Little Lion - "Molly"

Here's Molly.  According to my records on Ravelry, I finished this project on June 27, 2009.  Did I mention that I'm backlogged?  I actually scanned through my projects and found that there were a few that were never blogged for some reason or another.  Take Molly for example.  I didn't want to blog about her until I had my whole animal rock band assembled.  Then I would have a really cool blog post.  

This was obviously an unrealistic expectation of myself.  But I did cast on the elephant drum player last night, a whole year later.  I'm rewarding myself with a new project for finishing two WIPs this week.  That means that I have only two project actually on needles left and then I will be WIP free!  At least I think that is all I have???  This doesn't count a blanket that was frogged and will be started again at some unknown date. 

Molly is a modification of the Little Giraffe pattern.  I love Stevie so much I thought that it would be easy to make other animals from the same pattern.  Basically I knit this without long legs or a long neck.  I deleted the horns and added a big bushy mane.  Instant Little Lion (rav).  She also got a long rope tail instead of the braided tail called for by the pattern.  Because Molly is a rebel like that. 

 Again I used Malabrigo leftovers from the Tulips Cardigan.   I love the fuzzy twisties that make up the mane.  The yarn does this naturally after a little playing with.  Kids playing, not me trying make it look right playing.  The pink isn't as pale as it looks in the pictures and she's gotten fuzzy all over from a year of diaper bags, toy boxes and drool.  You can check out before and after pictures on Ravelry (link).  I'm surprised she hasn't demanded a week at the spa yet.

As far as the Animal Rock Band goes...  Molly is the lead singer and plays a little guitar.

P.S.  The new Petite Purls is up.

Summer Vacation

I haven't been gone.  It's just been crazy busy around here. I've been taking trips to the airport, the DMV, the doctor, and the zoo on a field trip.  I have also gotten the Spring Cleaning Bug and have cleaned/reorganized the garage, BG's room and other things.  I've been entertaining guests and running around with the mommy groups.  I don't even want to talk about the multiple birthday parties and rush on end of the school year playdates.

Looking through my list of blogs that I read, I realized that of all the other bloggers that have children close to LG's age, I post the most.  And it takes work.  So, I'm not going to feel bad that I can't get on here more often.  I'm spending tons of time with my family doing things that we really enjoy.  And I actually have a pretty clean house, though it's never spotless.

I'll try to get to the backlog of finished knitting projects and other things when I can.  Right now BG is at the neighbor's and LG is napping on my lap and that's the only way I have time to type this up.  I hope that I can get a few posts written for you today and schedule them out over the week.

Summer Vacation can be tough.

Summer vacation has started and keeping two children entertained a job all in it's own.  Oh, and LG is walking!, so the only break I get is naptime.  I love naptime.

A New Kind of Stash

There is a knitting post coming, DH just has the camera in another state right now.  Meanwhile back at the ranch...

I think that I have figured out a solution to the low selection of books at our local library.  I'm going to get a card for the library of the town just south of us.  I checked out their website and it's just as confusing as our local library's website.  But they do have big pictures next to the titles telling you if it's a movie, book, CD and that is nice.  If there is a book I really want to read that my library doesn't have I'll be reserving it online and then driving the 8 miles to the other library.  Driving the 8 miles along the beach... past 2 yarn shops... I think I'll deal.

A few books that we have just finished.

For the girls, I'm doing something a little different.  We have a ton of toddler books and check out four board books every week for LG.  It doesn't really matter how many times we check out the same book, because we love all of them.  BG gets a good variety of EZ readers and chapter books.  Most of them I have never heard of.  Though, I think that we are going to run out of EZ readers at her level by the time summer is up and she's going to start repeating books.  That or suck it up and just read chapter books.

I've started buying juvenile read book series.  I've always enjoyed reading the juvenile series as an adult.  I think it's because I never really read books when I was a kid.  I remember my dad and older siblings reading all the time, but I wasn't interested in the books that they were reading.  And I was a cool kid, I wouldn't be caught dead in the school library.  I also always seemed to get the English teachers that were tired of grading book reports.  I've read Of Mice and Men, a bunch of the Shakespeare plays, and other required school reads.  I am still kinda bummed that I didn't get the teacher that read the Mythology book.  I've always told myself I need to buy that one for fun.  But I never participated in the summer reading programs and my schools didn't give us a summer book list like they do now.

I figure that when I buy the books, they are going to get at least three reads.  One from me, one from BG and one from LG, when she gets a little older of course.  I'm not going to buy every book we want to read, but some of the more classic or super popular series like Harry Potter, Warriors, and Lord of the Rings.  

 A New Kind of Stash

Here are some of the new books I've picked up.  I got the first 6 Warriors on Amazon and then couldn't help myself when I saw Percy Jackson for just $11 at Costco.  I also picked up one of my favorites for LG, the Bernstein Bears.  My favorite one is Forget Their Manners,  I loved reading these when I was in Kindergarten.  With summer coming, there is more reading around the house and less knitting.  It's hard to work with yarn while sunbathing by the pool.

And thanks to everyone that gave us book suggestions.  Desi, we thought the Catwings series was so cute.  Vicster, I'll have to keep Redwall in mind.  Swashbuckling mice might be fun to read when we are all done with our cat adventures.