Independence Day Weekend

The weekend started a little early for us, as Hubby had off Friday. Little Man went to school, and Hubby and I had lunch at Hibachi Grill and went to see the Terminator: Salvation movie. I wasn't impressed by the movie at all...I like the other movies, but this one didn't feel like a continuation of the saga, it wasn't the same without Ahhhnold (even though they tried to have a fake Arnold which was ridiculous). We picked Little Man up early from school and enjoyed a quiet evening at home, watching The Patriot, which is a movie about the American Revolution.

Saturday morning I baked a Funfetti cake (with Little Man helping me to stir), and after getting dressed for the day, Little Man and I headed out while Hubby stayed home to work on his home fix-it project. First we went by the library to drop-off a book, then we went to Subway and picked up a sandwich to share. After that we headed to Michael's for some craft shopping (Little Man wanted pink glitter glue especially).

Then, with Little Man in his lobster swim trunks and his lobster t-shirt, we headed to the pool. We played and splashed for an hour and a half before having our picnic lunch. Then we sat for a few minutes before running through the water again.



After another hour at the pool, we headed home and Little Man took a mini nap while I got things done around the house, including icing the cake. When Little Man woke up I had him help decorate the cake with the stars and stripes sprinkles.



Little Man likes the icing best, so I let him lick the icing spatula.



The sides looked a little bare so we took stars and put them on the side. After our hamburgers and french fries we enjoyed our "birthday" cake (I decided since it was our nation's birthday, it could be considered a birthday cake...didn't use candles though!). Later, after Little Man was in bed (not sleeping though, he kept hearing fireworks and firecrackers), we watched the same movie we watch every July 4th...Independence Day with Will Smith. And while we watched I cast on my 2-at-a-time sample socks... to learn the method by Melissa Morgan Oakes.

On Sunday we lounged around the house, played camping, hide and seek, and had craft time.

I broke out my sewing machine to sew a lining for the accessories pouch I had knit, and I not only learned how to switch my feet, I used the zipper foot for the first time to sew in my first zipper!

I'm very happy with how this little pouch for my bigger tote came out, especially since I didn't have to buy any of the materials for it! The yarn was from someone's destash, and the zipper and fabric (which together cost less than $1.50) were purchased with a gift card.

I finally took photos of the gift tags I won through a Twitter drawing run by Knit It Up. Knit It Up does the Sock Yarn Cinema yarn line that I like so much, and on Tuesdays they do drawings or sales that are advertised only on Twitter. I entered a drawing and was able to choose which set of gift tags I liked from the shop. I chose Elegant Craft...

A handwritten note was on the back of the wrapping...


And inside the tin, are 25 tags to use for handcrafted gifts...a place for special care instructions is on the back of the tag. Aren't they lovely! You can grab up your own (or a different style) at the Knit shop at Etsy!

I've also finished my February Lady Sweater, but I'm waiting to get Hubby to take some photos of me in it, so hopefully we'll get around to that this week, and I'll share photos later of my finished sample socks too! Hope everyone had a great July 4th!

Recently Finished

In the last few weeks I managed to finish a couple of projects. Above is the knit pig I made for my sister for her birthday. She's now 25 years old, but the piggie theme presents go back a long time with us. We used to share a bedroom as kids and we spent one great night oinking and snorting, imagining the pigs that ran free after the truck that was transporting them had had an accident. Dumb yes, but to me pigs will always represent that great time in life called childhood when the mundane can become hilarious, I doubt I'd laugh for hours about something like that today. (By the way, no pigs were injured during the accident). The pig was an easy knit from the book World of Knitted Toys.

I love this book. I've also made the clownfish for my son and the snake. The clownfish is great if you have a Nemo fan in your house and again the knits in this book are REALLY easy. The projects are classified as either easy, straightforward or challenging with easy projects suitable for beginners. The pig and the snake were labeled easy projects. The clownfish was straightforward because it had decreasing, increasing and color changes. I'll post pictures at some point soon so you can see the fish and snake. I should probably mention that I only started knitting in March of last year so I am in no way shape or form an "experienced" knitter. So, when I tell you it is easy, I mean it.

For my sister I also made this cable-knit purse. I made one for myself back in October after seeing the cable-knit purses from Margaret Nicole featured in InStyle magazine and some other fashion magazines. As you'll soon learn one of my favorite phrases is, "I could do that," so when I saw the whopping $175 price tag I thought there has got to be a way for me to make that purse. And $10 later, I had my purse. My sister, also a new knitter, really appreciated the handmade knit nature of the purse so I made one for her, with cats wearing kimonos fabric as the lining.

I used Thick and Quick yarn, and you can find the pattern at: http://www.yarniverse.com/page.htm?PG=FreePatterns