Anna's sweater & out takes

Anna's sweater knit much faster than Joachim's, there were no restarts, the pattern linked to my ravelry page.


So, withboth of their sweaters finished I set out to take that perfect Christmas picture. I got them all dressed up and we started outside, where I got a lot of "running" pictures of Anna, mostly her running away from Joachim. Anna over all was the problem, although there was some photographer error which resulted in the *perfect picture* being out of focus. When Ben got home I told him I'd taken almost almost 200 pictures and none of them were usable. He doubted that could be true so we sat down together and looked through them together. At the end he agreed, none of them were pictures we'd want hanging on our family's refrigerators. I should have just used pictures from the year without trying to create new ones, but I had to have them in their new sweaters, right?

Ben tried again the next day producing 150 more blurry, whining or blinking pictures. In the end the decision was pretty easy because there were only a few in the running.



I like this one, Joachim is so exasperated, but he held on to the promise of fruitloops if he cooperated- he was a champ.

Some Christmas

First a little Thanksgiving day walk with Granddaddy.



Our annual family trip up the Uncompaghre for the tree, lots of snow this year, we walked straight out from the car to the perfect tree, but I could commit to it until I'd walked around 20 more minutes looking at other trees, sorry family.




The gingerbread house, complete with melted jolly rancher windows, we finished it days before Christmas, but that's ok because my mom is extending it's life by storing it to put out as her Christmas decoration next year, thank you mom.

The Sweater

The story of this sweater begins with this post that inspired me to try my first raglan, top-down, seamless sweater. I consulted E Zimmerman and then found a pattern on ravelry. That sweater is not this one, in fact that sweater is no more, (it was for Anna and I wasn't careful about my gauge... again, but more about that one another time, it's already been unraveled and is almost reknit).

About half way through that ill fated sweater, Kyire, at Are So Happy, posted pictures of the sweater finished and I was in love and determined to figure out a similar pattern myself someday (with a little more practice). So a few weeks later when she put out an invitation for test knitters I enthusiastically but nervously replied. Much, much to my delight it was indeed the pattern she'd just created.

I'm not sure how helpful of a test knitter I was because I finished my sweater on the day that the pattern was released, but I'm so happy to have been a part of project and I love the sweater that came out of it. In defense of my tardiness, I had a very specific color in mind for the sweater and I had a hard time finding it. I actually knit the entire yoke in a different color and then frogged it when I decided on this green. Truth be told I restarted so many times on different parts of this sweater that I joked to Ben that I knit it twice.

The restarts had nothing to do with the pattern, but everything to do with my perfectionism. I think it hurts Ben to see me unravel, I try to do it in secret because he doesn't understand my relationship to knitting, but it brings me great satisfaction to be able to try something, then try it a different way then get it just the way I want it (or close).

Below is the original sweater, it's lovely, but I wanted it to be a little more masculine and Joachim put in a specific request for a zipper.

So I did ribbing on the bottom and collar (and folded the collar over) and I ribbed the sleeves but didn't like it so I just did a finished cuff. The zipper was a real challenge, I cast on a couple different sample bands before I found a look I liked and then sewing on the zipper was a nightmare. Finally, I realized it was puckering not because of my sewing it on, but because I'd salvaged it from another sweater and the zipper itself was wavy. It mostly worked after I ironed the zipper.

I also deviated from the pattern by reducing the number of stitches under each arm by 2. I was thinking Joachim is a skinny guy and I had overestimated the girth for Anna's sweater so I wanted to take it in a bit. Now I wish I had followed the pattern exactly, but I also better understand how the math works out. Hopefully it will fit the rest of the winter, but it's ok if he grows too fast because I'm already planning his next sweater and I have visions of Anna in this one with a nice wool plaid skirt (I already have the fabric, thank you Corey).

I plan to use this basic pattern again and make the next size in a steel blue. I love this green color because it highlights Joachim's hazel eyes so beautifully, but I'm thinking a nice light blue yarn will bring out the sage in his eyes. I love the eyes Ben gave our boy.
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Joachim was always a willing model for fittings. My biggest concern was that I would make the sweater and he would refuse to wear it. He's very picky about comfort and very few things feel ok to him. On the contrary he loved being a part of all of the decision making and he loves his new sweater.




The pattern is Antler and Moss Cardigan featured in this post and when you purchase it from ravelry you receive the ebook wanderings which was inspired by two friends, knitting, tea and many handwritten letters, I definietely recommend it and I look forward to their future installations.

