Garter Brim Baby Hat

Here's a little hat that I knit up for LG right after she was born.  It was way too big for her in the beginning, but I figured she would grow into it.  Now she is about to grow out of it.  

When I started knitting this, I just wanted a simple hat to match the Saartje's Bootees that I made her.  She has long since grown out of the bootees and they are tuck away in a baby box.  I've gotten so much use out of this ball of Rio de la Plata.  Seven projects before I ran out of yarn hat to include another pair of socks that LG has just grown into.

I actually free-knit the decreases on this hat.  I didn't want the traditional spiral and really liked the Turn A Square (rav).  So I guessed how he did it and I suppose I guessed right.  It was really easy.  Just be able to divide your stitch count by eight, pair up the decreases evenly around the hat and decrease one ssk and one k2tog facing each other every other row and you get this.  I you don't understand what I mean, I'm just being lazy and this is why I don't write patterns.

Um... I don't mean to interrupt, but Mom....  you got a little somethin'... right...  No other side... Okay you got it.

We've gotten a ton of use out of this little hat and I will hate to see it go once her head has out grown it.  Though I am hoping that her head will stop growing at some point in time.  At her last check up she was in the 99th percentile.  I guess she got her daddy's head, all full of brains.  The big heads in my family are just our egos.

Okay enough of this already.  I want to go outside and play now.  I don't care if it's been raining.  You have to change my clothes ten times a day anyways.

Assembly Required

Last week was an awesome week.  Tuesday to be specific.  BG and I played hooky from school and went to the zoo with LG.  We had a good excuse.  My cousin from Utah was in town with his family and my Aunt came along, too.  If there were ever a good reason to skip school, I think that family we see once every few years is it.

The zoo was a blast.  I'll post about it after the next knitting post.

Afterward, we ran into a little hiccup.  I invited my aunt, cousin, his wife, and their four children to my house for dinner.  It was a very sad sight. 

We don't own a dining room table.  Everyone was crammed around my coffee table eating pizza and hot wings.

Don't get me wrong.  DH and I have both owned a table in the past.  I gave mine to my little sister when I moved to LA and DH's got ruined in storage.  It had metal parts that didn't do well when the garage got a leak in it.

When we moved to the new house, we finally had space to put a table and chairs.  Isn't it a beautiful space?   There is so much space that we could waste some of it and not even have it dent our regular routine.  This is also what this space has looked like since November.  We've had holiday dinners here, overnight guest, and never really needed a table.  Between the three bar stools at the kitchen island and my coffee table, we've gotten by.  It helped that our friends and family were used to us not owning a table for the last 6 years.

We really do need a table.  I hunted around for a while.  Drove to a few stores.  Some tables I saw were cheap quality and some were very expensive.   I dodge efforts by people wanting to pass their used furniture to us.  We are grown ups now and I think that our home furnishings should reflect my our style.

I finally found what I wanted at  a good price and good quality.  I love Ikea.  The people I talked to that have Ikea tables told me that they lasted forever, one table lasted 15 years and it was a hand me down when she got it.  She said it was still is good condition when she sold it.

After the sad incident of watching my cousin's family try to eat at my coffee table, I decided that I had procrastinated long enough.  It was time to buy a table.  I bought and built everything today and there was still daylight to spare.  But not enough light to get a good picture.

I love this table.  It's black-brown colored.  I love the farmhouse style and there are two leaves that we can extend the size for when people come over.  I also bought the bench for one side.  You can't really see it in the picture but I can fit BG and at least two other cousins over there.  I also have a couple of extra chairs for Gramma and Grampa.  If the BIL and SIL come with their family, we can pull the barstools over.  Oh, and I got all of this for about $500.  That means that I can afford a rug to put under it and yarn to crochet placemats.

Now I just need to finish all my WIPs, put a dent in my stash and then I can buy new yarn for placemats.  I already know what colors I want and where I'm going to buy it.  It's so hard to wait -said the procrastinator.

The Poppy Fields

On our vacation we stopped in a wonderful land called Oz.  We didn't check out too many of the sites, but we did spend some time in the poppy fields.  We are pretty glad that the Wicked Witch of the West had been disposed of by Dorothy.  Our schedule would not allow for a nap.

We drove through the Poppy Fields in Lancaster and the flowers are in full bloom.   For as long as I lived in this area, I never stopped to smell the flowers and it smelled wonderful.  I wasn't sure if was the poppy's fragrance or one of the many other different types of flowers growing in the fields.  It was almost citrus like.  Makes me want to plant a bunch of these.

None of these pictures do justice to the bright, neon orange that covered the ground.  We meet up with some friends that live out there and she said that this was a great year for the flowers.  She hadn't seen a year like this for a while.   The kids enjoyed running around and were covered in orange pollen by the time they were done. 

Mom, quick!  I can see the Emerald City!