Spudknit

Spring chickens!!

2011-03-29T11:47:00.000-06:00

Can you tell what the theme is around here? I want spring!)

At the end of February my four kids and I drove to a local hatchery my friend and her husband have just started and picked out 4 day old chicks.

Each child got to pick out their own chick and name it.

The black one is Buddy's and he named it "Blackhole". The one on the top is DuderMan's and he named it "Tiger". The one on the bottom is Dollar's which she named "Peep". Actually it was more Pee-pee but we morphed it into something not potty related. The one in the middle is PieGirl's chick which she named Bella. I swear she did not get that name from Twilight.

They were so incredibly cute! They spent the first few weeks in our bathroom.

And since my town now allows us to have up to six chickens within city limits, I of course had to go out to the local ranch store and get two more.

You can see the smaller Buff Orpingtons I brought home at the bottom of the picture. These two didn't have anything to reliably identify them separately so they do not have a name. They are also the most wild and want nothing to do with us. Except for those pesky things like water and food.

Tomorrow I will show you what the chicks look like now....

And it will be still farther away

2011-03-28T08:51:00.000-06:00

Today is the first day of spring break. My children laughed at me when I yelled down to their rooms to get up and get moving. Hurry up!

But it's SPRING BREAK!!

Yeah, it might be the a break but it is not spring.

Light fluffy things started falling from the sky at about 6 this morning. Within two hours we had two inches of it covering everything. Including my strawberry plants that had finally begun to grow.

Sigh. So it will be a little longer before I can put my new chicken coop with its month old chicks outside.

Spring is far away

2011-02-07T14:39:00.008-07:00

Since it is February in Idaho, spring is long time from coming. At least for the plants. I went to a workshop at a friend's farm this last weekend and this is what I found. Doesn't this ewe look like the best place to get warm?

But there is another way to keep warm. Grab a couple of your siblings and cuddle up under a heating lamp.

Secret Obsession

2011-02-02T11:28:00.003-07:00

Maybe it isn't so secret.

I want a farm. No really, stop laughing. I want a farm with several acres and lots of animals.

I want a big old faded red barn with lots of noises coming from it.
I have rabbits and will have chickens within a few weeks. That is all that can fit on my current city lot. But I do have a goat. :) He doesn't live with me but at my friend's farm. She has almost 3 acres and I am so grateful to her for allowing my goat to live there with her goat.

I want to add turkeys, geese, ducks, pigs, sheep, more goats, and possibly a pony. My husband thinks I am crazy and he is probably right. But I think it might be a disease and I am not alone.

Barnheart

So much the same

2010-11-10T17:59:00.004-07:00

So much is the same around here and yet so much has changed. The children are growing and learning. I can't keep my now 3 year old from leaving the back door wide open after I leave the room despite the 3 inches of snow on the ground.

My 10 year old Pie Girl is growing up to be such an amazing and gorgeous young lady. She is now taking violin lessons and will serenade you with Mary Had a Little Lamb at a moment's notice.

I have started a new direction in my life. I am now raising and breeding German Angora rabbits. They are stunning! I have two REWs (ruby-eyed white) and one chocolate self. The REWs are for my spinning and knitting business and the chocolate will be for my own personal enjoyment of spinning and loving on a gorgeous bunny. I have been blessed with a very thoughtful husband that has indulged my need for more animals and he is so grateful he doesn't have to clean up after them.

My boys are amazing

2010-02-27T11:31:00.006-07:00

I didn't want to leave my amazing and gorgeous boys out of the love fest here on the blog. I have two amazing boys. But today I will talk about DuderMan. He is my 5 year old who is also my comic relief.

He is almost always able to make me laugh and even when he is trying to be angry like in this following picture, I am able to make him laugh.

And he always has something on his face. I swear I clean his face after every meal but somehow he finds more and smears it all over his face.

