HIGH FLYING FUN

On Friday we took Max and some of his friends to go flying on the flying trapeeze. It was so much fun! We did it at the NYC trapeze school, http://newyork.trapezeschool.com/ - it used to be located on the river and was outdoors - but for the winter they moved it to 30th between 10th and 11th - it's in this cool bubble. Max and I have done it before - and he totally loves it and has no fear. He just climbs right up the ladder and off he goes. It really is a great thrill, my heart beats so hard as I climb up the ladder and as I reach out for the bar - but once I start flying it is awesome. I even got caught. (that means I flew through the air, got my knees latched onto the bar, let my hands go and someone on another bar reached out and grabbed me!) I video taped it all - I will have to try to put some video up so everybody can see Max's bravery and my high flying skills (I am working on figuring out how to get my video onto discs and onto you tube.) But in the meantime, just to get a taste, check out Max's friend Henry, he is 6! http://youtube.com/watch?v=22Conbj3r0o Not so much to report on the knitting front. I am still working- very slowly- on my dress. You can kinda see a picture of it - it is the 2nd one in - the girl wearing the boots - http://www.rebecca-online.de/cont_en/heft_archiv/heft_36/seite_08.php. But it is very slow going - I must get up to nearly 400 stitches after row 5. Maybe it will be ready for next summer. It is not a knitting project that I want any of my customers doing!! I also began yet another dress for Zoe from the new Ella Rae book. I am doing it out of Tika yarn, http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/432, in navy, green and white. I had a hard time deciding between that color combo and the red/orange/tan. It is a great yarn, I love knitting with it. It is super soft. The pattern itself is a little wierd - it is a 3 row repeat which is a real pain in the butt because that means you cannot carry the yarn up - but have to cut each time. I am going to have a lot of ends to weave in.

GOT THE PICTURES ON!!!

I (well really Julie) figured out how to get the pictures on - so check out my little girl in her Samba Dress and her new Tiger skirt. Now that I know how to get pictures on look forward to lots of them - I've been trying to convince Max to let me take pictures of him in all his sweaters and cuddled up in his new blanket. We'l see - I might have to think of a good bribe...

Am I nuts?

I finally finished Zoe's skirt this weekend. All I've had to do for weeks was the i-cord - but it was just so boring. But I did it and sewed it together and I must say the skirt is adorable. The pattern is from Barefoot Knits - with some tweaks (like the boring i-cord) by me. I made the skirt in orange and brown cotton classic http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/14, it looks a little tiger-like - I might have chosen other colors if I had to do it again - but I don't - so orange and brown are good. I need a cute brown top to go with it for the summer - brown is a hard color to find for a little girl though. I took some pictures which I will post soon. (I am having trouble with the pictures - what is the best way to get them on?) I basically tortured Zoe the other morning, dressing her up and trying to get her to stand still for a million pictures. I got some cute ones - although the photo session did end in tears. I am still working on her cream sweater in the Mayra http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/414 - just one sleeve to go. However, I've gotten a little side tracked...I decided to knit a dress from the new Rebecca book for myself. I think I might have lost my mind. I cast on 242 stitches for the skirt part - and everyother row I do yarn overs and increase a gazillion stitches until on row 7 I finally do some knitting 2 together. I haven't actually counted how many stitches I get up to - but this morning it took me a whole episode of In Treatment to do my row with the most stitches. I'll be done with the dress by next summer and then it probably wont even fit well. For some reason though I really want to make it. I am making it in a new yarn we just got - GGH Leona - it is half cotton and half acrylic - but very light and drapey and I think it will be excellent for the dress. I chose a nice navy that I'll wear with my corkies. Let's see how long it takes for me to become disenchanted with this project!

SOLITUDE

Just got back late last night from a fantastic weekend of skiing! We (Max, Jeff & I - we left poor Zoe home) went to Solitude mountain in Utah and it was really great. Max went to ski school and was going down steep blue trails and riding chairlifts by himself by the end of the weekend. And at Solitude some of the chairlifts don't have bars that come down - it freaked me out a little - having Max on such a lift without an adult - but I was brave. The only time I almost vomited though was when Max and Jeff went up a really long lift with no bar and I was sitting behind them watching Jeff on his Blackberry and Max squirming a bit. My heart was in my throat. But on a better note - we had fantastic weather - it snowed the first day and was beautiful and sunny the next two days. And I skiied like a champ! I went down double black diamond trails, through trees, down steep stuff with bumps and I am here to tell about it. It really was a nice mountain - not too crowded, lots of terrain, good ski school - I would highly reccommend it! And flying to Salt Lake City is soooo easy. Really, the trip is almost the same as going to Vermont and the skiing is a million times better. On the plane I worked on knitting a cardigan for Zoe out of the Gedifra Mayra yarn. It has a cute lace bottom that I stole from one of the Sublime books and then it is just a plain drop sleeve cardigan, in off white. It will be perfect for the spring. I also started reading Eat, Pray Love - a book I've been avoiding because everyone has said I wouldn't like it, given my lack of any sort of spirituality and my love of long, engrossing novels - but I actually really like it so far - Elizabeth Gilbert is a great writer - very funny and wonderfully descriptive. And I even got to watch a movie while I was knitting on the way home. I watched Gone Baby Gone. Disturbing, but I liked it a lot. So, all in all the weekend was a sucess. But it is always nice to come home. Also - check out the post above - I put some pictures on of Zoe in her new dress that I made out of Katia Samba. http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/421

