Knitting Through Tears

Preparing for Saint Nicholas day!

Here we are, already at this week's Phoebe Sweater KAL and yarn along update. I have nothing to say on my Phoebe's sweater for C. No, that's not true. I have a lot to say but I am still just too bummed out about the whole thing to go in to it, so here's a recap:

I was nearly finished with C's sweater (just had to do one sleeve and the hood) and it appeared to be small looking rather small. I did check my gauge this time around but something still went wrong. Fearing the worst I brought her into the bathroom so no one else could see and told her to close her eyes. I then tried the sweater on her. The length was perfect but I severely underestimated the size of sweet C's Buddha belly. It was barely able to wrap around her.

I tried my hardest not to cry but it was hitting me hard, all my work and no margin for error on this Christmas gift making timeline... Ughhh! I tried to devise a plan where I wouldn't have to rip out the whole sweater. I came close but couldn't find a way to avoid it entirely. So I sat and shed a few tears while I ripped out the entire upper body, just until I got to the decreasing section, then I stopped. I should have taken a picture of the many little balls of yarn I had from ripping it out. It was such a sad sight. I picked up the stitches on one side of the bottom half of the sweater and knit 3 rows in seed stitch then cast off. I did the same to the other side of the bottom half of the sweater. This added 6 stitches of width to the entire sweater. I then changed my needles from size 10 to size 10 1/2 and followed the decrease instructions but this time for the size 6 sweater instead of the size 4. Now I am knitting the entire upper body in size 6 with the bigger needles. It looks much bigger, now lets just hope it's not too big! I do want it to be a bit big and loose, though, so she can wear many layers underneath it.

This mistake of mine set me back big time, so now I am not sure what I will finish up in time for Christmas. The plan was just the Phoebe sweaters and the doll versions for the girls along with a patchwork quilt for their bed. Not sure about working on that quilt now. I am thinking if all else fails, I may have to drop making Baby L's gift and give it to him later. He has gifts coming from our families so I doubt he'll notice...

I was still sulking a bit when I took these pictures today. As you can see I choose to focus on our cute little Scandinavian Christmas angel chimes instead of my actual project. Ahem.

I suppose I better get back to work on that sweater!
What are you working on? I hope you are having better luck than me! Happy creating!!


P.S - Blogger wouldn't let me upload pictures tonight so I had a lot of hoops to jump through to figure it out. Thanks to my dear (birthday girl) friend Marina I think I have it set now.

Knitting Through Tears

Rhythm In Our Home : The First Sunday in Advent

We light one candle shining bright
Upon this Holy Advent night
Fill our hearts with loving might
Lead us to Christmas Day's brilliant light!





There is so much to say on this topic but I have to admit that exhaustion is getting the best of me tonight so more details will have to wait for another time. You can see some of my previous Advent posts here. Most are from 2009 as I didn't have a working computer to post during the 2010 Advent season. 2009 was the first year we celebrated Advent and I can not get over how much deeper we dive into it each year. Our Advent wreath is a small example of our changes - in 2009 we bought a wreath and added our beeswax candles to it, in 2010 we made our own wreath around our Advent wreath ring using branches and holly from the forest behind us, now in 2011 K and I attended Church on this special day and made our wreath there afterwards. More on that later in the week. We also rolled our own beeswax candles, instead of buying them. On a side note, my beeswax sheets made two candles each so I am set for next year, too - woo hoo! You can see one of the pink candles is different from the rest, C got a hold of one of them and broke it so I had to replace it with one of her own beeswax sheets.





Since the season of Advent reminds us of patience, we slowly bring out our decorations a little at a time. For the First Sunday we simply have our handmade Advent wreath at our dining room table, the empty manger in our living room, our Advent calender (with the first window opened), and a few Advent/Christmas books out. We actually don't even have a full nativity set. Each year I save up and buy one more piece for it.



This year the girls have their own beeswax manger on the windowsill in their bedroom. I look forward to adding to it each week.



Steiner corresponds the four kingdoms with the four weeks of Advent starting with the mineral kingdom.

The first light of Advent is the light of stones,
Light that lives in seashells, in crystals and in bones

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts,
Light of hope that shines in the greatest and the least

The fourth light of Advent is the light of you and I,
The light of love, of thought, to give and understand
-Rudolf Steiner

Even though we are now imersing ourselves into the deeper aspects of Advent, we still honor Steiner's tradition (after all, his teachings are what brought us to this new place in life) by placing a wooden bowl in the center of our wreath. Each Sunday in Advent something is added to it in representation of that week's kingdom.



Last year we enjoyed reading stories out of this book for each night in Advent. Some of the stories were long so we would stretch them out over a few days to equal the amount of days in Advent (like this year it is 28 days long). We are doing this again this year along with some other reading.







We follow the custom of youngest to oldest in lighting the Advent candles. For this first Sunday in Advent, C had the privilege of doing it (with Daddy's help and supervision, of course).





Next week it will be K's turn then my turn the following week and lastly Kevin's turn. I haven't figured out how we will work it when Baby L is older yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now he is content just watching the flame dance as he snacks on his squash.



We have a couple new Advent traditions I will be sharing in a bit with you, too!

Please remember - this is just our family rhythm and what works for us at the moment. This isn't meant to be hard and fast rules on how rhythm should go in every one or any one's homes. I just thought to share it because I receive quite a few e-mails asking about our home rhythm, and I also just wanted it documented for myself so that I may remember these times when they are older and/or on to another rhythm.

Thank you, again, for joining me in the rhythm fun! Here is the linky list. If you have a (new or old) link you would like to share about your family rhythm, please enter it below so that we all may see. Then please link back here in your post. I look forward to seeing your inspiration!
Thanks friends!

