CHECK OUT ZOE'S NEW OUTFITS

I finally got Zoe to pose in two of her new summer outfits that I made her. She loves the Banyan skirt. I made it a little longer than her Tiger skirt - but otherwise it is the same. Banyan comes in great colors and it is very nice to knit with. http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/378. Her Tika dress came out great also - I was going to do this three row fairisle pattern - but it was too much work - so I just did a cute A-line dress with two row stripes. Again, there are lots of fun color options - http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/432. I wanted to get some more pictures on - her mayra sweater, her sky cardigan and her soya top - but she was done - so next time. Got to get to work - we are seeing another rep to order more yarn for the fall. I think she has muench, classic elite and punta del este. And next Friday we leave for Columbus to go to the yarn show. I can't believe it is June next week!

RAVELRY ANYONE?

I am sure that I am light years behind those of you reading this blog but... I have recently discovered www.Ravelry.com. For those of you who do not know what it is: "Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." It is very cool. You can keep track of all the yarns you have, all the projects you have made or are in the process of making and best of all you can see what tons of other people are making. The site divides projects into different categories so if you are looking for a cable pattern, you can click on cables and see a bunch of cable projects that people have made. Many tell you the source of the pattern and what yarn they used. Another great thing is if you really like a particular yarn and want to make something out of it, you can search that yarn and see what others have done - it definitely provides lots of knitting inspiration. At the moment, we are trying to get a bunch of our projects up onto the site. It seems like it will be a great place to showcase our designs. We apparently need to join flicka in order to get the photos on - so Julie has to deal with this - but hopefully we will get this done soon. When we were trying to figure out how to add our photos, we searched our names and it was awesome - all these photos of projects that people have done out of our books came up. It was really great to see so many of our projects actually being made by people we don't know. There are tons of them on the site. To get onto Ravelry you have to sign up and then wait about two weeks or so to get your "invitation" - it is not really an invitation - it is just that the site has grown so quickly - they are adding people onto it bit by bit so that it won't crash. I am not really so big on trolling the web for knitting inspiration and such - but I think this is a pretty unique site that most knitters will enjoy.

BUYING SEASON HAS BEGUN!!

Julie and I have begun our fall buying. There are quite a few nice new yarns out there -- it is always so hard to decide what to get and what to get rid of! We saw our Knitting Fever rep two weeks ago -- Knitting Fever carries Debbie Bliss, Noro, Sublime and some others. Debbie Bliss is coming out with a really nice new yarn called Como - it is 90% wool and 10% cashmere and knits at 3 stitches to the inch. It is very light and soft. And it comes in her usual beautiful palate of colors. Another nice new yarn we found is an Organic Merino Wool by Sublime. It has a slightly felted look and is a dk weight. We are also going to get a new Noro yarn called Yuzen - it is silk, wool and kid mohair. It comes in 5 great colorways. And a new Silk Garden sock yarn! We couldn't decide whether to get the regular Silk Garden again - so we passed - but we could be convinced otherwise if many of you had a strong opinion about it. Then last week we saw Diane and Stacy from Tahki Stacy Charles. We ordered a ton of Zara, Zara Plus and Torino Bulky! They also had some really nice new tweedy yarns - Sedona - which is 90% merino wool and 10% silk and knits up at 4 stitches to the inch. And Tweedy Angora - which is super soft and has a very subtle tweedy effect. We ordered a fun boucle yarn that will be great for scarves and edging - Riccolo. A Teva Durham yarn - Tundra that is 2 stitches to the inch but super light feeling. And Merino Cable - a wonderful merino wool that has a unique twist and knits up at 4.5 stitches to the inch. Plus many other staples and new yarns. This Thursday we are seeing the Westminster rep - Rowan, Gedifra, Nashua - so hopefully they will have a great new line also. And we go to the TNNA yarn show at the beginning of June - so much yarn - everybody will have to start knitting like crazy so we can pay the bills for all this great new stuff!!!! Finish up your stashes this spring because you won't want to miss all the excitement that will begin here at The Yarn Co. in August! Is there anything that people are looking for in particular that we can think about during our visit to the show? More organic yarns, more hand dyed? Any ideas are welcome - and we will consider them!

