Knit Bath Mitts

Here's the pattern for the Knitted Bath Mitts I did for some easy yet useful holiday gifts:

Materials:

Cotton or Hemp worsted weight yarn (one ball of ecohemp will give you two bath mitts)

size 11 double pointed needles, or a nice long circular for doing magic loop one stitch marker

size F (or close to it) crochet hook

tapestry needle

Gauge:

not important for this project

Techniques Used:

Knit in the round

Purl in the round

increase (any method)

k2tog

k3tog

crochet chain

crochet slip st (sl st)

Pattern Instructions:

Cuff:

Cast on 30 sts LOOSELY using the long tail cast on method.

Place Marker at beginning of round (slip the ring through the stitch, easier!)

Divide evenly onto dpns or the two needles of your magic loop set-up.

Join to work in the round.
Knit 2 Purl 1 around, using the extra tail of your cast on WITH your working yarn until it is used up. This will give more heft to the cast on edge as well as save the step of weaving in the tail.

Repeat ribbing round for 2 inches.

Mitt:

Begin working in stockinette, increasing one stitch on each dpn (or 3 sts evenly around if using magic loop method). 33 sts

Knit 6 more rounds evenly in stockinette
Purl one round.

Knit 5 rounds stockinette.
Purl one round.

Knit 4 rounds stockinette.

Purl one round.

Knit 3 rounds stockinette.

Purl one round.

Knit 2 rounds stockinette.

Purl one round.

Knit one round.

Purl one round.

Because guage wasn't measured, now is the time to try on your mitt. If the ribbing is sitting comfortably around your wrist, and the body of the mitt reaches the ends of your fingertips or further, you are ready to decrease. If the body of the mitt seems short (remember it will shrink!!!!), knit and purl more rounds in an alternating pattern that pleases you.

Decrease rounds:

K2tog around to last 3 sts. K3tog. 16 sts remain.

k2tog around. 8 sts remain.

Using crochet hook, draw working yarn through remaining sts, drawing up a loop. Crochet a chain 6-7 inches long using that loop as your starting point. Bring the last chain back down to the top of your mitt and sl st to the mitt, forming a hanger for your mitt. You may wish to sl st a few more sts to secure the hanging loop.

Weave in end(s).

Done!

Bluhg

That's how I feel today....bluhg.
But I prolly won't feel that way tomorrow. At least I hope not.
I'll have more 'better' stuff to post soon.
Promise.

What to do on a Wintery Day.....Part I

First you can make up a new batch of playdough, and PLAY!

Then you can take mama's wraps (baby carrying cloth) and make HAMMOCKS!!!!

Then you can use another baby carrier, and take your baby sister for a RIDE!

Then take some pictures of your most recent LEGO SHIPS!

Finally, Get dressed for school in your BEST SHIRT and TIE!

BREAD

I use a stand mixer with a dough hook to do all my kneading. If you don't have a mixer like that, then use this recipe with the standard bread mixing method

2 c warm water
1/4-1/3 c oil (I've used shortening, butter, canola oil, coconut oil, grapeseed oil...I usually use safflower now)
1/4-1/3 c honey
1/4-1/3 c gluten (sometimes called vital wheat gluten, it's available at the health food store, or in the natural foods section of cub foods)
2 t salt
5 c whole wheat flour
1 T yeast (or 1 packet)

Layer in that order in the mixer and turn it on low. Let it mix for about 1-2 minutes, then turn it to the next higher (level 2 on my machine)....let it mix while you go throw in a load of laundry, step on a lego, get some ice for your twisted ankle, sit down on the couch and notice the puddle of unknown liquid on the floor, get a towel, mop up the liquid, run downstairs to throw the towel into the washing machine that you just started, come back up and see the child dribbling ice water all over from the bag you were icing your ankle with, find another towel.......

Oh, Wait! What is that NOISE????? OH!!!!! The Mixer! I'm making bread!
Check the dough, and add up to another cup of flour (more like 1/2 cup) ONE TABLESPOON AT A TIME, until the dough is cleaning the sides of the bowl (nice...now you don't have to!). Then put a towel (you could use the damp one from the ice water incident) over the bowl, and let it rise for a while (1-2 hours, or again, til you remember).

