Whew, where did last week go???

I had meant to post some progress on my Paulie but the week got away from me. School started for my little guy last week! I still can't believe my tiny baby is a first grader now, the time moves so very quickly. I am so glad we were able to spend so much time together over the summer so I can really savor this time in our lives. Pretty soon he'll be driving, then off to college! Ok so let's not get ahead of ourselves, he has 12 more years!

I've been plugging away on Paulie in my spare time but I have taken on a PTA position and the first week of school brought a lot of work right along with it. I'm happy to help but also secretly hoping things settle down on that front quickly!

I have been knitting away, until it looks about right to do a little waist shaping. The pattern suggested starting the waist shaping when the sweater body was still barely out of my arm pits and so I have decided to wing it and do it 'when it looks right'. Hopefully I won't regret that decision.

Even with how long waisted I am I think it's about time to start those decreases... I'm loving the colors together and also am loving that I can knit this pretty much on auto pilot. Very important when you are dealing with an exhausted child who is dealing with school stress and who has started sleepwalking. UGH... queue parenting motto #1 "This too shall pass!!!".

Since my socks are done I dove into the stash expecting to pull out that gorgeous skein of yarn I showed you a few weeks ago. But my eyes landed on a ziplock I had prepped months ago that had 4 skeins of yarn all ready to go with pattern and needles. So I decided in the interest of ergonomics and of stash busting to choose the worsted weight lace shawl over another pair of socks on tiny needles.

Lonely Tree Shawl

I've had this yarn in my stash for a couple of years now and love the colors.. there is brown and green and blue! All favorites! It's Fibranatura sensational in colorway Garden Topiary. I got it at Tuesday Morning when we still lived in NH which means it's at least 2 years old. 

Anyhow, wish me luck with the lace. So far it's going well and I haven't had to rip back or tink anything. Maybe when chart A is finished I'll thinking about putting a life line in.. or I can live dangerously! 

Finally Finished

I've been working on these socks since June sometime. I cast on for them to be my 'traveling socks' since I always like to bring a pair with me to work on when I fly. Not surprisingly, only a few rows of these socks were actually knit on the airplane (I was traveling alone with a 6 year old after all). Most of the first sock was knit at my father's house while he watched lots of baseball and sappy movies on the Hallmark channel! (yes really).  The second sock was knit at the beach, on a hike break, in the car, at the park and while watching True Blood, Breaking Bad and Orange is the new black... it appears I watch too much television!

Here they are:

Rib and Cable Socks by Nancy Bush

Despite the photo, they are in fact the same length, one is just a little  more scrunched in the pic. I didn't modify this pattern much, except to make the calf shorter. These were so much fun to knit. I love the fact that for me this was a pattern I didn't actually need the pattern for. Other than for knitting the heal flap and turning the heal I never looked at the pattern at all. I decreased the toe in my own fashion rather than using her directions just out of shear laziness. For me these socks just nailed home the fact that I am finally a really confident sock knitter. I don't fret anymore at the heals or toes and even though sometimes I still screw it up, most of the time I can kitchener a toe without directions in front of me. This, my friend, makes this lady one happy sock knitter! 

As with everything I knit, there is at least one totally obvious mistake, and I really don't mind at all. These socks were knit with my two hands, not some factory machine and a mistake just adds to the charm. 

With these off the needles I get to shop the stash for my next sock project and I think I might already know exactly what that will be! 

It's all about Star Wars around here.

My son is smitten with Star Wars. He has watched at least part of all 6 movies and knows way more of the back story than I do. Probably even more than my husband. Every time we go to the library we come home with more Star Wars books from which I learn even more than I ever knew possible. Did you know that Han Solo was raised by Wookies and that that is why he can understand Chewbacca? I had no idea!

So we were at Joann's the other day and he saw the newly revamped displays of all the themed cotton. Star Wars was right up in front and he immediately wanted all of it. I tried to talk him out of it, I mean the boy has like 8 pairs of pajamas and I just couldn't think of what else to  make him with this crazy fabric. He was undeterred and demanded a shirt. It's hard to argue with a young boy who is excited to be in a fabric shop with his mom and is demanding she sew something for him.. so I went to the pattern books and searched around for a simple button down shirt. We ended up with Simplicity 5581, had our fabric cut and were on our way.

2 days later we had this:

It came out pretty well. I didn't have enough fabric to do the placket facings in the star wars material so I used a weird navy fabric I had in my stash.. I think it's some kind of blend because it did weird things when I ironed it. 

 Millenium Falcon on the pocket!

I picked the button placement so that it could be buttoned pretty high without it giving the Poindexter look that comes from a collar fully buttoned. My child will ALWAYS button that top button no matter what!  Since I didn't have any buttons on hand I rogued them from one of my husbands unworn shirts. They are perfectly simple. 

All in all a good sewing adventure. The collar directions were vague at best so I just kind of winged it. I also didn't do the fancy vent at the bottom side seams. The fact that my son put it right on and wore it all day was testament to my success. An added bonus was that he was wearing it with mama-made shorts as well. A truly hand made day! 

This moment :

A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Since this is my first "This Moment" I thought I'd cheat and share my inspiration for this idea... head on over to http://www.soulemama.com and check out her moment.

My dress and I went to the farm

I wore my Nordika Washi the other day on a Playdate which culminated in a trip to a local farm for a walkabout! The dress was so comfy and I got a lot of compliments on it that day. My favorite part of all my Washi dresses is definitely the pockets. I love that I can throw keys and cellphone in my pocket and go! As much as I love my Two Zip Hipster, sometimes it can really weigh on my neck and so I don't like to carry it (or any bag) for very long.

Pardon the rumpled nature of this photo but it definitely shows the dress in action!

Thanks for reading!