Bad Bloggers

So, we haven't blogged in a month. Bad Bloggers! I am making a new commitment - to blog at least once, if not twice a week from now on - so those of you out there that are actually reading this - so sorry. In the past month things have been a bit hectic around here. We've gotten almost all of our new spring/summer yarns. We have a ton of great stuff - you should definitely check out our website - www.theyarnco.com. Getting it all out on the shelves and onto the website takes up a bunch of time - but it is here, it is on the site and now we just have to knit up samples. We've got some beautiful linens and linen blends (my personal favorites during the summer months) - and just so many great colors. Another new favorite of mine is the summer sublime line of yarn. There is an organic cotton that is to die for and a soy and cotton blend that I am planning to use to make Zoe a jacket that is in one of the new Sublime books. On another note, part of the reason I've been so remiss here is because I was on vacation. We went to Jamaica for a week. The weather was great - but as all of you with young children know - when you go away with your kids, you cannot really call it a vacation - more like a change of venue. All of us in one room - with Zoe waking up at 5:30 am was a little tiring. But she thouroughly enjoyed running around the lobby of the Ritz Carlton in her PJs at 5:45am, flirting with all the employees as they arrived for work. And we weren't the only ones in the lobby - so she had many other early morning playmates. A word of caution to anyone out there planning a family vacation - I would steer clear of the Ritz Carlton in Jamaica. While it is a perfectly fine place - the kid's club is basically non-existant and the food is TERRIBLE. We did end up getting Max this lifegaurd/babysitter with two other 5 year old boys - and he took them out on a Hobie Cat and played soccer and basketball with them and swam with them - so it all worked out - Max had a great time...we've just had better luck at Club Med. Max also fell in love with Reggae down there and is into Bob Marley now - it is very cute. Tune in soon. I will be back - and maybe Julie will be too....

Spring Yarns

It was pouring rain in NYC on Friday. It certainly did not feel like spring was on its way! On my way to pick Max up from school I decided to stop by the store (even though it was my day off) and dry off a little. When I stepped inside, I stepped into spring. There was lots of yarn all over the floor, in the process of being unpacked, checked in and stocked. It did look a little messy and I was happy it was Friday not Tuesday (Julie's day off) -- but it also looked beautiful. So many bright colors in great fibers...I just wanted to stay and admire them all day. We got Rowan Summer Tweed in - this is one of my favorite spring yarns --perfect for a transitional sweater. We also got Millefili Fine and Porto Cervo, two basic cottons that we carry every year. Then we also got a bunch of new yarns - Desert Flower and Sonora from Nashua - Desert Flower is a cotton/linen blend and comes in subtle multicolors. It is sure to have great drape. Sonora is silk, linen and viscose. It has a crimp to the yarn and comes in muted colors. Each colorway has a color and then a taupe color twisted together. Very pretty. From Gedifra we got Mayra, which is mostly cotton and a little poly. It is very soft and comes in great colors. We also got Ayala which is viscose, poly and linen. The yarn has a slight shimmer from the poly - that dresses it up a little. We also got two great new yarns from Skacel --Fashion Silk - which is mostly silk and a bit of poly and is about 3.5 stitches to the inch. It comes in very rich colors. And Soja Bama a soy and bamboo blend. It has a nice drape and great colors. All of these yarns will be on the website as soon as Julie can get them up. (She is in charge of the website) I can't wait to start knitting with them - but first I have to finish Max's blanket. I think I have about forty inches - so I'm almost there. But actually, I am going to Jamaica next week and think I will choose a great spring project to take with me as I cannot schlep the blanket!

Driving in my car...

First, I want to say that it is very exciting to see that we have at least one person following our blog! Glad you found it and we will be sure to ask you any technical queries that come up! Next, I don't know what we were thinking doing this blog thing…if we don't have time to knit, how do we have time to blog???? But anyway --this past weekend we (Jordana, Jeff, Max & Zoe) went up to Stratton, VT. I was very excited to have four hours of driving time – which in my fantasy world equated to four hours of knitting time. I was all set to start a new blanket for Max, which he requested since his baby blanket that I made him is too small. I picked out some nice navy Tiramisu yarn, http://www.theyarnco.com/brand_display/335, which I planned to double on a #15 needle and garter for 56 inches-- then put a grey and red border on later. Perfect car knitting! Perfect that is if you actually get to knit in the car. We picked Max up from school at around 3pm, right after Zoe's nap. I popped a Dora DVD in and thought we were good to go. Zoe, however, while she loves Dora, hates the car. And she began moaning and crying virtually immediately. Max then began whining that he couldn't hear – and that he didn't want to put headphones on so that he could hear. So, needless to say, peaceful knitting was out of the question. I then climbed into the back and tried to soothe Zoe with some crackers and other snack foods. After about an hour and a half, as she was demanding more crackers and I was looking for them, she decided it would be a good time to vomit. And so the drive went…we then watched a Goodnight Gorilla DVD about a hundred times (which Max was a pretty good sport about) until we finally got to the pizza place in Lebanon NY where we were supposed to meet our friends – who it turned out were still about twenty minutes behind us because the had a yacker in their car too. So, we sat down at the pizza place and ordered. Max then announced that he was not going to eat until his friend Isa got there – to which I very nicely replied that I did not care if he ever ate again. But Isa did come and Max did eat and the rest of the drive up to Stratton was fairly peaceful with two sleeping children. So I knit for maybe 45 minutes. Then, both woke up as soon as we stopped the car when we arrived at Stratton. Max went right back to sleep but Zoe was up until almost one and would not let me take my hand off her all night – much less actually put her in the pack and play. The rest of the weekend was great though– Max went to ski school. He skied down a black diamond (he is 5) – and I knit a bit while Zoe napped and then skied on Sunday. Both children slept almost the entire ride home and transferred successfully. I didn't get much of the blanket done – but I did get a new knitting project to do since Max lost his hat that I just made him. And – I'll probably get to make the hat today as I stand on line for two hours outside his school so I can sign him up for the after-school activities he wants to take! (That is trying to put a positive spin on things).