His also my most accident prone boy. He cut my birthday dinner short two years ago when my sister called to say that he tripped in to her rocking chair and split his cheek open and would need stitches. By the time I got there he had a huge gaping wound on his cheek but happy as a lark and he did not want to leave. In the previous picture you can see the scar that was left after the stitches were taken out.

This picture is of him just after he and his older brother decided to hold our two cats at each other and make them scratch each other. What they didn't realize is that they would get scratched too.

Can you see the bandage on his cheek covering his stitches?

He is always willing to be happy and loving. He still loves to come snuggle on my lap first thing in the morning and I take advantage of that as much as I can because once he is off he doesn't stop until he collapses, usually in bed but sometimes on the couch on top of a hot pad.

I don't know how comfortable that hot pad is but he seems perfectly content.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2010-02-26T16:48:00.004-07:00

I know that it has been way too long since my last post. Considering that it was about the fair last fall is a sad, sad commentary on my posting skills. So to finally kick off the new year (I know that it is almost March but this is my first post of the year so please forgive me), I am going to share my favorite things of late.

I have finally, with my oldest daughter almost 10 years old, discovered that I like to do my girls' hair. This is an amazing thing considering that usually they look like this...

And yes, that is a goofy hat on backwards.

An online friend posted some pictures of some fantastic curlers that I knew I needed immediately and so I ran to Sally's Beauty supply and bought these spiral curlers that have been an Hallelujah opportunity for me. I'm sure you remember those terrible foam curlers that your mom put in your hair every Saturday night for church the next morning. I don't know about you but always by Sunday morning at least one if not several had fallen out in the night and I was left with stick straight hair in some places and super tight curls that didn't relax until Tuesday in other places. Then I bought these and put them on Doller Heart.

The don't fall out. They are not heavy. And they make amazing curls!

This was without any styling product on her hair. So I decided to do Pie Girl's hair for church and this is what my nonskills were able to do.

I love these things!!!! You must get some.

Now for my final favorite thing of the day, a fantastic website that has me going crazy with all of the things I want to make: www.knockoffwood.com. It is completely brilliant and I can spend hours on here and on the Facebook fan page looking at real projects. I love it!

State Fair

2009-10-10T12:02:00.003-06:00

We as a family went to the Idaho State Fair this year. I honestly think this is my favorite thing to do with the family. I don't know if this feeling is left over from my excitement of going when I was a child and now I get to share with my kids or if I am just have a child's simple entertainment need. But I love to go. This year we had everyone dressed in their Utah Jazz shirts that Mr. Edge brought back from his trip to Utah. We had several people congratulate us on raising our kids right. LOL.

We started with the animal barns. I love this part. I love seeing all of the farm animals and their owners who work so hard to make them ready for the fair.

We then work our way through the vendors and get the kids lunch. We let them pick what they want to eat. Buddy loves the foot long corn dogs smothered in mustard. I wish I had a picture of that but he eats so fast that I can never catch him with the camera.

Then after we get through crafts and hobby sheds we find the petting zoo. This year it was HUGE! They had everything from alpacas and donkeys to chickens and turtles. This picture is of the Pie Girl and Duderman petting a turtle.

Doller loved this part of the fair. It was so hard to keep track of her. She would run from one section to the next and squealed over each new animal. She loved the bunnies and came back to them several times.

They had baby pot-bellied pigs that were so cute! The petting zoo was offered by a local animal feed store and all of the animals were for sale. They had an area that was full of cages of about 25 different kinds of puppies. Again, for sale. This section was crowded full of adults holding and cooing over the puppies. I gave this section a wide berth! I don't need any more headaches.

We saved the rides for last. This year we were smart and went on the first day of the fair. They have a promotion that day that you can get these flyers from McDonald's that is worth tickets off each of the young kids' rides. This allowed us to have a lot more fun! Last year we miscalculated and the kids only got to go on one ride.

The boys loved the train ride and Duderman got to ring the bell during the whole ride and let me tell you, HE RANG THE BELL THE WHOLE RIDE.