Then have a young child PUNCH the dough down. Remove the dough from the bowl, shape into two loaves, place into greased (not oiled) loaf pans, and let rise again until the pans are full of dough.

Bake in a preheated 350* oven for about 30 minutes or so. Golden tops, hollow sound when the bottom is 'thumped', and your good! Cool on racks (and I don't mean breasts!). Eat! (now this part might involve breasts, depending on the age of your helper!)

by the number

I was having a heart to heart, mama to mama, conversation with a dear friend yesterday. We'll call her M. The topic of dress size came up (well, jeans size, to be exact). M was a feeling down about the number she was seeing at her backside. I could fully understand where she was coming from. I repeated back to her something that a friend had retorted to me years ago..."It's just a number, no different than a shoe size." True, it is just a number. But for some reason it has more significance to us when its printed inside our pants than it does inside our shoes. It got me thinking about the numbers in our lives, and here are some of my thoughts, specific to my friend M. Please plug in your own numbers, below:

3. The number of people's needs that M is working to meet EVERY DAY. She doesn't do this in a hap-hazard, off-the-cuff, Sloppy Sally kind of way. M thinks about it with every move she makes, all day, every day. It's not simple and it's not easy.

7. The number of years since "she" became "we". Staying married isn't easy. It takes work, on both sides, and M is doing that work on a daily basis.

9. The number of months that her darling son lived inside her body. M was nauseas, kicked, stretched, and pained, and believes to her core that it was worth every minute. It was.

28. The number of times per day that M doubts her abilities and decisions as a mother.

786. The number of days that M has been breastfeeding her dear boy, so far. This means that for more days than her husband has worked at his demanding job since the birth of their son (no offense, D....you're numbers are most definately important too), M has been available to nurse little S. Every feeding, every owie, every naptime, bedtime, bored-time, and countless other times. Which adds up to:
8646. The number of times, at the least, that M has been there with her whole self, her whole being, her whole body to mother her son at her breast.

5502. The number of diapers that M has changed (give or take) in the last couple of years.
5500. The number of times it hasn't been fun (ok, maybe that one is a little off).

5. The number of people in M's family of origin. She thinks of them daily, loves them dearly.

1037. The number of times every day that M wants a cup of coffee. With cream.

1. The number of times every day that M gets that cup of coffee, can drink it while it's still hot, doesn't have to share it with anyone, and gets to center herself for a moment, if she's lucky. With cream.

So it seems to me that in the Big Picture, we can rest assured that there are many numbers far more important than the near holy Jeans Size. And these are just a few of them. So, to every mama, everywhere, let's all recalculate our numbers.

Oh, and one last number:

7. M's shoe size.

sadly sick

My big boy is sick....not terrible, but not great. He woke in the middle of the night with a tummy ache, early morning added a headache, and around breakfast time a fever joined the party. So, off to the doc it was, hoping for a strep test (these are his classic symptoms) and some nice Abx. Well, the rapid strep was negative, he threw up, and his fever left. So now he's just incubating a headache, which is good news really. We'd rather not infect the elderly Great-Grandparents with anything yucky for Thanksgiving.

Until then, I think I have no more to say. Busy Busy Busy, just as we all are.
Have a great Over-Eating Day!
And for you CRAZIES that plan to shop on Friday......well, you'll get what you deserve!

Sew Crafty?

