save the date!!

The Village Free School presents a Benefit Production of A Midsummer Nights Dream, a beautiful and hilarious play written by the one and only William Shakespeare. All proceeds go to the school which is a non-profit democratic school here in Portland. My daughter is a student here and it is the most amazing place!!

 There will be 3 days of performances, June 9th, 10th & 11th.

Tickets are available online, click here to purchase.

In addition to the play there will be raffles and a big closing night celebration, after the final performance, with live music & dancing!

If you're in the Portland area you should definitely come, it's going to be amazing!!!

**you can click here to learn more about what an amazing place

the village free school is**

so my camera was in the shop f o r e v e r ! ! !

but it's back now and all is well with my world and i have some photos to share!!!
more birthday gnome hats. the first is for my littlest squirrel. she'll be 4 tomorrow & it suits her perfectly. the second is the finished hat i mentioned in the previous post. it was given to my uncle. he actually shares a birthday with the recipient of the tiny baby gnome hat mentioned 2 posts back.
these are so fun to make and even more fun to see people wear. i've got more birthdays coming up, which is good because i wanna make more!!

it's not really about the birds and the bees...

... it's about lots and lots of fried stuff with cheese!!!

this morning the squirrels were asking if we could have a baby. they really want a new baby around and practically everyone else we know is having or just had one... so we had this conversation:

6 year old: hey momma, are we gonna have any more babies?
me: probably not, momma can't have babies anymore...
6 year old: but we reeeeaallly want to have a baby...
me: I know, it would be a lot of fun but I can't do it.
3 year old: well, you know momma -- if you eat a lot a lot a lot of food, then your belly will get very very big and THEN you CAN have a new baby!!!
(if only you could've seen the excitement on her face after sharing her marvelous idea with us... it was a priceless moment)

so there you have it, the truth behind how babies are made!

also, i've been crocheting more, this is a work in progress and another gift... i'll post more photos once it's done!!

i found this adorable tiny creature in my front yard this morning, hooray for spring time!!

caught a crochet bug...

our house is officially over the sickness, f i n a l l y! i never did narrow down the allergic reaction beyond the assumption that it was sulphites in the wine I had with dinner... people keep telling me "oh yeah, there's all kinds of different sulfites in different wines and lots of people have reactions to them..." never woulda known. but i'm glad it's over and my face looks like one from this planet again, yay for me!

so, the other day a friend at the squirrel's school got me all excited about crocheting, something i never really got too excited about doing before... and i present you my first ever finished crochet project, it's a baby gnome hat with earflaps!! this is a gift for someone with a wee one on the way... I hope she likes it. thank you rachel s. for inspiring me to crochet, it was lots of fun. and thank you buddha bookend for modeling, you were quite lovely to work with.

get down with the sickness...

... ooooh wah ah ah ah! (ok, I may be the only one who got that)

anyway, evil germs haven taken over our house and we cannot seem to get better... the laundry, the dishes, the social life, even the knitting is suffering from it. You'd think if you were cursed with illness or ill children or an ill husband at least you could still knit, but it really doesn't work like that.

a week and a half ago, I went to sleep feeling like my throat was swollen shut and woke up looking like this. not pretty. evidently I had experienced an allergic reaction to something I ate... not sure what. I went to the doctor and got a handle on the allergic reaction, but coincidently or consequently I woke up the next day with major flu-like symptoms that lasted f o r e v e r. my body hurt so much that I seriously couldn't knit! luckily my mother-in-law was in town and she helped me a TON, not with the knitting but with the everything else! So I'm better now, but we have a sick squirrel and that is no fun either.

At one point during all the sickness, we traveled back to Salt Lake City to visit some family and while we were gone some of the coolest dudes we know (and they're family) stayed at our house... we found this when we got back. Pretty sweet huh?!!

who's got em???

Kinda can't stop thinking about the new addi clicks... so if you've got em, let us know what you think, and maybe how they compare to other interchangeable needles sets... they seem kind of perfect!

it just so happens that a number of my needles from a different interchangeable set are falling apart right now, i may actually need them!

golden globes recap...

- tina fey... you rock!

- people who don't like tina fey... you can suck it!

- mary louise parker... even though you didn't win, you still have the coolest sounding job of all the nominees.

- heath ledger... i cried, it's just not fair that you're gone

- happy go lucky... you are the film i want to see the most!

- drew barrymore... you are ridiculously adorable!

- ricky gervais... you rule and you crack my nuts!

- kate winslet is AWESOME!!!!!

ringing in the new year...

... with a new pattern!

Dexter

sizes:

xs (s, m, l, xl, 2xl, 3xl)

28-31” (32-35”, 36-39”, 40-43”, 44-47”, 48-51”, 52-55”) bust.

materials:

•MC: 800 (800, 900, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200) yds. worsted weight yarn.

•CC1: 200 (200, 300, 300, 400, 400, 500) yds. worsted weight yarn.

•CC2: 100 (100, 200, 200, 200, 300, 400) yds. worsted weight yarn.

Yarn photographed is Karabella, Aurora 8 colors 250, 22, 40.

•1 US 7 (4.5 mm) 32” (or longer) circular needle (For knitting sleeves,

you may need a second circular or dpn’s depending on your preference)

•10 - 20 stitch markers, depending on size (see “finishing body”)

• 6-10 buttons (depending on your size the number will vary)

• Needle and thread to match your yarn

•Tapestry needle (for weaving in ends)

gauge:

20 sts & 26 rows in St st = 4” on size US 7 (4.5 mm) needles.

2008 wrap-up!

we had an interesting last few weeks of 2008, here in portland. we had some birthdays, a flood, more snow than oregon has seen in 30+ years and as a result - two weeks of being snowed in (but we were all together and we watched lots of really good movies and some duds too), lots of brewing beer & more holiday gift knitting than we've done in the last three years combined.

we're excited about 2009, we've got plans and ideas and new patterns... stay tuned, more details to come! happy new year!!!

PLEASE READ!!!

hello readers, we hope you're out there...

there is a family in our community that needs our support. 2 children, connor and tavvi, that go to school with my daughter are going through a very scary situation involving being taken from their loving home and separated from their siblings. Please click here to read their story, you can also click here for more information about connor, tavvi and their family! If you have any thoughts, ideas, resources, etc. please share!!!

this family needs all of the love and support we could give to them. connor and tavvi are amazing people, who deserve to stay with their family. we would miss them terribly if they were forced to leave.