Angie at Many Little Blessings has started a new blog called The Homeschool Classroom. Guess who’s going to be one of the regularly contributing writers? Well, ME, of course! So if you can’t get enough of me here on the ol’ Mac and Cheese Chronicles, you can read more from me over there every Tuesday. I think I have Tuesdays. I have to double check. Anyway, I’ll be writing about whatever pops into my head that is homeschool related. I’ve got some topics lined up for the next few weeks, but if you’ve got any questions you’d like to see me answer, please let me know.

No Comments »

The title rhymes, by the way. (La clap-oh-tee, say fee nee) It means - The Clapotis scarf, she is finished!

Remember back in January, when I started it? It was just a few rows on a needle. I bet you forgot all about it. I’ve been plugging away at it for for six months, almost to the day. Would you like to see it?

Voilá!

C’est moi! It’s longer than my arm span, but I’m only 5 feet tall, so maybe it’s not all that long.

Here she is sunning herself on our teak rocking chair.

It was a hot and humid day, which is hard if you’re a wool scarf/shawl thing. She needed to rest on my lawn.

None of these pictures do justice to the actual color of the yarn or the awesomeness that is the drop stitch design. Here’s a close-up:

I finished it 4 months before I thought I would, which is pretty impressive considering all the projects I started and finished in-between. The best part is, it totally matches all my blouses, which I realized just the other day consists entirely of Land’s End t-shirts in short, long or 3/4 sleeves. Regardless of my lack of wardrobe originality, I’m going to look so great on the sidelines of the soccer field this Fall! I my mind, I’m sitting there in my camp chair, ginormous sunglasses shielding my eyes and my Clapotis flung carelessly across my shoulders. People gather in groups and whisper, “Who is that? Eva Longoria? No way - it’s Boo’s mom! Wow, I can see where he gets his good looks!”

What? It could happen!

2 Comments »

the mice will craft!

Pumpkin Girl took advantage of our mostly testosterone-free week by making me craft with her. She’s working on basic sewing and sort of pre-embroidery skills. I’m not at my finest teaching her fine motor skills type stuff, but I powered through it, trying to remember how patient my aunt and grandmother were teaching me how to embroider. While Pumpkin plugged away at stitching, I cast on for another sock. It was a Little House on the Prairie moment. Sorry, no pictures yet.

Last night I tackled a long overdue project while the chicken nuggets were being heated in the microwave.

A bazillion years ago, my parents gave me these old ladder back, rush seat chairs. They’d had them since the dawn of time and I needed chairs. I’ve never liked the look, feel or sound of rush seats and these were falling apart but still functional. Then the three of us visited a Shaker village and I saw the really cool Shaker tape chairs they had. This was back in about ‘95, before the internet became THE source of all knowledge, but somehow I managed to find a source for Shaker tape and a booklet of instructions.

I cut off the old rush seat, sanded and stained the wood chairs, then wove Shaker tape seats. Very nice. They held up well for 10 years until the Great Bathroom Flood of ‘06 when they got hit by water and ceiling plaster. They actually dried out just fine, but the tape lost some of its starchiness and started slipping apart. After a year and a half they were no longer usable. Then Bip the Destroyer got to them and starting unweaving them. Here’s one coming apart:

So I got online and ordered new Shaker tape. As luck would have it, I found the little how-to booklet. Pretty amazing for 12 years and 6 moves later!

First step was to remove all the tape.

In between the woven seat is a little cushion I made, following the book’s instructions. The glue on the edges had loosed so I removed the cushions completely, shook them out and reglued them into place.

Now the weaving. Here’s all the warps (or is it the wefts?) in place.

And now the weft (or is it the warp?) gets going.  Once you’ve got a couple of rows, you add more warp (?) on the left and right to account for the bottom rung being wider than the back.

All finished. Nice.

When Bip saw it he said, “Oh, pretty!  Me sit on it?”  Then he went to the second chair, still waiting for it’s new seat. “You do this one, too?”

“Yes”, I said, “I’ll do that one, too.”

“When?  Later?  After naps?”

(Hmm, do you think I’ve been putting him off a bit lately?  Telling him “later, after naps” a bit too much?  Guess I’d better go remind myself about what I learned from Coconut Syrup.)

So one chair is done and I have plans to finish the second one before the boys return tonight.

1 Comment »

Two year old Bip says “uttern-nun” for “another one”. If he wants two cookies, he’ll ask for a cookie for his “utter-nun hand”. If he can only find one shoe, he’ll say he’s looking for his “utter-nun shoe.” And look, I made an utter-nun sock!

You all cracked me up in the comments about my first sock, by the way.

I used Knitting Pure and Simple’s Beginner Socks with worsted yarn.  This is my second or third attempt at learning to make socks.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until I learned a couple of days ago that my first pattern  was full of errors.  I located the corrections easy enough, but that pattern was the only one in the whole book that I had to download 2 whole pages for.  Not good when you’re attempting your first sock.

Honestly, socks are easy.  As long as your pattern is accurate, that is.  Despite my best intentions not to maintain a stash of yarn, I have a nice selection of sock yarns that are calling me.  They are going to have to get in line behind a whole slew of utter-nun knitting projects.  My friends keep getting pregnant and their babies need handknits from yours truly.  It’s a little scary the number of people I know who are having babies.  Something’s in the air here.  Do not read anything into that sentence. I avoid going outside, remember, so I don’t breathe the air.  Besides, I just don’t have time to knit for any more little people.