Doller also loved the rides! She was frantic to get on them and the first time had a fit when we got off. She figured out pretty soon that we would go to a new one so became just all around excited.

I had fun with her too.

It's kind of hard to take a picture of yourself, your daughter and ride an exciting train ride. :)

For additional kicks and giggles, you can go to my husband's version of our trip to the fair by going to his blog at http://edgewriter.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/evil-secrets-of-the-state-fair/

Finished Objects!

2009-09-30T15:15:00.002-06:00

I have a whole mess of finished objects to boast about and show off. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of time to talk about them. So instead of an in depth review of each piece, I will share some photos and update later. Sounds fair?

These are finished and my favorite!

My Olympian

2009-06-28T10:34:00.005-06:00

Saturday was Pie Girl's first swim meet. She started lessons last summer. I was a horrible mom and didn't get her into swimming lessons until she after she was already 8 years old. But luckily she has a lot of her dad in her and she really took to swimming. She didn't have any fear or reservations about the water. If the teacher said to try something, she would immediately do it. When we would go to the lake with the kids, her dad would spend a lot of time telling her of things to try like diving to the bottom of the lake or swimming out to the buoy and swimming down its anchor line to the bottom of the lake. There was a lot of talk of the bottom of the lake.

So when I was looking at what sports the kids would like to do this summer I knew Pie Girl has loved swimming and our local Aquatic Center has a summer swim team. I signed Pie Girl up. She was ecstatic and I was worried. The children have to swim the length of the pool without stopping and I didn't think she would have the endurance yet to do that because she has never had to. So I then signed her up for private swimming lessons. She had a blast! After listening to me lecture her about how she is not there to talk she is there to listen and then do whatever the coach said, she has swum her little heart out. She has been going to 3 swim practices a week that last just over an hour. Add that to the 1-2 sessions with the private coach and she has really been dedicated to this new love.

But she has been worried about the swim meet. She has never even seen one and had no idea what to expect. She kept worrying about having to swim in the deep end and going off the diving board. She wouldn't listen to me or her dad that she wouldn't have to do either.

Saturday dawned bright and early. The swim meet is for the summer swim team is only between the teammates. There is no other team that comes and considering that this team has over 150 kids that was a great plan. It started over an hour late and then her first race came up: 25 meter freestyle. Then it was over and Pie Girl had not raced. Turns out they forgot to call her name. This left her in tears and worry that she wouldn't be able to race. Never fear, the next race came up and she was called: 50 meter freestyle. She did wonderful the first 25 meters. She didn't stop to adjust her goggles. She didn't wander out of her lane. Then she turned at the end of the pool to come back and she swallowed a lot of water. This completely threw her and the last 20 meters was very hard but she didn't stop. She kept going looking half drowned but determined. I was very proud of her.

Her last race was a few minutes off so her and a couple from her division made up a cheer for their purple team. "Give me a P! Give me a U! Give me an R! Give me an P! Give me an L! Give me an E! What does that spell? PURPLE!!!" They did this a couple of times and then one of the coaches suggested changing the word they spelled to winner and say 'What does that spell? PURPLE!!!' She thought this was the greatest joke. "Get it mom?"

The next few races flew past and then her last race was called and she got into the water to get ready. The 50 meter backstroke. This is her race. She has not learned to breath well with the freestyle so she cannot just throw herself into it but that is not the case with the backstroke. She was solid and focused through the entire race. There was no problem turning at the halfway point. She didn't slow down at all. She was able to complete the race flying high. She came in last but I could not be more proud of her. And I do not think I have ever seen her so happy as when she came out of the locker room. Her eyes almost disappeared in the grin on her face.

Garden of Hail

2009-06-27T14:12:00.003-06:00

If you remember my lovely post from a while back, you will know of the desolation hail has already brought to my tender young plants. Well, I still live in Idaho and we had another hail storm yesterday and I immediately ran out to find out what it did to my plants this time. I found everything covered in hail and slightly beaten but it didn't destroy my plants as bad as last time.