Rhythm In Our Home : The First Sunday in Advent

Growing

Happy first Sunday of Advent! My head is spinning from all that we did today. Oh my sweet K, I am forever in your debt for all that you bring into my life. More on that tomorrow, though :)









We had the entire week off of school for parent/teacher conferences and Thanksgiving, but before that break began, C and I stopped by our school's annual shield benefit. I had to see my friend's shield in person (the knitted one in the first photograph), as well as check out all the other beauties. C and I both fell in love with the one in the third photograph down. The talent in our school community is unsurpassable.



Kevin came to the realization that if our children and I are to make it through the winter, I need to learn how to chop wood. It's getting cold here now (either I have acclimated to the climate here after spending four way too hot and humid years in Virginia, or this fall/winter is just warmer than the last couple of years), and since our heater can't get the temperature in our home past 59 degrees, we need a constant fire going.

Our cord of wood arrived a couple of weeks ago but it is all in big pieces that need to be split. Kevin isn't home enough to chop it himself, and when he is home it's when the children are sleeping so, of course, he can't cut it then.
He reminded me of my desire to be like the frontier women before me, and how they (may have) had to cut their own wood. Yes, yes, I hear that. This is a skill I want to have, and I understand how important it is but ughhh - I have no muscles whatsoever and my 'to do' list is already so long to begin with. No amount of whining or complaining can get me out of this one, though, so I stood by to watch and learn from the master. (with a baby on his back, even!)





He informed me that in order to cut the wood, I had to become one with the wood and showed me the 'miyagi focus'...







Which slightly frightened the girls who were outside in their nightgowns playing. Don't get me started on them out in the mud wearing their nightgowns, rules fall to the wayside when Daddy is home - not by my choice!



I got the hang of it enough to make kindling at least but that took me hours. Hey, maybe I'll get some muscles after all. Boy, do I have a long lesson ahead of me. Kevin joked that I have to 'wear the pants in the family' while he's working so much. See? I did. They may be my running pants but they are pants!







We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner on our crowded coffee table in front of the fire. (dining room is much too cold to use now) Someone else joined us at the table...















Baby L!!! We let him play with a quarter of a plain baked acorn squash and he loved it. I normally like to wait until closer to a year in age to start solid food but this little guy was determined to eat much sooner than that. Both of the girls weren't all that into eating solids but Baby L just can't get enough. I wish you could watch him and listen to his cute little excited noises he makes when he sees the spoon coming his way. His little legs kick in anticipation and his hands clap like crazy. Cutest thing ever. I realize these pictures look a bit gross with him having squash up his nose and all over himself (not to mention the indoor lighting) but I still couldn't help myself. His first top tooth came in this weekend, to boot! A lot of growing going on in our home lately, inner growth, too.





We even enjoyed some family drawing time over the week, much to K's delight. It has been months since our last session. Yep, this week was pretty full.

Growing

Tradition

Every year Nana (my Mom) sends us an edible arrangement for Thanksgiving.
Every year it arrives with much fanfare to our home the day before Thanksgiving.
And every year it doesn't make it to our Thanksgiving day table because of two fruit loving cherubs in our home.

Happy Thanksgiving (and thanks Mom)!

Tradition

Stars, Candles & Phoebe

More Santa Lucia makings... this one is for my special Baby L. I finished up C's crown minus sewing on the elastic on one side.



The girls and I took a trip to our local Bee supply store the other day (Thank you Dionne and Yvonne for letting me in on one of Portland's best kept secrets!) to stock up on some advent necessities.
Can you guess what I'll be doing the next few days?



Although, I started one and it separated because it's too cold in our house (as you can see in the picture), so I have to wait until we get a good fire going and then try again.



Yarning along and knitting along - on to actual knitting. Forgive the photo, I was out all day getting groceries (seriously... three stores = all day grocery shopping) and unable to get a picture until the sun was setting on a cloudy, rainy Oregon day (hence, the sweater thrown on the table alongside my groceries to put away). C's Phoebe sweater is coming along nicely. I finished up one front side and am now working on the other. I might be able to finish it in the next week or so, that is if I can stop myself from sewing. I did have a minor setback over the weekend, though. I have been copying the pattern out of the book onto post it notes, (so that the girls don't see me knitting with the book and figure out what I am making) and I somehow managed to copy part of it down wrong (probably in a sleepy state). I ended up having to rip out quite a few inches of knitting due to that mistake, but now I am back on track. I am on skein number four now and I have to admit I am a bit anxious about my yarn calculations. I was hoping to have enough for the sweater and to make one for C's doll. Not sure if that will happen or not.

Speaking of sewing I have a question for you: Now that K's first winter dress is done I am moving on to the girls' Santa Lucia dresses. More details on that later, anyways, since I want them to be fast and easy dresses I am using this simple pattern. I am hoping to alter it by making the length longer, the neck higher and the sleeves long. How do you go about making a short sleeved pattern into a long sleeved one? To alter the neck area I am thinking I should just add an inch or two to the pattern piece??? Does that seem right? This all seems so silly to me. I remember back when I made my own patterns and now look at me, I have forgotten everything. Oh well, it will all come back to me, eventually... right?

What are you working on? Happy creating!

P.S. I am hoping to talk to our school store owner this week about those pocket people kits from the Heart of Advent post but if you can find the supplies locally (or online) my friend Dionne just posted the tutorial for the ones she made (that were displayed at Heart of Advent). More details about the treasure candles coming, too!

Stars, Candles & Phoebe