InsanKnitty

Ok, I’ve been looking forward to knitting with this yarn for ages.. I saw it at Michael’s and wanted to get it, the colorways were so beautiful, and it was silky soft… and then Chan raved about it, and how quickly it felts.. I just had to try it…

I bought some in white (well, Natural Snow) so that I could make some felted coasters for my tea swap pal. Today at long last (oh boy… my swap package needs to be sent tomorrow!)… cast on what I thought would make a great felted coaster… in black and white stripes… the black was with lion wool… and I worried that it would make the felting ‘weird’… however here are my observations..

While the SWS was silky soft,.. it split like crazy,…

I HATE knitting with it…

I finished up my first coaster… and stood diligently by my washer for fear of over felting… I tested and tested and tested… went through a FULL cycle… and still the thing hardly felted… Brought the bugger upstairs to our front loader machine (we have a set left behind from the previous home owner in our basement, which is quite nice.. and top load so I can check while felting)… the front loader makes felting difficult as it locks once the cycle starts so you can’t ‘check’ on the felting progress… I ran a full (short) cycle… and still the darn thing hardly felted… I’m on cycle number 3 now, and if it doesn’t felt.. I’m chucking the thing… weird!

Bummer though as now I need to quickly knit up some dishcloths for my pal… I had been counting on these coasters… grrrr

As a note to myself…

I should learn to not worry about other knitters comments, concerns, reviews whathaveyou with regard to yarns, needles, notions, and test them for myself… I have heard such horrible things about Noro Kuryeon and was quite worried about knitting with it… any my only complaint so far (after taking a LONG time to decide to give it a try)… is that it varies in thickness… it’s not itching my skin, and it’s knitting up quite beautifully… Sorry Patons but SWS bites (in my opinion)…

Chan.. there’s a skein and 3/4  3/4’s of a skein (can’t find the other one) headed your way… hope you have a use for Natural Snow…

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a while. Although we couldn’t share it as a whole family (Big Guy and Big Girl went to Rochester to a cross-country meet and won’t be home until later this evening.)

When I was little one of my favorite things to do in the fall was go apple picking. I looked high and low for a ‘Pick Your Own’ farm in our area, but couldn’t find any closer than 1 hour away…. Fortunately we had an invite to a party at an old friend’s home in NJ and there are a few pick your own farms along the way!

Yesterday morning we headed off to Strawberry Acres farm to pick MacIntosh and Jonagold apples! This farm was much bigger than I’d expected. In addition to apple picking, they currently have raspberry picking going on and offer picking of other fruits when in-season, including peaches, pears, cherries, and pumpkins. There were pony rides, a petting zoo, playground area, hay rides and they have weekend ‘daily’ crafts for kids. Middle guy was a bit bummed that he wouldn’t be allowed to climb the trees, but when he saw how easy it was to pick the apples he quickly forgot. It also helped that the ride out to the picking areas was in an old school bus with the top taken off and seats removed for long benches along each side! We picked WAY too many apples, but shared a bunch at our friends party and have lots planned for our remaining apples…

waiting for the bus it was windy and a bit chilly…

Fortunately there were tons of low hanging apples for little girl to get to!

Please can I eat one?

Half of our pickings!

After the picking we headed to NJ

(with a short stop on the way which I’ll explain after the crawdad’s)

Our friends from Rochester (well, that’s where I met them anyway) were hosting a ‘Mud Bugs and Beer’ party. Traditional Louisiana style crawfish boil and a beer tasting. It was really great to see them, especially since we haven’t since their wedding and now they have a cute little 8 month old guy…

Me and Lynn, the hostess with the most-ess!

We also got to see other old friends and their kids as well. It was great to catch up and actually have more than a few seconds to talk. This is Dawn and I… her little guy and our middle guy had fun playing together.

Some of the ‘many’ party guests…

Look Ma…

Ok… now for the side trip between the apples and the crayfish… There’s only one yarn shop near our home and it’s nearly a 40 min drive. I’ve actually gone there, and it’s nice, the owner is great and was very helpful, but I’ve been really looking forward to checking out The Yarn Shop, part of Kraemer textiles… Kraemer yarns are spun in Nazareth, PA! The shop is under renovation, which just means that they have a little less product in stock, but they do still maintain the full line of Kraemer yarns!