My potato plants have just started to come up (we planted them kinda late).

Isn't it cute?!? I love these plants.

Mr. Edge is very proud of his pepper plant. It has a wee little pepper started. We are just hoping the kids will leave it alone long enough for it to grow to full size. Duder Man has already picked the green tomatoes and hid them in a bathroom drawer. (I don't know why.)

Warm Hands and Warm Hearts

2009-06-14T10:44:00.003-06:00

As many of you know I am a medical transcriptionist. I sit at my computer in the cold, dark basement trying to peck out a living typing radiology reports. Well, it is COLD down there. Even in the heart of summer I am freezing and my fingers start to cramp up from the cold and sometimes I have to sit on them for a while to get the feeling back into them before I can proceed. Now, this is not a whining/venting post. This is another show off post of what I knit to remedy the problem. Fingerless gloves.

These are knit using Malabrigo sock yarn. I am obsessed with Malabrigo and their sock yarn is worth being obsessed about. I even have actual socks in the works using this yarn, but that is for another day.

The colorway is called archangel and it actually changes colors in different lights. The pattern is Fingerless Mitts with Cables by Helene Wallin.

They are fast and fun and look great with my lilac bush. :)

A Stitch In Time

2009-06-10T19:13:00.002-06:00

I finally have several projects I need to share with the world. First, I have a pair of socks!!!

I totally loved knitting these socks. They have a fantastic pattern that is a ribbed pattern so these are extra flexible.

The color is to die for and I ran around showing everyone my sock.

Then I washed them and they shrunk. THEY SHRUNK!!!!

I didn't take a picture of the shrunken socks. I didn't have the heart to record that disaster. They were knit with yarn that is supposed to be superwash, which means that it is not supposed to shrink in the wash. I have since realized that no knitters actually believe that it really keeps things from shrinking. I am finally now a real knitter. Oh, the lessons we learn.

Well all is not lost. The socks actually fit Pie Girl okay and she is very proud of them. *sigh*

As a final memorial to my lost socks I give you this picture of the gorgeous heel.

Garden Massacre

2009-06-09T12:37:00.002-06:00

I have finally put my garden in after 3 years of dreaming about doing it. I had finally found a technique that I thought would work best with my lazy self. I love gardens but can never remember to weed daily or weekly. And if the sprinklers didn't reach the plants then you better forget about watering. But like I said, I finally found the technique that seemed to be suited to me. The Square Foot Gardening you start from scratch and buy your soil, boxes and seeds. It only cost me $600 (yikes!) and we had it planted the first week of June. Next thing that happened was the Idaho weather.

We have had a week and a half of storms and wind and brutal hail. Mr. Edge laughed at my concern for my plants. He thought is funny that I thought hail could actually harm my plants. Well, the laugh is on him because I was right! Look at this destruction!

This is my sad little tomato plant. My cucumbers were totally decimated! All that is left of them are shreds. But...despite the trauma that happened to my transplanted planted my seeds have done wonderful!!

These are my radishes! Aren't they cute?!? I am so thrilled that I have something that is actually growing.

Tomorrow, I will post some of my latest finished knits as well as some that I am currently working on. The first picture is of my littlest one playing with her toes in the grass and I couldn't resist a picture. This is her as well as I asked her where her toes are.

Yes...she needs her hair cut. :)

Musical Mantra

2009-03-31T10:40:00.004-06:00

Mr. Edge brought these videos to my attention and I laughed my way through them both. The first is the Pachelbel Rant. This is a song I have loved for a long time. I probably have 5 different versions of it on my iPod. I love it and yet I did not see the connection this comedian did.

The second video is a fantastic view into many songs using the chord progression of C, G, Am, and F. It is fantastic. One note of caution, near the end of this one there is a strong swear word that was from one of the songs highlighted. It is at 4:30 mark so if you want to avoid it just stop before this time.

