small shawl

 Does this look familiar to anyone? I think nearly everyone who reads this blog either saw me working on this or saw the finished shawl.  It is a lovely pattern (Ravelry link here).

 Knit with a lovely yarn called Cascade Heritage Paints. 

Modeled by the lovely Lucy who was getting tired of this photo shoot.

 Can you tell? 

I call this picture, "I'll stand here for one more picture if I can look crazy."

Fine by me!

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I believe this small shawl now lives with the smallest of our agreeable offspring.

Corners of my couch

Our house is normally piled with stuff. All flat horizontal surfaces are quickly covered by ...you name it; homework, catalogs, origami, socks, bananas (we uncovered 3 pretty ripe ones during the last table clean off) and of course, knitting.

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You can imagine how pleased I was when I came across this little scene. Harmonious colors, handmade items, a reminder of little Henry and no bananas!

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Yay Yankees!

Origami slinky

 In rainbow colors no less!

Mae has found her passion for origami again. We've got folded paper everywhere and I love it.

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10 games left of regular season MLB. Anyone else going nuts watching the teeny tiny Yankees lead remain a teeny tiny lead?

woodshop

 Isn't it pretty? 

Henry made it in woodshop this year. He really liked the class and signed up for advanced woodshop next year! Maybe we'll get a table!

H.H. or double H or Herny or Henderson or Hen.....he's got so many names. 

In action. Well not really, no kale was cut in the making of this blogpost. 

As you can see, it is a smallish cutting board. I think it would be perfect for cheese or apples or mangoes or........

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Thanks Henry for such a beautiful gift. 

beading class

I took an adult education class this winter, beginning beading taught by a good friend. It was fabulous! I learned new techniques, became aware of new tools and purchased some beautiful beads. Lucy picked out and created the necklace above.

This project was supposed to be a long, lariat-style necklace (not a style I will ever wear), but in this house it has become a window adornment.

I'll take some more pictures of the projects we finished in class. I have about 7 or 8 new necklaces. I'm not sure I like to wear necklaces, so maybe I'll post pictures and give them away to loyal blog readers! I guess I have to become a loyal blog poster first.

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Baseball and softball are in full swing, both H & M's teams looking pretty good.

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Happy Spring Officially today (or yesterday)!

Model building

Henry has figured out a way to stay busy! And its not playing computer games!

He has discovered models. This was the first one he's ever painted while building. The parts needed to be glued together (not snapped). Tricky. And messy.

Its a Huey Hog, and its the first of many I'm sure.

Huh??!!

I don't even know where to begin.

These pajamas from Hanna Andersson have been a mainstay of Henry's sleepwear for years.

They've never worn out, he's just grown out of them.

I must admit, I was a little stunned when he came out of the bedroom looking like this. I didn't expect 'clothes designer' to be something he'd be into. He has never even seen Project Runway.

A few pieces of felt.......

There are some crafty things going on around here. Mae decided to sew a mermaid tail for Lucy's doll and voila......

Isn't that the cutest thing?

Hopefully, I'll get some pictures of the rest of the felty goodness that is going on here.

Happy Father's Day!

John played in a volleyball tournament this weekend, so we thought we make something special to cheer him on. It was Mae's idea, I just did the sewing. We used an old pillowcase and some cut up tee shirts.

He was the only one to have a homemade banner. In fact, his was the only banner at the beach that day. Imagine that.

For all you dads, step-dads, and grandpas out there; hope you had an awesome day. We love you.
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Go Dads!

Weaving!

This is a four harness wooden floor loom. Wow! And it is ours for the summer. Mae got right to work as soon as we got it home. Lucky for us the loom was already strung (loaded?) ....oh, threaded. I've looked at some books and boy, it does not appear to be a simple task.

This was loaned to us by a very generous woman whose grandkids go to our school. She is fabulous and teaches all sorts of great art.

I can't wait to share a finished project with you. However, we've pulled out the embroidery and crochet again, so maybe it will be a while.

Rock Houses

We've been doing some crafting around here! There has been fabric, felt, yarn, thread, paint and rocks all over the dining and living rooms. Messy, but lots of fun. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures of the mini quilt Mae and I made. It was a complete success and makes me think I might be able to pull off a full size one. Fingers crossed.

These rocks are simply painted to look like houses, super cute. We got the idea from this great book.

I was overwhelmed with sweet peas this year as I planted them both at home and at school, but I'm afraid the only picture I have is below. They're behind the larkspur.

This is the end of the garden where cucumbers and beans are supposed to be. I've stopped watering the flowers but they still don't look dead enough to justify pulling them out. We farmers face a lot of tough situations I tell you.

This is a glass of blood orange juice made after the harvesting field trip. It looks like it could cure anything that ails you, give you magical powers or kill your nemesis. Powerful stuff.

Happy Mother's Day

I don't think any of these pictures have anything to do with today, but they all have to do with me. Above is the school garden, but I didn't go there today. I spent most of today working on our home garden. YAY! It looks so great.

I didn't work on this today, but I did do some crocheting.

I didn't make these today (they are banana chocolate chip cookies made in this pan), but I did have a fabulously sweet apple fritter this morning.

Not sure what to say about this video except I did make these kids. Yikes!

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Hope all you moms out there had a wonderful-do-whatever-you-wanted kind of day.

Rainy Day

No, not one of these pictures is of a rainy day, but it is raining today, so I'm inside not working on the garden (home or school). Along with posting here, I'm planning on making some lasagna for dinner and maybe some cake for dessert. Oh, laundry, dishes and vacuuming, too! The above is something I made for my little sister who likes it but says she feels like Waldo. I guess I see the resemblance. The yarn is super soft cotton/soy, so Waldo or not, it feels good.

And this is something that made me laugh the other day. Lucy organized all my shoes. Wasn't that nice of her?
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Okay, off to enjoy some kitchen time. Yay for rain!

Check us out!

It came. Our package from Aunt Jil finally arrived. And we love every bit of it.
Above are Lu's jammie pants. A smidge long (3 inches or so) but she'll grow into them. She wore them last night anyway.

Eye C U. Mae's new red hoodie.

Here we all are in all our warm fuzzy goodness. My pants are perfect (altho my shirt is a little short).
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Thanks so much, we love it all.
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p.s. knitting almost complete.

Bulbs::indoor and out

You remember that week of storms I posted about recently, right? Well, this was my view for much of it. I stayed inside and did some serious knitting (and crochet-the blanket there and the pot wrapper).

Luckily, these paperwhites were blooming (indoors) and smelling lovely the whole time.

The sun came out and so did these daffodils (outdoors). Actually, they were blooming in the rain but I couldn't photograph them until the sun came out. Which it did. We're having a real spring with rainy days followed by sunny days. Nice.
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More rain coming this weekend. Jil, you're knitted gifts should get completed for sure.

Crafty presents

Meet Mo-Mo.
He is a super cute knitted and felted monkey that I made for Mae's birthday. The pattern came from this book coincidentally called Knitted and Felted Toys.

I stayed up pretty late many nights in a row to finish this on time. The knitting and felting went pretty quickly but the assembly was tedious. I'm happy and more importantly, Mae is happy with the result.

Finally, here are the pictures of the tree-house stairs.

Aren't they amazing? John made those. From a tree!

Does this look familiar?

Dad, I'm talking to you. This is your hat (doesn't it look good on me?). I'm so glad you requested one for Christmas. With the yarn I bought (3 skeins, 3 colors, see here) I was able to make three hats!!

Same yarn, same pattern, different order. (Also looks good on me.)

And again, same yarn, different pattern, different model (doesn't it look good on her?).
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So, who's next? I've got a great system here.