Here’s a bit of Yarn Porn.. I was so excited because I’ve been looking for some yellow wool to make a felted bag for my Mother-in-law for Christmas, and they had 3 (yes 3) different yellows to pick from!!! The ladies there were wonderful… and even gave middle guy a free bag of yarn from their dollar bin! He wants me to knit him something from it…

I mostly got felting wool (Naturally Nazareth, which is aran weight 100% domestic wool, and Mauch Chunky, 60% New Zealand wool, 40% domestic wool) for some Christmas bags I need to knit up… but I also picked up some super soft green shades of crystal palace Bunny Hop to knit some baby gifts for my dear friend Elizabeth who’s expecting her first baby in March!

ok… the knitting is calling… today’s a stay at home and relax and knit day! I’m nearly done with my felted bag for my swap and my tea swap will be done today too… ready to mail tomorrow which is the deadline day!

oh… and before I forget.. I’m so excited about something I’ve wanted to try for a long time now.. and finally just DID… .something for my HSKS3 pal… I need to work on my wire ends, but I really enjoyed making these… maybe there’s more in my future..

Mom’s overture

Oh my word…

it’s my life… and my words.. so conveniently sang by another mom!

So, the Fall Felted Bag exchange is having a contest with weekly topics similar to the Dishcloth exchange…

This weeks topic:

As of this weekend, the season has officially changed on the calendar - but what makes Autumn feel like Autumn to you, and why?
Ahh… I LOVE Autumn, it’s my favorite season… and it’s because of the change in temps and the new season smells… My Sister and I both have vivid fall memories of our daily walk to school and the chance to drag our legs through the HUGE leaf pile at the end of the ‘cut through’ road from Pickering Street to Winthrop Street back in Essex, MA… We’d walk along the stone wall, jump off the end into the big leaf pile that got caught up in the corner from the winds and the way the wall just trapped all the leaves… I loved that crisp browned leaves smell…

Pumpkin pie is my favorite, though Apple crisp is a close second.. :-)  And I make both, or variations of both every fall…  The fall means I get to bring out my favorite mug, and I was so pumped to find that the Pumpkin spice creamer was in at Wegmans! (as was all the Christmas flavored creamers too?? what’s up with that?)

The Fall also means that I have glorious temps for my running adventures.  There’s nothing better than going outside and NOT sweating ‘before’ the run starts (as was almost ALWAYS the case when we lived in NC)…   I love the cooler fall tems, the Jeans and a Sweatshirt ‘uniform’ of Fall is my absolute favorite thing to wear…

And a teaser for my Swap pal… (ok, the perfectionist in me got to rip this whole thing out yesterday and start over… that’ll teach me to try something new while watching television!)

What else is going on??? well.. Big Girl is going to be a Black cat for halloween this year. We have this very cool full length (long sleeved, long legged) leotard that’s made with a stretchy black velvet that we found at the Consignment Sale in Raleigh a year or so ago… So all she needs is a tail and some ears…

See Fun fur antagonists… it does have it’s valuable uses! Now for that hat..

Middle guy’s going to be a Bat and wants a similar hat to his sister’s so I’ll be making two… now where’s that pattern?

Also on the needles recently.. Anne’s contest cloths…It was knit on size 7 straights, bamboo, in Continental style.

These are knit in a Sugar and Creme sparkly christmas red… and green (if I could just find where I stuck that one… )…

And here’s the blocked candy corn for my Fall Dishcloth swap pal…

And… it’s Thursday.. and Chan always does Dogs on Thursday… so here’ s my pups…

Murphy’s eye is red because of a damaged nerve a few years ago that caused him to lose muscular control on that side of his face.. he cannot blink, but his 3rd eyelid trained itself to blink… so his eye often is red and a bit swollen on that side…

Have a fabulous Fall day!

Ok, so I’ve talked a bit lately about cooking but this time I don’t mean THOSE kind of brownies… this time I’m talking about the kind that come from the Girl Scouts!

Big Girl decided to join the Brownie troup that many of her classmates are in. So off we went tonight, without a uniform (believe me I got the 10th degree on that).. and we officially signed up to sell those cookies in the spring, and to have craft time and a father daughter dance, and fun field trips and all things great and girly! She’s excited about earning badges… so I’m here to present mine…

Knitters the world over should proudly post their badges… and I will right now!

The “Proselytize Knitting” Badge - A requirement for all Knitting Scouts, the recipient must do his or her bit to present knitting in a positive light, whilst at the same time avoiding all references to “hipness”, grandmothers, and yoga. (here’s what I am adding **Knitting isn’t trendy… and to me neither is yoga… but that’s what the text said over there at the site where I grabbed these beautiful badges… I think we need to remember to represent knitting as a great handcraft and not as something only old ladies or trendy people do!)