4 Comments »

And with the yarn came power. She sat down and did knit with the yarn and with needles. The needles were double pointed and they were in number, 4. She knit with the yarn and with the needle and when her time of knitting was brought to an end, she brought forth her first hand knit sock. And it was good.

4 Comments »

I took a break from knitting to finish up a crocheted baby hat.  This is for the same friend that I made the duck bootees for.  Here it is, being modeled by Pumpkin the Doll who is about the size of a 8 or 9 month old baby.

Pumpkin wasn’t cooperating and wouldn’t lean forward so you can get the whole affect.  It’s an aviator cap with a bill that is flipped up and tacked into place.  Oh wait, here’s the book the pattern is in.  Now you can see it better.

That baby on the cover totally sold the book for me!  I made the same hat for Bip a couple of years ago.  It’s a really fast and easy project, took me two nights to finish it, not including the time waiting for a second ball of yarn to arrive in the mail.  I started the second hat with leftovers from the first hat and ran out halfway through.   I just found out that one of my cousin’s is going to have a baby boy, so I think another one of these hats in order.

4 Comments »

Look what my Mother’s Day yielded for me:

A new laptop and a beautiful vase made by Boo and Pumpkin Girl! The laptop is ready for Wifi, though sadly, we don’t have a wireless router for the other computer. So right now, it’s still only for playing the pre-installed games.

Boo and Pumpkin made this vase at our homeschool group. Our fearless leader Tami, casually suggested that the other moms take our toddlers to the park while she worked on the week’s project with the older children. They came back brimming with secrets and when the day arrived, they were so pleased to present me with their homemade gift. I think I like it better than the laptop! Now if only Philip will keep it filled with flowers.

Later in the day, I met up with my friend Shanti at our local yarn store. We had lunch, knit some and then she gave me a lesson on how to use my new drop spindle. It was much easier to learn in person and look!  I made yarn!

How cool is that?

3 Comments »

Yesterday was just One of Those Days. The kind where I should have stayed in bed. It started with 2 yo Bip waking with the sun and pouncing on me hopefully. As I opened my eyes, I realized I had a headache. I’m not sure if these waking headaches that I get are true migraines, but they are wicked. The only cure seems to be 2 doses of Exedrin (taken the appropriate amount of hours apart) and sleep. Lots of sleep.

If I was smart, I would close my eyes and go back to sleep. But I never do. Instead, I force myself awake and try to go about my day. By mid-morning my head is pounding, I can barely keep my eyes open and I’m glaring at any child who so much as dares to breathe in my personal space. It’s not pretty.

Thankfully, Philip has a 5 minute commute and can come home for lunch. That’s about as close to a substitute teacher as I can get - and I’m extremely grateful. I was already laid out on the couch before Philip arrived home. I vaguely remember hearing him come in, then the next thing I knew it was an hour later and he was saying goodbye.

Later I napped with Bip and woke up after 2 hours feeling groggy and still headachy. It wasn’t until after dinner that the pain finally subsided and I thought I could get up and venture to the mailbox for a little bit of fresh air.

I’m so glad I did because I had a package and inside was this:

Pumpkin Girl and I have been inspired by the whole Martha Years series, a prequel to the Little House On the Prairie books. Martha Morse learns to spin yarn with a drop spindle and we figured if she could do it, so could we.

So me and my newly pain-free head sat down to figure out how to spin. Um, right. I usually do pretty well with reading instructions and learning something new, but this old-fashioned drop spindle thing has got me flummoxed. We’ve got some lovely girly-girl roving waiting for us to spin (it’s the last picture), so hopefully I’ll make some headway soon. I’m not sure this whole spinning our own yarn thing is really a good idea though- my list of knitting projects is getting longer, not to mention the decades long backlog of scrapbooking, teaching Pumpkin to knit and sew, and some ladder back chairs that need new Shaker tape seats. Sigh. So many crafts, so little time.

1 Comment »

Here’s the baby booties I was knitting that caused people to start planning baby showers for me.

Aren’t they the cutest things you’ve ever seen? Go on, admit it. This set is going to the grandson of a good friend from Korea. Let me just tell you that I’m not old enough to have friends with grandchildren. My friend Tammy (not to be confused with the Tami that lives down the street from me) just happened to start having children early in her marriage and she just married off her oldest daughter last June. Now her daughter is having a baby. Her daughter Lindsay was my chauffeur for a week when we all lived in Korea and Philip was off playing war games and I had failed to pass the written driving test for my military license. It was Philip’s fault, of course, because he gave me the wrong book to study. (In all fairness, this was the book that was given to him).

So Philip was gone and I was unable to legally drive and of course, this was vacation bible school week, so I was supposed to be driving back and forth to the chapel everyday. Lindsay was very sweet to drive me where I needed to go and didn’t even giggle when I failed the test.

Of course, I got 100% when I retook it.

ANYway - Lindsay is married and expecting a baby, so duck feet booties are in order.

(The pattern for these can be found in 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. I did them in Rowan Cotton Glace in some shade of yellow.)

1 Comment »

If you’re not a knitter/crocheter feel free to skip this post.  I’ll come up with something more interesting tomorrow.  For the knitters out there - I finally got my invitation to Ravelery!  Woohoo!  I’m having way too much fun adding stuff and poking around the place.  How come nobody told me about this earlier?

5 Comments »