Starting again on a sweater...this time, it's gonna be a vest

Deep V neck pullover in that lovely purple tweed. Couldn't find a cardi pattern I thought would suit both the yarn and the Rack of Doom.

I'll update here with progress, assuming I make any.

Observations

• You'd think that cooking lentil stew and pot roast at the same time would make the house smell weird, but it didn't...the house smelled wonderful. Bacon, and onions, and garlic, and tomatoes, and a hint of beefiness. It was magnificent. We now have a ton of food in the house.
• You'd also think that an eight-year-old child couldn't hold his own against his parents in a rousing game of Scrabble...but you'd be wrong there too. The grown-ups were not allowed to use words with less than 4 letters. MM won by one point.
• Bananagrams! We love it. MM is great at it. He has real stick-to-itiveness and a terrific vocabulary.
• The snow is beginning to melt. It's nice to see grass again!

Sweater and hat for new nephew

He shares his birthday with Muffin Man. Born the same day, eight years apart. He is sooooo small! I'd forgotten how tiny three-week-old babies are!

And here, here is the sweater and hat I knitted for him as soon as we heard that he might be coming home with my sister-in-law and her husband.



The sweater is knitted in Lamb's Pride Super Wash Galaxy. Hat is knitted in red cotton/elastic (can't find the label...oops!). Buttons are from A.C. Moore.

The whole time I was knitting on them, I was thinking, "I hope you come home with them, little boy. I hope you come home." I'm so glad he did.

Mazel tov on the arrival of the shayneh yingeleh.

Sweater stalled

That Beautiful purple tweed is too slender to ever get gauge on that pattern.

The yarn I have that will achieve gauge is stiff, itchy, and in a color I'm not enamored of. Which leads me to the question: why do I have this crappy yarn in my stash?

I think I may have inherited it from someone.

Why didn't I give it away when we moved?

I didn't know it was quite that itchy.

Boy howdy.

So I have a beautiful purple tweed yarn and no pattern for it, and a beautiful pattern and no suitable yarn.

Methinks I need to make a trip to the yarn store.

Maybe I'll cast on for a vest for myself out of a black tweed silk/wool blend I found in the stash (not enough for that sweater, darn it!) if I can find a vest pattern I like.

"Half Magic" by Edward Eager, a list in prose of great children's* literature available in the '50's

*Where "children's literature" means any book that will appeal to children.

And we own most of the books he's listed. "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew", "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", "The Once and Future King", the Narnia books, the E. Nesbit books...

MM is thrilled.

"Do we have that one, Mommy? What about that one? WOW! THOSE books are on MY shelf! When did you get that one for me?"

"Well, to be honest, I bought those for me, and that one was mine when I was a kid. And so was that one. And this one. And all the Narnia ones, MakesBooksForGrandkids brought back from England for me when he used to go on business trips when I was small. And Boy! I used to get in trouble at school because I would spell words the way they appear in those books, and here in the States, we spell things differently from the way they do there."

"Cool! So can we read this one next?"

"Of course!"

Voldemort? That dude is going DOWN!

Demonstrating both a sartorial sense of style and an increasingly evident desire record his silliness for posterity.

The search for the perfect chocolate cake recipe

So far, we've tried:

Joy of Cooking Rombauer Special(meh)
Sky High Cakes Triple Fudge (Whoa! Chocolatey! Even though I probably overbaked it - this is definitely the front-runner)
How To Cook Everything (Are you sure you put chocolate in that?)

Up next, Sky High Cakes Devil's Food.

Any of you have a favorite chocolate cake recipe you want to share?

Also, do you have a vanilla frosting recipe you like?

On reading "The Long Winter" during what may end up being the snowiest winter this area has ever seen

It makes me grateful for heat, and light, and grocery stores, and baking bread with yeast and white flour.

Grateful for having a full freezer, knowing that even if we run out of milk or bread or other staples during the storm, that once the storm has ended and we've dug out of our garage, we can find a store somewhere nearby that will have more milk or bread or other staples.

MM was disappointed about the postponement (again!) of his party, but cheered up over the baking of bread (Little House on the Prairie Cookbook), and cake (Joy of Cooking - I overbeat it and it came out dry and crumbly), and cookies (with M&M's, too sweet for Mr. Spock and me, but MM loves 'em). Also, Mr. Spock gave MM his first cooking lesson. He cooked, all by himself (though with supervision), perfect fluffy rice. And we spent some time outside, being shocked by the amount of snow.


So, in short, I'm feeling pretty privileged, and lucky, and grateful. We have just two more chapters to go in HP 7. I hope I can get MM to agree to let me start reading "Farmer Boy" to him.

Loudoun County Public Schools CLOSED until Tuesday, 2/16.

As per Hatrick's announcement on the LCPS homepage.

I think they should use President's Day as a make-up day, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen.

MM kicks my tushy on New! Mario Bros! for the Wii!

I keep dying and he just trots along and comes out relatively unscathed.

In unrelated news, guess what he got for his birthday?

Scarf update

All ends woven in. Trying to decide whether to add fringe first and then block or block, then fringe. What do you think?

Eight

My little man planned his last 7-year-old word and stuck with the plan. "Good-night. Love."

I can't believe he's 8. Holy guacamole!

Gryffindor scarf update

Knitting done. Weaving in ends 3/4's done. Need to block and add fringe.

Next up, possibly a hat to match. Definitely a cardi for me after that.