture?)

I think our daughter would say these are her biggest accomplishment and her favorite:

Gram got the graduate duck for our daughter? Uh, I don't think so. I think it was to entertain great grandchildren. And it did all during lunch and the ride home. It plays music, the hat pops up and down and the duck waddles forward. Really cute. But really annoying after a bit I'm sure!

Don't these three look adorably innocent? Minding their manners, eating? Looks are deceiving. I learned, to my dismay, not to leave these three unattended in their high chairs with food. I left the room for a few minutes and as I was returning I heard giggles and, "I got you!" and more giggles. I entered the kitchen to find a little fist raised to hurl the next food in the food fight. I sternly said, "What on earth do you think you're doing?" and was met with dead silence. Silence that lasted and bodies that were quiet for the full 15 minutes it took me to clean up tomatos, cantaloupe, and pb&j off the walls and floor. Yes, I was laughing, but they didn't know that! For all practical purposes they thought they were in BIG trouble. And I want them to continue to think that!

The gauntlet was cast down....

Per my post the day before the Labor Day weekend to put nothing new on the needles, I was "challenged", as it were, to start nothing new. As in I couldn't do it. Or more aptly, wouldn't do it. Well I did. I still am. I'm still slogging, er loving knitting, on the Duck Soup for Mr. W. I have one more sleeve to finish and it's done and then there is one more to finish that has the hood complete. And then there are those two pairs of socks missing the pair. Ok, so I didn't cast on anything new but I sure dreamed and planned it! I have patterns and yarn matched and calling to me everyday. I love knitting. I love complete knitted items, especially for grandmunckins. The problem is me. Or rather where I am right now. I can't focus and if I knit, I think, unless there is something on tv, which makes me want to find a window, stare, and cry. So, I sew or scrapbook or read...no thinking time available.

And then, there are those grandmunchkins and the tomatoes are ripe for the picking. And they consider it their daily chore to pick "matos" for lunch. Notice the buckets in hand? Nary a "mato" makes it in the buckets folks. Mr. W is pointing out the attibutes of this fine "mato" that should be popped in the mouth rather than the bucket. I do enough taste testing myself that it's rather hypocritical to demand of them what I cannot do myself. Problem with "matos" is the next one is probably better than the last and one must taste to find out.Mr. B is looking for that perfect orange "mato" while Miss S advises. She is three after all and had more experience in "mato" picking. Another whole years worth of experience.Miss S had no such problems completing her projects and thereby earning the right to start new ones. Her sister is working for a Hospice now and they are always in need of shawls for their patients. Miss S is more than willing to work at shawls, put leftover colors together and churn out 3 shawls in a week! She finished a red, white, and blue one that I did not get a picture of.

Sigh, I cannot compete with my daughter! However! I am caring for at least 3 grandmunchkins a day and a typical day is not without it's biting (yes! Biting), squabbles, "read book", diaper changing, floor mopping, clean up mess after mess, not to mention the atypical events:

In ONE day I washed more than a month of Sundays in years past. Two of the four already had their shoes on to go outside. While I was wrangling the last two, the first two were putting soap in my top loading washing machine. Not being tall enough, they missed the washing machine and soap fell all over the face and eyes of one of the "helpers". A good washing ensued. Later, while mopping the floor after lunch, one of the little darlings decided to play in the toilet. A good hand washing ensued much to the delight of the little darling. Not exactly the reaction I was going for. Ahhh, nap time followed. But one of the little darlings again decided to try and regain his status and "help" yet again. He thought he'd change his own diaper, a very, um, yucky diaper. He proceeded to scream when his hand got dirty. More washing. Oh my, what a day! And that's why I get no knitting done..and that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Now off to pick up that gauntlet again...and maybe throw it back.

2008 is in the books

Literally, in the books. One of my goals for 2009 was to be less mongamous in my crafting and more polygamous. Apparently I still have a lot of work to do in that area when it comes to scrapbooking. A stack of pictures drives me to my scrapbook table and despite a back ache or the late (or early) time of day, I stay until the stack is in the books. But I have a closet full of yarn that I can ignore and projects that I want to do and it doesn't drive me like scrapbooking does. If I could get a handle on why, then maybe I could get the stash down. My husband went out of town for a business trip and so there was no one to keep my scrapbook goals to a sane level and to insist I needed to sleep. My daughter loves the insaneness because she gets another movie so Mom can keep scrappin. (I did fix her regular healthy meals and make sure she exercised so I didn't totally ignore her) But as of 1am, or as my husband would say, O dark thirty, all of the grandmunchkin albums are caught up through Christmas of 2008. Did I mention that I have 6 albums to do? One for each of the younger grandchildren. Chalk up another insanity mark against me. But after they're done, I look back at my pages and usually love what I've done and love seeing those little cherub faces. Below are a few of my favorites, although I like them all.

