Sunday, March 29, 2009

My First

B.O.B - Button on Sweater by Jackie Pawlowski
My first real sweater, and knit for me, to boot! I'm so in love with it. :-) I'm really proud of it because...it's practical, it's attractive, and it fits! The pattern is very easy to follow and the knitting grew fast with chunky yarn. Picking up stitches (for the button band) on size 10.5 US needles is SO MUCH faster and easier than with sock yarn on size 1.5 US needles! There's nothing about this sweater that I wish I had changed. It fits around the waist and chest just fine without adding too much pressure on the buttons and the sleeve length is perfect. I love the high collar that keeps the breeze off my neck and the cables that follow it all the way up. I did add quite a bit of length to the arms and body in addition to spreading out the decreases for the raglan arm shaping to give more room at the armpits. (The raglan shaping was a challenge that my friend Emily helped me hurdle. Emily - you're so smart!) The only part of this sweater that I didn't like doing was sewing on the buttons - all EIGHT of them. I guess it was well worth it. The yarn that I knit this in has to be the softest wool I have ever touched and felt against my skin - Malabrigo Chunky. Even the Malabrigo Worsted is not as soft as this!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

So we went camping this past weekend at Hermit Park! It was fun. Lynn said that she and her family were thinking of going and I invited myself (and my family) along. What? Camping in March? Well... cabin camping. The cabins were really nice but still lacked running water and electricity. Thank goodness it had heat and a propane stove. Even the port-o-potty was decent! There were 2 bunk beds but each bunk had 2 twin mattresses so the cabin could sleep a total of 8 adults (or many more kids). Seamus was doing a good job of pulling his own weight.
This is Seamus climbing up the ladder of the bunk beds with his sleeping bag and tent on his back.When we were pulling out of the driveway, Tim looked at me and said, "Look at how much crap we have for one night!" True, true, but most of it was needed regardless of how many nights we stayed. The boys wanted to sleep on the top bunks so Tim and I slept on the outside with one of the boys on the inside. It got soooo hot! Poor Seamus ended up moving down to the bottom bunk in the middle of the night because he just couldn't stand it. The weather was decent but it was windy at night so campfires weren't much fun. But all in all, a good time was had by all. One more pic to end it on. This is of all the kids hunkered down to watch Max & Ruby on portable DVD players (my kind of camping). ;-)


more pics of our camping trip here...