The “I Can Be an Asshole When It Comes To Knitting” Badge - In which the recipient is so passionate, opinionated and entirely convinced of his/her own superior knowledge about all things knitting, that he/she may appear pompous, rude, or self-righteous… (Umm…lets just say that my rather unique way of knitting over the years has made me rather difficult to converse in knittease… so I just keep quiet and that gives others the impression of my assiness)

The “Knitting Caused My Divorce” Badge - Maybe your spouse didn’t fully appreciate your chosen lifestyle, or maybe you were caught in a lie about the frequency you were having S.E.X. outside the relationship, either way you can trace beginning of the end back to your obsessive need to knit. (ok, not really, but Big Guy always tells me that he can’t stand that I’m knitting because he thinks it makes me look like I’m 90 or something)

The “Knitting Whilst Under the Influence” Badge - This applies to both actual knitting under the influence, as well as achieving moments of stunning intellectual clarity about ones knitting under the influence. Presumes talking about knitting whilst under the influence a given. (I call this the Cass badge… my dear Vodka loving blogger-mate) Lately I’ve been stressed and been known to knit with a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks by my side…

The “MacGyver” Badge (Level One) - The recipient must demonstrate clever use of a non-knitting tool in a knitting-related scenario. For instance, recipient has used paper clips as stitch markers, or successfully whittled and then utilized bamboo skewers…(paper clips, twist ties, and soda can tabs make great stitch markers!)

The “MacGyver” Badge (Level Two) - The recipient must demonstrate clever use of a knitting tool in a non-knitting-related scenario. For instance, recipient has used a strand of Regia Bamboo to slice cheese, or repaired a small appliance with a metal knitting needle. (Bamboo needles make great toast retrievers!)

The “I Will Impress You With My Math Prowess” Badge - The recipient is a whiz at substituting yarns and calculating gauge, can space increases and decreases evenly and is fully comfortable with the basic math encountered in all knitting projects. (math/science geeks are us)

The “Knitting Has Forced Me to Seek Medical Attention” Badge (Level One) – In which the recipient has been forced to seek the advice of a medical doctor, nurse, or alternative healthcare professional for injuries sustained as a result of knitting. (Ok, I haven’t actually spoken with a medical professional, but I’ve had to use bandaids on a few occasions from my super sharp metal DPNs (US size 6).. and I refuse to use the A word at my age, but I know I’ll be investing in some pain relievers as I continue to age so that I can continue to knit!)

The “I’ve Knit Items With No Conceivable Practical Application” Badge - Recipients are those “special” campers who have knit items which somehow missed the mark of their intended application. There are probably more who are deserving of this badge than one would expect. (Who has not knit the ridiculously large, or felted the unpredicatably small item in their knitting career?!?!)

I leave you to browse through the other available badges here…

House starts soon… gotta get these littles to bed!

Devin

Thank you for my lovely Ravenclaw swap package.. :-)  I am loving the cabled  scarf and will definitely knit it up hopefully soon! ;-)  The Malabrigio yarn is yummy … I’ve never knit with it before and am so thrilled that you picked something new to me…  I have a bag in mind for it already ;-)  The chocolate was eaten just after the photos shot … and mmm was it good!  I’ve been using that pumpkin foot lotion, it’s divine! (Lord knows my scary runner feet  need that lotion!)  Thank you soooo much!

PS.. the bag is so perfect… just the write strap width for carrying the weight of a small project (which it’s already held 2 separate and now completed projects!)… I love that I can carry it around and knit willy nilly!

PPS… how funny that you were also an angel to Lesley, who was my KVVS pal!?!

Hey wow! It’s fall… My absolute favorite season of the year…. and we did all sorts of ‘fall’ things this weekend…

and this ‘falls’ nicely into the dishcloth swap topic of the week:

Autumn has now officially begun here in the States!! What is your favorite thing about Autumn/Fall? Why?

I LOVE apples, and the smells of Fall… Apples are my absolute favorite fruit, and there’s just nothing like a fall, fresh, macintosh apple… and guess what I did with them… well, I should say ‘we’…

Littlest girl and I made home made applesauce.. YUM…

And I knit in tribute to perhaps my favorite halloween candy…

(Couldn’t find a pattern for this, so I just made it up as I went along…)

Seems to be a trend… I also made up the following…

Hand scrubby

Dishcloth

(this is the one from last week, but I made another and it’s blocking at the moment)

I have more to blog about, but the littles just got off the bus a short time ago, which means it’s homework time… I’ll be back to blog about

Devin’s swap package, House-Along, swap status for my other swaps!

House-Along!

