Maybe I should call it Earthami's Lame Blog...

So months, do you think it has been months since my last post? I think it has been months. Sorry about that.

On the homeschool front things are going well. We are considering going it alone next year without the virtual academy and without K12. I'm going to be talking to my friend who has written K-5 curriculum before and see if she can help me pull it together. That has to wait for her to finish with her Law School finals and then the Barbri in February then I will bug her about it. Until then I will pull ideas together of things I'd like to include and have a somewhat organized idea of what I'm thinking of for next year.

Part of the decision to change from K12 is the boy HATES it. He will cry that he hates it and not be happy. I did change things up a bit for 2 weeks there and brought in a guest teacher (my sis) to teach him about animal classification, adaptations and habitat. (She was a bio major in school) We did most everything around that topic and he had a wonderful time. I did not hear once in those 2 weeks about how he HATES COVA. I'm thinking unit studies approach may be what we want to do. I may see if I can do that for the rest of this year. I'll see what we are suppose to cover with History and Science and then tailor the rest to that.

Knitting, since this is still officially a knitting blog. I finished the sweater for the boy and he loves it. The sleeves are too short and the body too wide and I am the most critical of my own knitting. I'm working on a baby sweater set for my bff to give as a shower gift. Need to complete knitting on one bootie and sew both up then sew on buttons and it will be done. I will give it to her on Friday. Then I have 5 pairs of socks to knit up as gifts and my holiday knitting will be as complete as it is going to get.

Maybe next time I'll include pictures but not this time.

Hmmm should the blog name change?

I am still knitting. Just not much right now since I'm fighting with the boy about phonics. Phonics sucks, there is nothing interesting about phonics. It is just practicing saying words over and over and over again. The boy doesn't actually seem to hate everything about phonics, it is decidedly his least favorite subject but what he seems to actually hate is writing sentences. I don't know why. He will write the 6 or so words I dictate to him just fine but if I give him a 6 word sentence you would think I had asked him to read Hamlet and write a 30 page paper explaining how it is relevant to the modern world. Not 'The bug was on his leg.'

Later that day as we are snuggled up on the couch reading silly poems for Language Arts I get him to read one, it only had words he either knows or can easily decode. Then the next one is a little harder but I wanted us to read it together. He was done. Wanted only to have to fight to read words during phonics. LA is suppose to be fun where we read fun stories and poems and then maybe talk about them some. This is when I discovered just how passionate I am about reading. (If you know me in real life you know that for most of my life I have always, always had a book with me)

I started telling him that the whole reason we work on phonics is so that we can learn to read things like these poems. To read things that make us laugh, or cry, to get angry or happy. We read so we can experience the joys of the world no matter where we are in the moment or what is happening in the moment.

He looked at me as though I was speaking another language and looked very, ummm, let's just call it firm. (I have never enjoyed the word stubborn) I read the rest of the poems but it has me thinking about this approach and if it is the right one for my boy.

Knitting, what am I working on? Well here is a picture of the sweater I'm making for my boy.

I have started on the stripes, can't you tell? Yeah me either. Actually neither can the boy. Well no matter it is his sweater for the year and maybe next year he will pick colors that contrast a bit more.

Yeah, hi there!

So the summer is officially over and school has started. We survived the first week of school at home (since I'm not an official homeschooler, we use a virtual charter school that is a public school). It got easier as the week went on but Monday I thought I was going to collapse by the time we finished all the lessons (4 of them) The worst was Art. The boy might be a perfectionist, maybe. He did not want to make a piece of art that was an animal because it would never look right. I understand his angst, I had it myself. I never took Art classes in Middle School & High School because I felt like I didn't know enough going in to be able to do them. (Yes I see that makes no sense now but at the time I really and truly believed it.

Here are some pictures of him working...

First 2 are during math. He is very happy during math. Easy Peasy and doesn't take too long to do.

This is during Phonics and it was during one of the few times he was somewhat happy, or at least not completely pissed to be working at this.

I'm working on a sweater for the boy. The Tidewater has been put to bed for awhile. It was too complicated for me to do during vacation. We didn't just sit and hang much. So a top down raglan for the boy was started. He is pleased. I can't tell the difference in the colors he picked but he likes them so I don't really care.

Also have a spinning wheel that a friend gave me to use. I'm very excited and can't wait to get started playing with it. I'm sure my first yarn will look like shit but I don't care. I will have made it with my own hands!!!! So excited.

Sigh...

I got all cocky and decided I was knitting to loose and needed to tighten things up a bit so it wouldn't look all loosey goosey and guess what happened? Yeah the thing was puckering and looking like crap, and while I've been know to accept crap in my knitting I didn't want this project to be crap so I frogged. I'm now back to the 4th row in the large diamond pattern and will see if I can keep things loose. I'm a fairly tight knitter though so who knows how that is going to turn out.

I'm very, very tempted now to cast on the Cable Down Raglan, but I know if I do I will drop the Tidewater like a hot potato and not pick it back up for 2 years. So I'm keep the sweater off the needles so I will finish this project.

The garden is not looking much better I have not gotten the raised beds made and so things are languishing in their pots. Must do that tomorrow.

Tidewater is my life....