SunCrest Orchard and alpacas

On the recommendation of a friend, I set up a tour at SunCrest Orchard and Alpacas for us and our home school friends back in September. It was a great experience from alpaca to yarn. They process the fleeces right there (and hundreds that are shipped to them from all over the world. In addition to Alpaca (very decidedly different than llamas mind you) they had angora rabbits and below an angora goat (mohair for you knitters).

I was very impressed that this was a completely hands on family run farm, they let the kids pet everything and touch the fiber along every step of the processing. Below are the bags of fleece in waiting, the whole process was so interesting with some great machines.

After washing, they are spread out on racks to dry, if they are to be dyed, they do it during the washing.

After it's dried, they literally blow it into a small room, like a large closet to form what is called a cloud... Joachim is holding *a cloud*

They it's combed out and sorted into long and short fibers, then turned into roving "tubes" (my word) and then spun into yarn.

Each of the below spools is one fleece, I believe he said the large one was about 5 miles long!

I'm looking forward to going back so I can purchase some skeins for some winter knitting, it was so cool I don't know who enjoyed it more, us moms or the kids. Each child was given a little bag of cloud fleece to take home and we got lots of Waldorfian play out of ours, tossing it like a ball, spinning it with his fingers, wrapping it around his little plastic animals and so on.

trick or treat

This year Joachim was very excited to wear a hand-me-down Spiderman costume so for the sake of continuity I made Anna Wonder Woman. When I first told Ben he said, "you know she wears basically a bra and underwear." I didn't know, so I looked her up and I was frustrated by the sexualized superhero. Still, to not disappoint my comic loving friends Chase and Pidge I made the toddler version.

One glaring discrepancy between Anna and Wonder Woman is the lack of black hair (well, that and cleavage).




Joachim's good trick or treating buddy.

We went out with friends to both our Main Street event and a neighboring city's. Lots of kids activities and lots of familiar faces, lots of fun (and then we redistributed most of the candy Halloween night).

As a religious person I am a bit self-conscious of my enthusiasm for such a holiday, but I enjoy making the costumes and Joachim still wears the ones I made years ago (or at least the surviving pieces). We also, for the first time got to go through our own neighborhood. When I was growing up we went to block after block and only a few houses didn't participate, apparently in our neighborhood here, only one or two houses per block participate. Still, I got to meet a bunch of the faces that live behind doors I've walked by for years. One house had a bonfire, hot cider and big chocolate bars, yum.

There's a well-loved story in my family about my brother one Halloween when he was a little older than Joachim. His candy bag was heavy and dragging on the ground and my dad said, "Well, do you think you've got enough candy, can we head home now?" Jonathan vehemently set his bag down and faced my dad to tell him, "Dad, it's NOT about the candy, it's about seeing all the neighbors." And he was sincere, a beautiful trait about him to this day.

This pumpkin was a Martha Stewart project from the late 90's. Technically I was supposed to poke the Christmas lights through each hole, but that proved too time consuming so I just dropped the whole bunch in. I think I'll try again next year, but with a bigger drill bit and maybe a pattern of some sort.

Spidey party

On the theme of Spiderman, I wanted to add this post from the summer. Joachim and I made a pinata for his cousin's birthday, it was a prototype for one we hope to make for Joachim's party. Apparently I've lost my pinata making touch since my own childhood because this one broke too easily, but I have a better idea now for Joa's.

Covered Bridge Farm

We went to a new (to us) little pumpkin farm this year. Seeing as our usual pumpkin farm didn't mow a corn maze there wasn't much point in going in my mind. I was completely thrilled with the *experience* which included a looong hay ride, a hay bale pyramid for climbing, hot cider, roasting marshmallows and of course choosing your pumpkin. Apparently this farm is known as a Christmas tree farm and you get the whole experience with your tree (substitute hot cocao and Christmas music) I'm thinking we may need another tree in addition to our usual family tradition.

Anyway, Joachim said the hayride was way better than a corn maze so I think we may have a new fall tradition.

Below was my hope for that nice fall '11 picture, but as you can see Anna is noticing something to her right,finally gesturing and grunting to it. I took a half dozen such pictures before I came out from behind the lens to see what was bothering her.

It was this long horn skull, after that, there was no coercing her into sitting on the nice pumpkin display with brother. Anyway, the sun was in their eyes so it wasn't the best photo choice to begin with.

Anna initiated this hug.

With some force.