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

Septic Tank and Fever

Today was a total bust. Gracie has been running a temperature since Saturday after the swim meet against Galax. She has been sleeping a lot and shivering, then sweating. Hopefully, this won't last much longer. Poor little girl, she is going to miss the meet tomorrow night.

Oh and the septic tank? Nasty, nasty, gross, PU...The filter, which is intended to keep the septic field clean, got completely clogged up and we discovered the wet grass above the tank on Friday. After calling the septic guy several time, I finally located the cell phone number yesterday. He arrived this morning to pump out the 1000 gallon tank and clean the filter. Of course we tried to get to the filter but after getting 3 feet of dirt off the lid the pressure of the water pushed the lid up and all the liquid stuff filled the hole.

So my advice to anyone who has a septic tank with a filter would be: every year go and pull out the filter and clean it off.

Haying Days

The Little Farm took advantage of the dry hot weather and cut hay.  The kids had a blast climbing on the round bales.

Stricken Sock

I love cables. I love Cookie A. sock designs. This pair of socks is knit with Opal yarn on Addi Lace 00 47" circular needle. I just love knitting with the skinny needles. The fabric is so smooth and tight. I am hoping that it will make the sock wear longer too.

Work on sock 2 is slow and steady.  Guess there is not such a big hurry because the hot weather doesn't need wool socks.  

Hot Days

Enjoying the cool air from my geothermal heat pump.  I don't have to worry about my electric bill when the weather gets hot.  I am so thankful for a/c on these record hot days.  

Today we are traveling to Statesville, NC for swim meet with our new summer swim team.  Go Elkin Wet Lighting.  As much as we need the rain, I do hope it will hold off until the meet is over. 

The girls are swimming in the free and IM events.