LOOK BELOW

Scroll down and take a look - I finally posted a picture of Max's Tiramisu blanket. He loves it - it is so soft and cuddly!

HAPPY TO BE HOME

So, we are back from Disneyworld! The trip was great - but exhausting. Max and Olivia had a very fun time - Olivia met all her princesses and Max went on a gazillion roller coaster rides. Max and I worked the Magic Kingdom so that we rarely waited on a line - getting there early, going on the super crowded rides first and fastpassing anything we could. The key to our sucess was the realization that you can use your fastpass anytime after the time it says you can come back - not just during the alloted timeslot. Anyway - we went on Space mountain about five times - I like roller coasters - but I'll be happy not to go on another one for quite a while. We also went to MGM studios one day. I would say this is definitely a place that could have been skipped. But - Max and I had read a book a few weeks ago called "Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom" and Max really wanted to go on the Disney version of the Drop of Doom - the Tower of Terror. He was so excited to do it - when we got to MGM and there was already a crazy line for it and I told him we'd have to fastpass it and come back in an hour or two he nearly burst into tears. But when we finally did it - it truly terrified him. He did not like it one bit. It was funny - he rarely gets scared - loves roller coasters, trapeze - things that go fast...but this ride inside a spooky haunted hotel - where the elevator drops 13 stories (and goes up and down and up and down...) - did nothing for him. It made me ill. But other than that we had lots of fun - saw parades, ate cotton candy, swam and went down the water slide - it was good mother son bonding. I am happy however, that I will not be heading back to Disney until zoe is 40 inches tall! On the way home Max wrote a book about Disney for his teacher. (He had wanted to get her a $90 Mickey Mouse watch as a present - but I thought she'd like this better) He drew pictures of the rides and wrote about them. I was very impressed. we put the pages on different colored construction paper and then bound it with yarn in his favorite colors. I was kind of sad to give it to his teacher. But he was very proud. The only knitting time I got was on the plane there and back. We were stuck on the runway for two hours going there so I got a lot done. I started another sweater for Zoe out of brown Sky yarn. http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/425 It is a raglan cardigan that is done all in one piece at the top - I think it will be very cute. The weekend before we went to Disney, Jeff and I had to go down to DC for a wedding. A wedding on the first night of Passover! (The engagement party was on Yom Kippur) - So, we left Max and Zoe with Jeff's sister in Princeton so they could go to the family seder and we went to Church. The wedding was nice - the best wedding band I've ever seen -but a trip to DC for 18 hours is very tiring. The car did provide good quiet knitting time though - I am almost finished with Zoe's striped dress out of Tika. I made 2 row stripes and it looks very cute. Zoe is going to have quite the wardrobe this spring/summer.

Life

I did not post last week --things got a little bit hectic in life as they sometimes do. But life is getting back to normal, so here I am. I finished Zoe's top out of the soya cotton - it came out so cute! I put these great butterfly buttons on the straps and they definitely make the top. I am so excited that it is supposed to get very warm at the end of this week - maybe I can put her in one of the cute summer dresses/ skirts I've made her. She is getting so funny...so verbal - it is amazing. She is starting to say three words at a time and talk in the first person. The other morning while eating breakfast I put something on her fork and started to feed her and she grabbed the fork out of my hand and said "No! I do it!" And now when she wants some thing it's no longer "want it" it is a very definite "I want it!" My babysitter also told me that she dropped something the other day and said "damn it!" - something to be proud of, huh? I guess I'd better watch my mouth - especially since Max said "F - it!" the other day. Oy. This weekend Zoe got her first haircut. She really doesn't have much in the way of hair - but people kept telling me that if I got it cut it would grow back faster. I really was loathe to cut it - it is hard to get rid of any hair when there is so little - but I really want to put her hair in pigtails someday so I figured I'd try the haircut. She was really good and was so happy when afterwards she got two lollipops! She was so cute riding in the backpack on Jeff's back with a yellow lollipop in one hand and an orange one in the other. Jeff especially loved it when she rubbed the lollies in his hair and on his neck! The sad thing though is that it was such a non-event. When Max got his first haircut I brought a camera took lots of pictures....with Zoe, no camera, no big deal. But we do have a lock of her hair to save. Jeff thought the haircutter was crazy when she gave me the lock of hair. I told him that they give us a certificate with the date of her first haircut and we can keep it forever! He was puzzled aas to why we might want to do that. I told him that I had Max's hair - and I even knew where it was. Jeff went from puzzled to amazed and dropped the questions of why we might want the hair. And Max enjoyed looking at his hair when we got home. Next week we go to Disney! We are flying on American, on an M80. Needless to say that last week I was freaking out that we might not be going - but they say all is back to normal - we'll see. But now Julie's son has a 103 fever - a virus - right in time to give it to Olivia. And to Zoe - who was feeding herself and him Pirate Booty yesterday. Last year Olivia got strep throat while we were at Disney. She puked on Max on the bus to Animal Kingdom. Then Max got strepon the way home and puked all over the cab a block away from our house. Ah - memories. Everyone should keep their fingers crossed that we have two healthy children next Tuesday!

