FO Friday: Follow Your Arrow

A month ago I shared my Follow Your Arrow shawl as soon as I cast it off and proceeded to whine about blocking it. It is odd to think it, but this mystery lace knit along is just the project that I needed to get back into knitting. While I love lace, it isn't my favorite, and usually registers in my mind as a lot of work. Ysolda Teague is an incredible designer, but we seem to have different tastes so I've never immediately fallen in love with her patterns.

So why after nearly two years of ignoring my knitting was this the project that brought me back to my hobby? Part of it was the structure and schedule of the clues and the excitement of all the bloggers and other knitters I follow. Most of if however was due to one amazing friend.

Katy has been the best enabler a woman can ask for. She has brought me amazing yarns from across the country, sent me gorgeous pattern suggestions, and kept my family wrapped up in wool while I was neglecting my craft. The stars aligned so that I had a new job, a new routine, and time that could clearly be dedicated to knitting. Katy, in her usually loving and excited persistence suggested that I join in for the KAL and convinced me to get hooked. I picked my needles back up for this project and haven't put them down again. I owe a lot of rediscovered joy to her and appropriately this shawl is now hers. I love you Katy! Thanks for enabling.

WIP Wednesday: Another Charity Blanket

Since I was having yarn issues with the other charity blanket, I decided to cast on a second and stay productive. This is the queued pattern that I mentioned before and is knitting up delightfully quick. 

Just a quick post to share today. We have company in town so I'm off to enjoy my time with them. 

TableTop Day - Ideas Needed

TableTop day 2014 is almost here!



Saturday, April 5th is just around the corner and I still don't have a great TableTop day plan. We are certainly going to have company and play games that night, but during the day I'd love to do something extra special and include the girls. They aren't avid board game players yet. At nearly two years old, they haven't quite grasped the concept of taking turns or not tasting meeples. So I'm looking for your ideas!

To get the brainstorming started, here are some ideas that I've had:

Roll & Play -

This one is a simple and quick idea. The girls already own their first dice game. We will practice taking turns learn more about colors, and Daddy will probably have to balk like a chicken.

The girls are really starting to get good with this game, but it still is only about a 20 minute activity and since we play most weekends it doesn't feel particularly special. I want to do something a little extra to make the day stand out.




A New Game -
There are lots of toddler games and it might be something special to just get a new one and play that for a while. I really wish we could get it from our local game store though. A trip to the local game store seems like an outing worthy of TableTop day, but they don't really specialize in games our speed. A trip to KMart or Target doesn't hold the same magic for me. There is one game that I think our local store might have that could do the trick...

Giant Cthulhu Dice -

If you've played Cthulhu Dice, you already know what a simple and fun game it is. If you haven't, you are holding on to far too much of your sanity and should give losing your marbles a try. We could take a trip to the store to pick up a huge die and maybe go to the park and find some parents and other kids for a pick up game. If we wanted to play really risky we could use goldfish to track our sanity and just assume that any toddler instigated rolls or sanity theft is due to their possession by the elder gods.




Off the TableTop-
Speaking of the park, I've been trying to think of a game that we could easily transfer from table top to the park for big, physical playing. The best I've come up with so far, is doing something similar to Candy Land and using our Roll & Play to dictate moves. We could use sidewalk chalk to make squares or even just tape down some construction paper for a quick set up. Roll the dice, move and the first one to the end wins! It still seems better for just a bit older than our girls, but if we could get some other park goers invovled they could be good role models.

What are your ideas? Have you played games with 2 year olds, or gotten them exited about TableTop day? Please share your successes (and fun failures!)

WIP Wednesday: Cody's Blanket

I love my brother, and that love is what keeps this blanket chugging along. I started this project in August 2010. Granted I took a sabbatical from almost all knitting but this is still moving slowly. I dedicated all of my Olympics viewing time to this and probably 90% of my tv time since including the Grammys. Here is my before the Olympics progress 

And here is after the Grammys

Just one new white section is all I have to show for all of that knitting. The good news is these white sections are the final round of the blanket. I'm thinking I will round it out with an Icord boarder. 

Right now I'm trying to decide on the boarder color. I have enough yarn for any of the three. I'm thinking brown and blue on their matching sides. Or maybe a striped boarder that is white/accent color. The stripes might be too busy. I clearly have hours and hours left to decide.