Gigi's Central Park Hoodie

Gigi's Central Park Hoodie
Originally uploaded by momloves2knit

Orange. Gracie's favorite color. I found some Cascade 220 Heathers in a beautiful orange last week. When I showed it to her, she flipped and exclaimed, "For sweater?!" I was planning to make a pair of felted boots, but a sweater would definitely be much better. After looking through all the magazines and books, we decided to buy the Central Park Hoodie pattern from Knitscene.

I cast on the back Saturday evening and proceeded to knitting. By bedtime I had completed the ribbing and 50 rows up.

On Sunday after church, while I was watching the Jets and Titans play football with my honey, I reached the armhole.


Searching around for other who have knit the CPH on Ravelry.com, I found others who had modified the pattern by using the Short Row method for the armholes, sleeves and shoulders. I did lots of research on the web and in my back issues of Interweave Knits and found some great help. After many attempts and frogging, I finally understood what I was doing and I was off doing knitting short row armholes and shoulders.

Snowing

The Garden Looking Cold


I have been a bit busy lately. Lots of swimming with the girls and knitting. I woke up this morning to SNOW. Can you believe it? It is early to have snow falling here. The kids are thrilled, but we will still do school. Ah, the joy of homeschooling. Don't ya love it...

I grabbed the camera to snap a shot of the snow falling on our home.

The cold has settled in to the mountains and I am so thankful for the geothermal heat pump. You can't believe the warmth it puts out, quickly. The best part is that we can set the temperature at 69 . On sunny days, the sun helps to heat the house too. Typically, the temperature rises to 71 to 74 degrees when the sun is shining. There is no sun today with snow falling.

Gardening in the Cool Morning

Well, our sweet bunny decided to spas out this morning. We could have slept in because no one had to be up early. Oh well....

Ray went out to work in the garden and it was such a beautiful morning. I took the bunny out and put her (?) in the run and went to see the garden. Laia our kitty came down to visit too.

Analytical Grammar

I purchased Analytical Grammar written by Robin  Finley at Homeschool Gathering Place in Raleigh, NC.  I plan to have Hannah (a junior this year) do all three seasons this year.  Sarah, a freshman, will do the three seasons over the next three years.  She will spend 10 weeks doing a lesson a week and then the rest of the year she will do a review lesson once every other week. It is my hope that they will have a very solid understanding of English Grammar.  

Homeschool Plans for History

History has become my favorite subject since I was introduced to The Mystery of History by Linda Hobar.   Last year we did The Mystery of History Volume II which covered the Early Church through Guttenburg inventing the printing press.  Wow.  We learned so much.  This year we are reading The Mystery of History  Volume III: The Renaissance, Reformation, and Growth of Nations. My volume arrived a few weeks ago and I had to start reading it right away.  The new format is beautiful with colorful pictures and a hardcover.  I love all how professional it looks and I especially love that it is still written in the the same conversational style.  I can hardly wait to start back.  

Homeschool Plans for Writing

I have been working on our lessons for the next school year.  I am so excited about my latest purchase from Institute for Excellence in Writing, Life Science-Based Writing Lessons in Structure and Style.  The authors, Danielle Olander and Peter Swett have put together a wonderful year of writing lessons for high school students using the IEW model.  I am especially excited about the research project towards the end of the year and the essay projects.  Besides learning how to write well, they will be covering a lot of Life Science.  Topics include: Cell Structure, DNA, Bacteria, Fungus, Botany, Cell Division, Zoology, Invertebrates and Vertebrates.  There are lessons on Experiment Write-Up, Writing a Scientific Essay on an ecosystem, and the one I am most excited about is Answering Questions in an Essay.  There is a page of questions in several areas of biology for the girls to choose from and then write a well organized essay. 

Baby Surprise Jacket

Starting work on the Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket. I am using some hand-dyed yarn that I was experimenting with. I purchased bags of embroidery yarn for a dollar. I took all the white and used my Three Irish Girls acid dyes to create some self striping yarn in bright colors.

Needles: Size 1 Addi Turbo Lace
Yarn: Hand-dyed Worsted Persian Embroidery Yarn
Pattern: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket