Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue!

Happy Halloween everyone!

First time trick or treating! He really is happy, but has a hard time smiling for the camera-usually he gives this uncomfortable grimace while declaring "cheese" with enthusiasm. Hopefully it will cool down a little, I made his costume out of fleece and it is pretty warm and snuggly.

ETA: We ended up visiting 5 whole houses. Then he laid down in our neighbor's driveway, so it was time to go home. And it never cooled down at all, the AC is on now.

More baby stuff

Last night I knit a tiny hat to go with the cammo pants to send to my brother's baby. It is all packaged and ready to go now; I'll drop it off at the post office tonight so it can sprint for Idaho and hopefully will arrive the same time the kid does.

I have no idea if it will fit; it has been a while since I've played with a newborn.

I looked at a hat I knit for the monkey while I was pregnant and subtracted a little, because it was a little big when he was born.

My stats, so I can adjust accordingly when the kid arrives:

Yarn: the delightful Sugar and Cream, in sage green

15 1/2 in 4 inches, knit on hand made oak size 8 needles that are not nearly tapered enough.

CO 56 sts. K in round for 3 1/2", then close up the top with 4 sets of k2tog, ssk decreases. Tada!

Tiny pants

Tiny snugly pants!
My brother and his wife are expecting a baby any day now; hopefully before he starts helicopter training with the Army next weekend (which will include 6 weeks away from them). Tonight I whipped up a tiny pair of fleece pants to mail to them in Boise. I might be at the beach tomorrow, but the high there was only 50 F. Baby stuff is so fun, it's tiny and cute and when you use fleece--no edge finishing. Awesome.

Rain

Being right on the coast, we don't get very many tornadoes here- it's hard to get the right weather conditions for that kind of storm to occur. But this morning there was one that touched down in what passes as a city around here, and we had warnings until noon that included sirens and my weather radio freaking out. Yikes. Of course, this all happens an hour after Monkey got to school and Lawyerboy had left for a law conference in Atlanta.
Please bear in mind that I am not accustomed to this kind of precipitation crazy-ness. Before I got here I had lived in Utah for 9 years, where rain is so infrequent that spilling your drink counts as measurable precipitation.
So it was just me and the shawl sitting in my hallway with all doors closed. Obviously I didn't get sucked away to Oz, but I did get another row done on Adamas.

It's hard to take pictures of rain and give a good representation of how heavy and fast it is coming down, but this will give you a pretty good idea.

Not really about anything

Right now the air here is literally thick with butterflies. I took this picture on my lawn today, when I headed outside because I could count at least a dozen butterflies in my backyard.

Today I test-drove an adorable Corgi at the animal shelter near me. Sweet little dog, but not for me because she is no good with kids. At least this adoption counselor was nice; last time we took Monkey with us and that counselor was rather negative and didn't really want to send us home with one of the dogs (because all these dogs have way better options). This is the 4th time I've been looking and I'm just not having any luck. It is remarkably easy to fall in love with someone on Petfinder and have it not pan out when you meet him/her face to face.

So the corgi wasn't for me, but I kept thinking about her when I was running tonight. I hope she finds someone nice.

School

When did I turn into a once a month blogger? I had been doing much better earlier this year, but kinda fell off the wagon near the end of the summer. Bafflingly, part of my recent absence has been Monkey's first day of school. Holy smokes. Two weeks ago was the first day of PreK for my little guy, and I've been catching up from the week leading up to it since then. Seizure activity hasn't been the greatest, so we've been spending a lot of time with his Neurologist, who is a little over an hour away. Between that and meetings with everyone involved in the special needs program at our school I wasn't really home at all for literally a week straight. So after launching the little guy onto the bus (and having a good cry) I attacked the house and haven't stopped. Stuff that has been a mess since we moved in 10 months ago looks great now.

I also finished the Stag Bag! It is fantastic, beautiful and sturdy and is now my daily bag. It is one of very few things I've made that not-knitters have stopped to tell me they liked. Knit with Pattons Classic Wool, in about 1 1/2 skeins each of Chestnut and Peacock.The design is not as sharp and the colors are a little more muted after felting, which I didn't really consider a problem because it was pretty bright before. A great deal of puckering and weirdness from my first stranded knitting was resolved with some trimming of carries on the back after felting and some really severe blocking. Like everyone else, the back of the bag also was a lot larger than the front so check your gauge and/or knit a few stitches fewer in width across the bag than the pattern calls for (actually, you should probably just check gauge; who am I to tell you to adjust your pattern willy-nilly.) As you can see, I cleverly added my initials on the bottom-you know, so I won't get it mixed up with all the other turquoise and brown felted stag bags out there.

More finished objects coming! With my mornings alone, I am getting a lot done.