Grandson #3's album, or Mr. W:

Granddaughter #2's album, or the 2nd Miss S:

Grandson #4's album, or Mr. B: (did I mention that all of the albums for this family are done in a Disney theme? I've got to have a reason to buy and use the great Disney scrapbooking stuff that's on the market and a trip to Disneyland is a few years off.)

Isn't his smile a killer? This little guy is so photogenic that the pages don't need much!

And Granddaughter #3's album, or Miss R. Her album is Disney as well, but I get to use Princesses in hers along with Mickey and gang. And the album I use for her has Mickey engraved on the front.

I also have a different color album for each grandchild so at a glance they know which albums are theirs.

While I've been busy scrapbooking, my busy daughter completed her very first granny square afghan. She continues to amaze me. I taught her how to do a granny square thinking I'd have to hold her hand through every square. I was wrong. I taught her to do a flat braid join for the squares, again thinking hand holding would be neccessary. Wrong again. This is her creation. She picked the colors for each square, she crocheted them, she crocheted them together. I know hand work is really really good for her and keeps her brain not only active, but growing, but it gives her so much more. This proudly rests on Her chair!

And now without further ado, since the eyelids are drooping...I'm going to get a few zzzz before tonight's Knitting Guild meeting.

Before I go, I have a chuckle to share. I care for my grandchildren and the two year old had me all to herself the last couple of days. I try and teach them sign but in the car I was trying to teach her the names of her parents and where she lived. Part of this was self preservation, she's into the "why?" stage. So today I asked her what her Mommy's name was. Her reply, "no, no, no" and to which she added, "My Mommy says No." She stuck with that every time I asked. Too cute...for me...maybe not for Mommy.

Hats off!

Here she is...my new washing machine! And Hats off to appliances! I never appreciated this until we went almost two weeks without one and I had to venture into a (gasp) laundramat! I don't like laundramats, err, rather the time I have to waste/use to get there, the money I need that I would rather spend on coffee, and sitting/standing watching the clothes go round and round. The trip to the laundramat was a deja vue moment. See, when we lived in Albania for a month waiting for our adoption to be final on our youngest daughter we had an apartment, with a washer and dryer. The washer took AN HOUR to do one insy bity load. My husband thought certainly there was something wrong with the machine and we have pictures of him sitting in front of the washer watching the clothes go round. Since the TV only had shows in Italian (ever heard John Wayne speak Italian, a rather feminine Italian?) we joked that we may as well watch the washer. Now the washer was not a planned purchase. We had a washer, only 2.5 years old, but she broke and the part wasn't under warrenty but the pump that went out because of the part was, but the repair bill was a minimum of $320. And no new warrenty. Better to get a new one for only $100 more. The repair man said he's seeing more Maytags needing repair than any other brand. We bought Maytag 2.5 years ago on their reputation. We went back to GE this time (the last GE set lasted 15+years) with a warrenty!

Hats off to this girl! Those are finished strips on her lap. And to the lady in our church who gave us this: (and two more smaller boxes)

Shega is delighted! She's knitting strips that will be sewn into a picnic blanket. She uses her hands for more than just communication! Anything that requires the use of her hands she takes to. Too bad though, since most can talk whilst knitting. Shega has to put it down to "talk". Come to think of it so do I if I'm conversing with her.

Hats off to Hat month. The KAL, a Loose Knit Group, has designated each month for a specific article to be knit and put away for Christmas so we beat the rush. Uh, I finished this hat in February all right, but it went right on Renae's head to go with her Tulip Sweater. It actually has a mistake in it. I used the same size needles for the seed stitch border that I used for the body of the hat causing the border to flip up. I remedied it with an applied I cord bow. The seed stitch now flares in a "flapper" style. My daughter loved it and wants another with the same mistakes when Renae outgrows this one.