My friend, while reading this blog, came up with this question:
"How long have you been crafty? Have you always been like this, was your mom a crafty person, or did it just happen when you became a mom?"
Here is my answer..... (for the short answer, scroll to the bottom of this post.....for the long answer, read on!)
Well, my mom did sew a little bit (she made me some matching clothes for my dolls and me, new easter dresses, etc)...I guess in a way she taught me to sew. BUT, she is VERY 'follow the directions' and I am NOT. I haven't used a pattern in ages.
When Drew was a baby we had NO money....seriously, we had an annual income of $18,000 one year. And we lived in this house, with these bills, with two cars, Tony was in school full time and working part time and I was at home with Drew. So I HAD to get crafty. I made most all of Drew's clothes for a couple years. Basically anything that we didn't get for free I would make. And even when I made stuff, it was from free fabric (hand me down clothes became free fabric!) and I also started making more of the things that Tony and I used.
I started cooking everything from scratch (well, slowly...I didn't start making crackers and homemade pasta on the first day!). And then when I was pregnany with Reid I REALLY wanted to learn to knit....so I did! Then I found (after a couple years) that GOOD yarn was REALLY expensive. So I wanted to learn to spin. But in keeping with my frugalness, a spinning wheel has not made it home yet (for the nice price of $500-600!!!!!). Tony suprised me on Mothers' Day a few years back, and took me to the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival in Washington County, and I bought a drop spindle, some fiber (fancy word for wool fluff), and learned to spin my own yarn. It would certainly go FASTER if I had a wheel, but I'm okay with this for now. I don't really have a place for a wheel anyway.
Fast forward to now........
We have a higher income now, but also more expenses. Cost of living has gone up a TON, Drew is in Tae Kwon Do, and we are feeding twice as many people. BUT.....we can only do it because of the things I make. We buy food almost entirely organic, shopping nearly exclusively for food at our Co-Op (Valley Natural Foods) or the Farmer's Market (in season). I think about our food choices constantly, and I'm not exaggerating.
We also just don't shop. We don't buy things we don't need, and we think carefully about the word need. For example, shoes: My kids each have (at any given time) 1 pair of shoes and one pair of boots that fit (rain boots or snow boots). We have come upon some hand-me-down shoes, and those are great for the backyard fort building, etc. But they don't have 'dress' shoes, etc. Just the basic athletic shoes. And we don't buy them super expensive shoes. I know that some people will take issue with it, saying that it's really important for kids feet to develop well in good shoes, blah,blah,blah. I don't agree, and that's ok. Honestly, I think the research supports that feet develop and maintain health best when they are bare....that's a whole 'nother post. Tony and I also have one pair of shoes per season. Well, he and I have a 'little' bit more than that, but our feet aren't growing, and we keep our shoes for decades....seriously. So, the fact that we don't buy shoes puts that much more money into something we care about....quality food for example.

OK....so that was a L.O.N.G. explanation about us not shopping. What I was going to say about not shopping, was that I MAKE many of the things that we would otherwise shop for. And when you need to make it, and you're also busy, it helps you to re-evaluate whether you really need it or not.
A good example might be pants. I can whip out a pair of pants for a kid age 4 or younger in about 30 minutes. Good, functional, cute pants. And kids seem to need a fair number of pants. Now for ME, a pair of pants is not something I really want to make. I COULD, but I'd rather not. So when I see a pair of pants at the store, I think to myself, "I like those. I want those. I don't TOTALLY NEED those, but I'd like to have them....I could make them. I should make them. If I really want them, I'll make them. I have some fabric big enough to make them. That will take me a week of spare time to make. I don't really want to spend a whole week making pants. I don't really need them....I'm not even sure I WANT them!".......SEE?

Now, on the other hand....
We use cloth diapers. Prefolds, to be exact....those are the regular old rectangular diapers, like your mom, your grandma, and great-grandma used. Many of them I have made. Of the ones we have purchased, all were used. As they started to wear out, I found that really it was just that they were getting thin. Well, I can make them thick again by sewing another layer to them, which is why we stick to the plain-old prefold. I can 'beef-up' a dozen worn-out diapers with $4 of nice hemp fleece. Ta-Dah! Another year of diapers for $4!
Same goes for wipes. We use regular washcloths for baby's bottom, with a fancy wipe solution.....I'll give you the recipe: 1 part Hydrogen, 2 parts Oxygen, or H2O, or WATER. Straight from the tap. Well, I had some baby washcloths that I got for a shower gift with Drew. Those were nice. I needed more. WHOA are baby washcloths expensive! So, I had about 30 hooded baby towels, that we NEVER used, that I got as a hand-me-down. I cut them up, and voila! More washcloths! So, now when something is just so worn out that it's not even suitable to donate, it becomes baby washcloths! or garage rags, or pillow stuffing (cut up into confetti!).

So, here's my big revelation......
Start thinking like your Great-Grandparents did. Don't buy it. Make it. Do Without It. At the Very Least.....THINK ABOUT IT!