So I homeschool my son, not in knitting yet, and there is so much to do around the house in any given day. Am I doing any of it? Well schooling is still happening, but the laundry, not so much. I did take some time out today to put in the rest of the flowers for my back flower bed. Now I need to work on the front flower bed and making the raised bed for my veggies.

The thing is all I want to do is knit on the Tidewater. I'm a bit itchy to start the Cable Down Raglan as well but I want to get a bit farther on the Tidewater first. See I can even put off the itchy of a new fabulous project because of this one. (Ha! That makes it sound like I have tons of projects on the needles at once, I don't cause you know socks don't count)

That's how far I am, not very, but I'm very happy with it. Think I can have it done in time to wear to the Washington Coast for our summer vacation? It's cool on the coast in June right? I can wear it and not die of a heat stroke right? Eh I'm taking it anyway.

Yarn Crawl

A friend asked if I was going to buy yarn at every yarn store we stopped at. The answer was yes apparently I was. Well with the exception of one store. It was very, very small and the owner/employee was very interested in her own project and not helping me with mine. There was a lovely French pastry shop next door though and we did get something there. :D


Wanna see the lovely yarn I bought? Well your going to anyway...





Bought this at the first shop, Posh, A Yarn Boutique, it is a lovely shop with a wonderful selection. Unfortunately I was being picky about the yarn I wanted for the Tidewater Wrap (a Ravelry link) She had a fabulous merino/cashmere blend that would Divine. It was also not in colors I wanted to put together. The Tidewater calls for 6 colors and I really wanted them to be mostly in the same family. So I had to walk away without it, but I did find that lovely yarn. It was like foreshadowing or something.

We then made our way to the Lamb Shoppe I think this was my favorite shop. (Well each was my favorite as we were there.) The great thing about the Lamb Shoppe is it has a HUGE selection of yarn, and better yet, it has a coffee bar right there in the shop. So very nice. I had moved on to looking for yarn for the Cable Down Raglan(Ravelry link). I was not happy with what I was finding for the Tidewater. I looked at Brown Sheep Lambs Pride but started thinking that would really limit when I could wear the sweater. It just does not get that cold here most of the time in winter. So I looked at the their Cotton Fleece talked with one of the wonderful women there and decided that would be what I would get.



The color is called peridot and it is a bit greener than the picture, but fairly close. Very happy with it.

Then because the theme had become I get sock yarn everywhere because it doesn't count, I picked this up. I'm not sure when I changed to blues from greens but the color of the day seemed to be blue.

I'm not naming the next shop since I don't have anything nice to say and I didn't even buy sock yarn there.

Finally we drove out to Shower of Flowers which is actually a favorite shop of mine. I love going there, friendly, knowledgeable staff and a ginormous selection of yarn. I finally found the yarn for the Tidewater. We sat on the floor of the shop and looked at all the colors available and decided what to get.

Isn't it pretty. I'm so happy with it. The pattern calls for purple but the purple they had were decidedly blue in hue and I wanted something that would pop. I think the salmon is it. I also bought Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements a US size 1 40inch circ needles, and the coolest button to go with the wrap ever. That picture will have to be for another day though.

All in all a wonderful day of yarn fun.

It's been 2 months so time for an update.

I have been knitting, and gardening, and teaching and well lots of stuff I just haven't been recording it here or really anywhere.

So let's talk about the knitting and then maybe some of the other things. I finished a hat for a friend and she loved it. I used the Harvard Square Cap (ravelry link) pattern from the Fall 2008 Interweave Knits. I added to i-cord strings to the ears and a sc crochet loop to the top of the hat so she could tie it on as a night cap or tie them up inside the hat to wear during the day. She loved it so I'm happy with what I did.

Also finished the Thorn & Thistle (ravelry again) twinset from Interweave Knits Spring 2006. Well except it wasn't the whole twinset only the tank. I didn't buy enough yarn to knit both. Kind of regret that now, but didn't have the money to buy yarn for both and figured I'd get more wear out the tank than the cardigan. Still true actually. I think I need to knit this again in another color so I have more than one. Thing is I knit it in worsted weight yarn and the pattern calls for DK weight and I'm not sure what to do for the second one I knit. Stick with the same yarn and just pick a different color (used Knit Picks Shine Worsted) or if I should try to find a dk weight yarn and knit it in the 'correct' size for me.

Need to find a new project. I'm going on a yarn crawl for my birthday next Saturday. Very excited, figure I can definately find a new project then. I really need to go through all the yarn in the garage, we have had a mouse infestation this winter/spring and I need to see what is still usable and what needs to be thrown far away for fear of mouse pee. *shudder*

The business of knitting or something like that...

So I really am going to set up a Etsy shop and I'm looking for the logo. Some of you have seen some of these before, (well if you came over here when I asked you to) but I want to explain a bit more.

What I'm really asking is which of the sheep you like the most. The plan is to have earthami knits coming off whichever sheep wins the beauty contest. (Yes Heather, the plan is to have it in green, you are absolutely right about that)

The poll is off to the right.

I have no other instructions, although if you have more to say please post in the comments or email me directly.

ETA: The final choice will be re-painted so the fine details will be better and it is good to know if you liked the face on one and the body of another. (thanks Sis)

Sheep 1














Sheep 2

Sheep 3