Baby Blankets and Graduations Pops

I started the first official project for my nephew... that's right my sister is having a boy! My sister doesn't want the typical all blue boy stuff so she's going for a lot of greens, reds and browns.

My idea for the blanket came from seeing an adorable baby dressed in a striped onesie over 4th of July. I selected two shades of green, one sort of acidic color for the lighter and a leafy green for the darker.

When I started I was prepared for a simple garter stitch blanket with some color changes (very easy take anywhere, or movie watching knitting). I've made a habit of knitting this while I walk home from work- It takes me exactly one row to get from the office to the house (and has the added bonus of a little stress relief if it's been a "one of those" days).

But then I encountered this...

It's my new skein of yarn in three separate pieces. As I was knitting I noticed another yarn tail got uncovered (weird) and then another (not good!). So I decided I had no choice but to roll the entire thing into a ball and figure out what was going on. When I was done I ended up with these three separate balls of yarn. I've never seen anything like it and can't imagine how it got all rolled up into a skein without anyone noticing this!

I'm think that will be the only excitement in this project... after all it's just a garter stitch rectangle. But I'll show you when I'm done with it.

Tomorrow we're going to a graduation party I decided to make these from bakerella's site. I couldn't find the candy she used for the tassel anywhere so I bought some gum paste to make them. I've never worked with gum paste and I'm a little concerned about that... so I'm going to take one last look around the stores tonight for something else I could use that might be easier. I have my knitting with beads class in a few hours- once I'm back the lollipops are going to be my project for tonight.

(cross your fingers for me!)

So much catching up!

It's been quite a week or so since I've last posted.

• Busy at work.
• My mother-in-law sold her house and is moving into a condo- lots of packing to help with.
• My sister has started on Baby plans (more on this to come... I have knitting and nursery and baby shower plans to share, yippee)
• And we've been doing a big project at the house.... my husband is building this!

An old shed that's attached to our house is being torn down and he's putting up this really nice one.

And through all of that we've been continuing to have tons and tons of thunder storms (pretty much everyday) complete with downpours and even hail. Which has made picture taking for the blog almost impossible. Since all of our projects are pretty dependent on good weather every time I have a second to take a picture of a craft it's been about to pour and has been too dark out!

We are in this crazy weather pattern of super sunny glorious looking days- that turn ominous within minutes and produce unbelievably strong storms, then usually back to sun for a little while before another one rolls in.

But this volatile weather has sure made for some pretty great skies! Here we were waiting to watch the fireworks. It turned into a sunny day (after a long rain earlier that afternoon)- the town had live music and all sorts of food booths- it was so much fun. I took a million sky pictures, the clouds were just amazing.

And here comes the storm (right on cue- about 30 minutes before the fireworks were supposed to start).

The fireworks had to start early- and even then it started to rain almost exactly when they began. We watched them under a tarp (it was under our blanket to keep the wet ground from soaking thru) I've never seen lighting and fireworks at the same time before... until this year.

The cats have been racing for the window at the first sign of any sunlight. Here's Pebbles (posing just after a storm in the last bits of sun for the day) and Jinx (lounging).

We had only one moment of relaxing time and nice weather happening at the same time over the long weekend. We took Lucy to the park and just relaxed.

On Monday I realized that I have a class at webs on Saturday- so I began furiously knitting the swatches I needed to do for homework. After this weekend these beads will be on this yarn...

and I'll have learned 3 different techniques for how to do that! (I can't wait.)

(By the way- I took this picture outside in the morning to try and get the best light I could. But it was so gray outside that it ended up looking very dark... see what I mean.)