ENJOY!

Valentine's day in March

2009-03-26T11:34:00.009-06:00

Grandma and Grandpa in Tennessee sent the kids a card for Valentine's day that included $2.00 for each of them. We decided to take them to our local ice cream shop the other night and we had a great time.

First Pie Girl got chocolate in a waffle cone (her "usual").

Buddy loves strawberry more than anything and we have found that he eats all of his food as fast as Uncle Juice (and that is fast!).

Duder Man loves all things with color and he liked his sherbet but he started getting sick during our visit and ate only a little before he and I sat in the car while waiting for everyone else to finish.

Dollerheart shared with daddy so it was only right that I include a picture of her with her dish.

We had a great time. Thank Grandma and Grandpa!!

My cats are trying to kill my dog

2009-03-25T16:28:00.011-06:00

I have always known that cats are more intelligent than dogs and operate from a much crueler place in their brain than most humans. They are vicious in their hunting and can torture a mouse for hours before eating it. But lately my two cats are showing a new side their evil ways.

We have two cats. One is named Lola because she is persistent as anything. If she wants to be in your lap she will continue to stalk your lap until all of a sudden (after tossing her our of it 15 times) she is curled up purring in your lap and you have no memory of how that happened.

Lola is our bulimic cat. We have their food in the garage and they have access through a cat door and so they feed themselves. She will go in, gorge herself, and then within 15 minutes throw up on my carpet or couch. When we went to Tennessee for three weeks in December we came home to her throw up in every room of the house.

Our second cat is named Yuki after a character in a Japanese cartoon movie. She has the same markings as this other cat and it means Lucky. She is lucky we still have her. When we first adopted her we kept her inside to make sure she would run away or get in a fight with the neighbor dog (that is another story). She didn't like not being allowed to leave and found her own way to leave...through the chimney. I am not kidding. She scratched her way at least halfway up the chimney before loosing her footing. I was changing my youngest one day when I heard a scratching sound and turned in time to see her fall to the bottom of the chimney in a puff of black soot. She did this twice and after the third(somewhat rough) bath she finally stopped. This is after the last bath.

This shows the interesting personalities these two cats came with but their newest behavior is the reason for title of this post. I love barbecue chicken and Mr. Edge is the cook around here and likes to make it for me. We are extremely careful to get all bones put away in the garbage away from Sam in the garage. Well it turns out the cats have found a way to open a small hole in the garbage bag and get the bones out. After they chew off what they want they are consistently leaving the bones just inside the garage just below the cat door. Sam cannot get into the garage through this door but he does put his head in and grabs those bones as fast as he can and runs off to try and eat them. This has happened several times and the cats hate the dog so I do think this is intentional. These are some mean cats! They only look innocent.

Mmmmmmalabrigo

2009-03-24T20:50:00.010-06:00

In my first post I discussed my love...no...addiction of Malabrigo yarn. This has been a love affair that has been going on for over two years. I have many projects that I will share with you but today's fascination is going to focus on my legwarmers.

I know what you are saying..."uh,you do know it is not the 80's and you are not that girl from Flashdance, right?" Yes, to both of these questions, even though I have never seen Flashdance because I was too young when it came out and I have never felt the need to see it since then. Besides, there is enough of it referenced in every day pop culture that I feel like I have seen it anyway.

Anyway, back to the luscious Mala-legwarmers. Knitty has a great archive of knitting patterns and when this came out I knew that I needed to make it in Malabrigo and set about getting the right colorway. It is called Stonechat and is one of my favorites. The yarn is so soft and scrunchable (yes, that is a word in my world) it actually took me a while to finish the pattern because I kept pausing and petting it.

Pattern: Mosey
Yarn: Malabrigo in Stonechat colorway

Nothing but a Hound Dog

2009-03-20T11:52:00.006-06:00

It is time to introdue to the world our newest family member. Sam.