Ok, Chan, so I started an actual KAL… I won’t be posting too much there, but I’ll definitely try.. there’s got to be other Greg House geeks out there that want to knit along to his insanknitty!

oh… Have a button…

(If you came for knitting content… scroll away…)

When I started this blog, I told my Sis-in-law that I’d be posting mostly knitting stuff, but that I would include the necessary hilarity that goes along with raising three children. We always have some crazy thing going on chez insanknitty!

Littlest Little (aka Monkey) is turning 3 in a few weeks, and Big Guy and I were talking about her ‘isms’ the other day… Of our 3 children, she is the only one to babble as a baby… the other two went straight to real words from coos (or at least in comparison to Monkey)… she had the most hilarious string of ‘Goo ta ga’s’ We’d all chime in with her chanting along.. ‘Goo ta, goo ta, goo ta Ga!’ and she’d get going… and we’d just laugh because it somewhat sounded like Chinese to us… she was having these full, detailed, animated conversations with us and we had absolutely NO idea what the heck she was saying!… Now… bring out a video camera and that’s a sure way to shut her up…. I tried hundreds of times to get it on video and there was NO way she was going to oblige… so we just have to remember it in our heads… and hearts…

so anyway.. I digress… the isms… Monkey didn’t so much as make up words like her older sister did (Melmo = water we’d tell the sitter, Neems is M&Ms, etc….) no, Monkey has her own version of the pronunciation of common every day words… for example…

The ‘livah’ (said in her best Boston accent)… is the Living room… Big Guy liked this one so much he took to calling the Dining Room the Dinah.. and Monkey would just look at him like he was crazy! She only very recently gave this one up… I’ve tried to get her to say it, but she kinda just smiles at me…

The eternal favorite for me is still the

‘Pocuter’… can y’all guess what that is??

Yep, the ever present in our household…

Computer

Monkey has others… but right now I can’t think of them…

And lets not leave Middle Man out… he called his sister ‘Bay Bay’ for eons… but when he could finally say Abby… it nearly made her cry! She begged him to say ‘Bay Bay’ and he’d just say ‘No, your name’s Abby!’

How is it that my little babies are now 7 1/2, 5 1/2 and almost 3?!?!?!

Rather than make a bunch of posts.. I’m going to combine my thoughts for today into one…
I have two new favorite items to share with you (oh the Marketing people will love me at Quaker and Lipton)…

My weight watchers ME has been working to get rid of the darn 10 pounds I collected through our move.. (why didn’t I know I was a stress eater?)… and I’m back to journaling and counting my points and watching my portion sizes… and I have two new things that are helping me out…

First… Quaker has a new oatmeal, called Simple Harvest. I LOVE this stuff… it’s a multigrain hot cereal (essentially your regular oatmeal with a bunch of other granola-ey stuff in it (yes I realize that’s not a real word)… My favorite flavor is the Vanilla, Almond, Honey (ok.. .I haven’t tried the others yet, but I’m a vanilla girl… always have been, always will be)… but it also comes in two other luscious sounding flavors… Apples with cinnamon, and Maple Brown sugar with Pecans… mmmm I am thinking that the Maple one is next on the grocery list when I finish this Vanilla box! The points values (for any of you Weight Watchers followers) are 3 for 1 packet for the Vanilla and the Maple, but the Apples and Cinnamon one is 2 points… (so maybe I should make that one my next purchase ) Usually, for me anyway, one packet of the oatmeal, which is one serving, is just not enough, I’m hungry for more and before I know it, I’m hungry for more food..it just doesn’t hold me till lunch, which is really my big thing… while I know that eating more smaller meals is one key to good healthy eating, I have a hard time just eating small amounts multiple MORE times each day, I do a lot better with 4 meals rather than 6… so I try to eat a breakfast that holds me until lunch… and one packet of this new cereal is doing the trick (of course I eat it with a piece of fruit and coffee )

Another new grocery store item that’s been helping me is the Lipton Pyramid teas…in particular the Vanilla Caramel Truffle flavor… I LOVE LOVE LOVE caramels, hard or soft… and my recent swap pals have blessed me with bags of Werther’s butterscotch candies… YUM.. and I’ve enjoyed them in great quantities that I really really SHOULDN’T be snacking on… this caramel tea is scrumptious… and the sweet caramel flavor is just the sweet treat (I use splenda) I need in the later afternoon when I’m usually in the back of the pantry digging my hand into that (now empty) Werther’s bag. I was so excited to blog about this tea, especially since I’m in a tea swap right now, and then I read a not so great review of it (can I find it now to link for you.. nope)… and I decided to wait… but you know what.. I don’t consider myself a tea snob.. this is at the local grocery store and is affordable and a nice sweet treat in my afternoon! It’s keeping me from filling my mouth full of Werther’s (well running out of them is also keeping me from doing that)… I think it’s a great treat and will be buying more when my box of 20 runs out! Run out and buys some if you’re a vanilla girl like me!