Eat at Telepan!

I can't believe it is already April. Almost time to wear all of our great new tank tops and tee shirts. Mercedes just finished this fantastic new tank top out of a new yarn by Berocco called Seduce. http://www.theyarnco.com/doSearch.php?search=0&key=seduce&x=10&y=4 It is light and falls really nicely. The pattern is from the Norah Gaughan Berocco book - it is #5 - called flow...a very appropriate name. There are one or two other cute things in the pattern book and a few not so cute ones - but I suppose that is par for the course. So, I gave up on Zoe's dress. The three row pattern was killing me. I will just knit the same style dress with 2 or 4 row stripes. I figure, why make life any more difficult than it has to be?! Instead of starting on the dress right away - I just wasn't prepared to rip what I had already done at the moment - I started to knit a little smock tank top out of Sublime's Soya. I love the soya yarn. It is really nice to work with - and has a wonderful hand. I'll tell you though, 11 years ago when Julie and I bought the store I never would have imagined that I would be knitting with soy and bamboo and organic cottons. If someone had told me I'd be making a sweater with made out of soy I'd have told them they were nutty. Now I have some non-knitting related items: First, Julie and I are taking Max and Olivia(our 5 year olds) to Disneyworld in 3 weeks. If anybody has any tips, suggestions or warnings - let us know! Saturday, Jeff and I went to the Max's school auction. It was fun - a lot of good items to be had. We won a movie and lunch for max with his teacher, Cara. There was actually a bidding war for her in the silent auction, two other parents and I stood at the sheet and kept raising the bid - we finally came to an agreement that Cara would take them all and we'd all pay up. If we hadn't done that it could have gotten ugly as to who would write down the last bid before the items closed. Max was so excited when we told him - he is totally in love with her - it is very cute. We were also hoping to win a live auction item - Bill Telepan ( a parent at Max's school who owns the excellent restaurant Telepan) - offered to cook dinner for 8 in someone's home, wine included. We had a good budget (or so we thought) - but it went for $7200!!! Then he offered to do it a 2nd time if someone else would match that bid - and it was immediately matched. Then he offered it up a 3rd time - and again - snatched up for a mere $7200!! We go to public school!!!! Crazy. But very generous of Bill Telepan - so if anyone needs a great restaurant to go to (I've been several times and greatly enjoyed it) I would highly reccomend Telepan - you will have an excellent meal and at he same time support a very nice and generous person! Good Karma. Finally, a question. What is wrong with some people? Julie and I took a pilates class this morning and as we were leaving a yoga class was coming in. Julie was sitting on the ground putting her shoes on and a woman literally began to put her mat down on top of Julie's feet. She could have put her mat down anywhere else in the room (maybe 2 other people had come in for the yoga class already) - but she chose to put it down right on top of Julie. Okay - maybe this was her favorite spot in the class (not three inches to the left or to the right) - but she could have waited until Julie got up. This is still bothering me four hours later - I probably should have said something at the time but I held my tongue - so now I ask - what is wrong with some people???? Yoga / Karma / Do unto others...???? Bill Telepan she was not!