He is a Basset Hound that we adopted from our local animal shelter. He was slated to be put down because he had been in the shelter for too long and they have a high turn over rate. I have started volunteering an hour or so there to help them take photos of their animals to be put on www.petfinder.com. (They have a much better camera than I do.)

He has been a joy! Even my DH, Mr. Edge likes him and Mr. Edge has never liked any dog really. The only draw back is that Sam was not housetrained. We have had him for about a month now and he is now housetrained. Loves the kids. Never bites at him even when they lay on him or play with his ears. He really has been pefect. I love the dog. :) He does have a hound dog smell and I find myself constantly vacuuming because of all the hair he is shedding this spring but I really don't mind. I think my favorite thing about Sam is that he has been able to convince Mr. Edge that dogs are great companions and can be a joy.

Comfy Pinwheel

2009-03-19T17:07:00.008-06:00

My newest FO (finished object) of 2009 is this Pinwheel Sweater that I just LOVE!!!! I knit it with Knit Picks Comfy yarn that is a cotton yarn that is incredibly soft and fantastic colors.

It is a super easy and fast knit. It is supposed to fit a baby up to a 4 yo. Dollerheart is 18 months old and this will probably just last the summer. My gauge was a little tight making it smaller but I still love it!!! I even have enough yarn left over to make her another one next year that will fit her then. I love this pattern that much. Dollerheart loves it too.

Project details

Pattern: Pinwheel sweater

Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy

Ivory - Less than 1/4 of the ball
Cypress - Less than 1/4 of the ball
Planetarium - Less than 1/2 of the ball
Pomegranite - About 1 and a half balls
Fedora - About 3/4 of a ball
Blackberry - Just over 1 ball

To Frog or not To Frog

2009-03-16T13:47:00.014-06:00

I am trying to decide what to do with this sweater I knit this for Buddy. He is 7 years old and loves green. This is the Drive Thru sweater and I love it! Unfortunately, it looks like a really bad remake of an ugly sweater from the 70's on him. I knit the 8y0 size and lengthened the sleeves and body by 2 inches to fit his measurements. But when he wears it he looks like it was knit onto him and will never come off. Should I frog?

The colors look really good on Buddy. He likes it well enough but I see something different. It is tight in the chest. It is hard to get in and out of it. I am really considering frogging it (rip-it out).

PROJECT DETAILS Pattern: Drive Thru by Wendy Bernard

Needle size: US 8 and US 6

Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Worsted

Jade 5 balls
Squirrel heather Less than 1 ball
Black Less than 1 ball
Truffle Less than 1 ball

Take Two

2009-03-16T12:27:00.005-06:00

Okay if you happen to look at the date of the previous post and this one you just might notice the small time gap. It seems I got sidetracked from my first idea of my own blog about knitting and life in Idaho. Hopefully, this is a problem of the past.

I am in the process of getting all of my projects off of Ravelry and back into my own control. You never know when you become one of the "uncool" kids and get banned. In the next few posts I hope to get my projects on here with their pictures and all of the information that I have of them.

In the spirit of catching up, I have included a picture of my Dollerheart at only a couple weeks old in the blanket I knit for her. Sadly, this blanket was knit when I didn't know how to change skeins and now I have some bad holes in this blanket. I haven't even tried to wash it because I am afraid that it would fall apart. *sigh*

In the beginning...

2008-07-08T20:38:00.001-06:00

Here is the inaugural post for my knitting, procrastinating and catchall blog. While I have a lot of favorite blogs, my favorites are the ones with constant posts about knitting and crafting and life.

I am a work at home mom in Idaho with 4 children. I was very fair in choosing the genders of my children. I have two girls and two boys. They will make appearances throughout the blog. But I need to show off my littlest one, DollerHearts

My first declaration should be that I am in love with Malabrigo yarn!! This picture of my Malabrigo is of the Stonechat colorway and the Velvet Grapes. In future posts I will share what I make with them.