Those who know me well know that I love being home with my kids, being a mom (though some days I feel like Kate on Jon and Kate plus 8 … (Discovery Health channel, I’ve only seen the commercial, I don’t want the series).. the mom, Kate, is standing in the kitchen in her bathrobe holding onto her coffee for dear life, with this horrid expression on her face and you hear her voice saying something like.. ‘Today I’m going to go insane, I already decided it’… ), I love to run… (it’s my one sane, quiet moment of each day), and to craft… but I don’t often talk about how much I love to cook and bake. I love cake decorating and have done a pretty fine job (at least I think so).. of making the cakes for the kids birthdays… I include a number of baking sites in my bloglines that I read (usually they’re both knitting and baking)… and I whined and complained and even lied a little the other day when I saw a cool blog post about a Bolognese sauce.

Well, Jessica (who didn’t leave a blog link when she commented, so I can’t link her)… quickly pointed me to Rachel’s blog with the post about the Bolognese sauce… the lie I mention is that I said that I checked EVERY link in my bloglines… well, I skipped a few… the ones that I knew were pattern sites and just simply WOULDN’T have a post on them about cooking, including Rachel’s… HAH.. taught me!

Well, I made the bolognese sauce and only changed the recipe slightly (I added 5 cloves of garlic… what is a pasta sauce doing without Garlic???) I was pretty pleased with the sauce and Big Guy liked it too (a meal with meat is a meal complete in his mind!)… I should have added more tomato paste, but just didn’t have enough… oh well.. .

I keep a binder with all my favorite recipes.. and I can’t find it, so I had to call my sister-in-law, who shares my name to get the banana muffin recipe that she shared with me so long ago and has become a staple in our family… I make this recipe and the kids devour it at breakfast for as long as they last… I had a bunch of rotten bananas (well not yet ROTTEN.. but certainly on their way)… I made a double batch and froze tons to get us through breakfasts for a little while!

This recipe is ‘extra’ healthy in my opinion as it’s loaded with fiber and low in fat… I don’t have the specifics on nutritional info, but I worked the points out ages ago, and it’s 1 point per muffin (as a mini muffin)

I usually make it as mini muffins and add a small amount of chocolate chips (mini sized) to just be a tiny bit of extra yumminess…

The recipe: (and this is how I prepare it as well)

Mix together:

1. 3 overripe mashed bananas
2. 1/2 cup oil
3. 3/4 cup honey
4. 1/2 cup apple sauce

Then add:

1. 1/2 tsp salt
2. 2 tsp baking soda
3. 1/2 cup wheat germ
4. 1 cup rolled oats
5. 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
6. Optional (1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Line muffin pan with cupcake papers and bake at 350F for 12-14 mins

mmmmm Yummmm!

Oh… You came here for knitting content didn’t you…

I’m making good progress on my swap knitting… I had to purchase needles yesterday to get busy knitting my Felted Bag pals bag, and I also finished getting her goodies… as well as the goodies for my dishcloth swap pal, tea swap pal, and Harry Potter Sock Kit pal… Sheesh… I need to swear off swaps for a little while!… Now to finish the knitting and then I can box them up and continue onto my long Christmas knits list!

Here’s some views of things in progress… not a ton, but it’s progress…

I’ve ripped out the intarsia that’s slightly showing here and started just doing a relief of what I was trying to do intarsia… normally my intarsia isn’t GREAT… but it’s worse on DPNs… Can you guess my Sock kit pals house?

Now, I thought for sure that there was a pattern for this out there in the free pattern world .. but with all the googling I did, I couldn’t find one… I found the crochet pattern, and the shadow pattern, but no candy corn shaped knitting pattern, so I made one up myself… My dishcloth pal loves candy corn.. and so do I… Monkey has claimed this as hers suddenly.. so I have a feeling I’ll be knitting 3 or 4 more today! this was a trial one anyway.. I have an idea of how to make the edges a little cleaner… so on to trial number 2 (and then when big girl and middle guy see them, … trials 3, and 4!)

WOW.. that was a long post… go refill your coffee… and have a great morning!

Hey,
Normally I don’t come on here and brag about something… but this time I have to… I LOVED the vacation swap… it was sooo much fun… I wish that I had my act together to get my package mailed on time, but well, we moved… that’s enough to explain anything…

My partner was Lesley, and she and I have a lot in common, and it has been so fun to read her blog, and plan the package for her… and she received it today… please do go see her blog and see the swag!!!  I think she really liked it…

Swapperly goodness is soooo fun!