Patchwork Girl's Rambling Warps

Afghan Squares & socks on Circular Needles

I missed several days of blogging..didn't keep me from reading everyone else's blogs, though! I just felt that I needed to concentrate most of my energies on getting the two afghan squares done for a sort of group project & cooking for Rosh Hashona...

The two afghan squares I did taught me a lot... I got MUCH more comfortable working with cable patterns... the first one I did was the Bobbledy Aran square & I used markers to help me distinguish between pattern changes... the 2nd one I did was based on Medrith Glover's "Bite At A Time Aran" and that technique is in Knitters #16 & can also be purchased from her directly... one of my UFOs is of this project & I plan to finish it someday...

Now that I am done with the afghan squares, I'll concentrate a bit more on making socks for crazy socks day at school (more about that another time) & will play with some needle felting techniques & will also do some more work on my color & cable vest.... I really enjoyed working on that ladybug.... I'll work through some of the things in Ayala Talpai's first book & will try some fiberge eggs & go from there... I have some other things that I'm going to be working on, but won't talk about them now...

The boys have a short school week this week...school holiday, I'm not sure why... Wednesday is parent-teacher day & is a half day...and then they have Thursday & Friday off & I'm keeping them home on Monday for Yom Kippur, so they'll have a 5-1/2 day "weekend"... MAYBE we'll get to do some tie dyeing this weekend! We'll see how the weather is...

Reuven is talking more & more these days... I love watching kids learn language... love the telescopic speech (where one word can mean the same thing as several, such as "ball??" can mean "where did the ball go?" generalizing, where one word represents a group, like "cat" might be any animal (except Reuven distinguishes between them quite well, unlike the toddler in America's Funniest home Videos the other night who called another fruit an apple even though it wasn't...)

L'shona tova everyone!

Quiet Sunday

Computer stuff (evening):

Somehow this didn't upload earlier... I'm thinking about going back to Greymatter...hmmm... turns out I didn't have "publish" highlighted, just draft... it should be easier than this, perhaps one of you MT gurus can email me & give me a few tips & tricks for MT? (Or maybe I should go read the MT website & see what others are saying.) I like MT overall, but I find it a little klunky & don't like having to make sure publish is highlit EVERY time I click on save...

What would be nice is if I could type my entry, and there was a way to list photos without having to remember the code for inserting pictures, I like being able to preview my entry before uploading (especcccccccccially since I'm always messing up the file name or picture code)...

Sunday afternoon:

I hope I'm not jinxing things with my title...it is quiet around here today... the twins went to a birthday party sleepover last night...

I'm almost finished with the cashmere Aran afghan square & later on I'll wash it & hopefully it will be dry enough to mail off tomorrow... i'll take a photo before I send it out... I'm going to try taking a picture at night in the dark & see if it comes out well.

Once I'm done with this project, then i'll do some weaving on the triangle loom & will work on knitting the twins' socks for crazy socks day...and improve my needle felting techniques.

Here's 4 photos of my first project, a ladybug:

Blue eyes!

The bottom

I used the tutorial on Mielke's Farm's website...very clear photos & excellent explanation... the red fiber that I used for my ladybug was Spinderella's roving...and the dark was some shetland cross in a dark almost-black color...

My 2nd project, an owl, is still in progress, so I'm not going to show it to you now... will wait until it's done! I've mostly got the owl done, but want to put together some kind of perch for it...

Here's a heart I needlefelted:

I'm going to be carrying some needle felting books & supplies soon, so if you want to try needlefelting, email me or keep an eye on the Tornadowood website.

Off to finish up that square!

This and that

Fall is here, finally... it's just a bit cooler these days, 80-ish & MAYBE we'll still see some low 90s...

I've been working on a square from the Great American Aran Afghan... in cashmere...it's wonderful...should be done this weekend or early in the week & then I'll mail it back to the woman who organized this project... she's having several others each knit a square from this project. I'll post mine when it's done IF I can get a decent picture...maybe taking the picture in the dark will do the trick: I had gotten up JUST to turn off a few lights & then I was going back to bed...by the time I got back, I saw this:

I got the camera, took the obligatory photos, put camera away & moved cat & kiddo & went to sleep... think the cat's relaxed enough?

Gotta get ready for Evan's soccer game... Gary went off to the field to make sure that all the nets & such were in place (he's the equipment chairman this year) and then he's coming back to pick the rest of us up for the game... I want to knit a few rows first or maybe start a sock for one of the twins... the Eskimo socks I started for Evan or Micah are now too small, they fit Harrison, those are almost done, just need to finish up the toes...will do that a day or two before I give them to him...just to make sure they still fit!

It's supposed to be nice today, but the sky looks rather iffy...

How to feed a large family

Sorry about not posting sooner, we had some computer problems earlier this week...first the website was down for almost 24 hours: the host was upgrading server's kernel..not sure why the website had to be down that long, though! Then OUR computer was spitting out blue screens, refusing to load & we were not able to get the computer to load except in safe mode, but now it's okay..

I'll post an update on my projects in another day or two, but today I thought I'd write a little bit about how to feed a family of 6..in our case, I know it gets worse as the twins are only 8-1/2 and my youngest two are 2 and almost 6... as it is, the twins have pretty big appetites & they're not heavy at all, in fact, they're pretty thin!

When we have "hamburgers" we usually don't bother with making individual hamburger patties unless we're cooking on the grill: right now, it works to just take the hamburger mixture (which includes some chopped onions, bread or cracker crumbs, salt & pepper & a few spices, sometimes mustard, sometimes tomato paste or other yummy stuff)... heat a cast iron pan & just make one huge gigantic patty... the advantage of this is that you have food where you would normally have empty spaces as in making patties.. when it's time to flip the mess over, I cut the circle in fourths & flip each quarter over one at a time... we also make meat loaf this way... right now, we usually have enough left over for lunch for me & Gary & Reuven the next day...

When the boys get bigger & hungrier & the appetites of the younger 2 increase, we'll add another pan.

Today we're going to have beans & rice for supper with some grated cheese on top... I make enough beans so that I'll have some left over to make taco filling a day or two later... I used 2-1/2 cups of dry pinto beans...

I'd love to hear what others have done to make food for large family, especially frugal tips...

I'm going to cut this short for now & make some oatmeal cookies, and add some stuff to the beans!