Costumes

Posted on October 29, 2011 by neferstie

Early on this week I finally finished the last bit of the costumes. The kids were very particular, and well…I get distracted easily. I basically made them up as I went. I used other clothing to cut off patterns and tea and dylon dye for dyeing the bobcat and tiger. The tiger stripes are all sewn on, while the bobcat spots are stamped on with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium and a potato stamp. A took over the stamping and it was quite fun to watch her. For the shark, I looked at a photo of a pattern I liked and then just made it up. I think it’s my favorite one! Though C lives in her costume so I’m really happy that she finds it so comfortable (and that it’s holding up to lots of washings well). A is happy with hers, but trying to keep it clean for Halloween (and it’s really warm and the weather has been more for short sleeves rather than fleece sweats).

: Shark!

: He never breaks character in this costume.

: A bobcat, a shark, and Tiger Cailyn

: Adeline did most of the potato-stamping of her spots.

: Tails!

This is for you, Brett.

Posted on October 27, 2011 by neferstie

We had pancakes and we didn’t forget you. <3

Children’s Creativity Museum

Posted on October 26, 2011 by neferstie

Wait, what? I haven’t been posting? Shhh…go get distracted by something fascinating on Reddit or Pinterest and there will be something here before you know it!

Anywho.

Two weekends ago my parents picked up Roland for a bit of bonding time with them and his cousins. From all reports he had a blast, so I’m trying not to feel too guilty that I didn’t realize until after he was gone that that Saturday was the grand re-opening of the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco (previously known as Zeum). We love that place and it was free for the day. So yay!

: Does one ever grow out of loving merry-go-rounds?

: Paws loved it.

: “A Cheshire Tent” Her creation from a mystery box full of randomness.

: “Mac ‘n Cheese” (She was to create a favorite food from her box items.)

: Matching dress up!

: We all added to the huge chalk drawing outside at the end.

Dirt!

Posted on October 14, 2011 by neferstie

Library Fountains

Posted on October 9, 2011 by neferstie

Rainy Day Cardi

Posted on October 5, 2011 by neferstie

: “Paulie”

: Tripods & remotes attract the wildlife.

: No matter what we are doing, R needs to run up and randomly give me hugs. <3

Love. This. Sweater. Though it did give me a few panic attacks along the way.

#1: The original plan was to have the sweater light grey with undyed stripes. I used the silver dye from knitpicks and it came out WAY darker than I meant. Crap. So I tried to even out the botched dye job and was very careful to dye the coordinating yarn with a very light hand with the same dye.

#2: Actually not really an attack, but a lot of tinkering with the pattern as I went. I was trying to keep the sweater small enough for my frame, but also long enough since all my height is in my torso. I tried playing Clue while messing with all the stitch counts and I was yelling that the designers math was all wrong. It wasn’t. Don’t figure out who killed who with what while trying to mesh 2 sizes and doing a bit of other random improve.

#3: I DIDN’T DYE ENOUGH YARN!! I thought I way over compensated, but I didn’t think about the fact that not only did I want full length sleeves, but that I would need to add several inches to the body length. Crap! That first batch was a @#$^% to dye. (Tiny panic attack when I couldn’t find anymore yarn…but it was there. Put away. In the closet.)

#4: Dye lot #2 came out less variegated and a hair lighter after using all of the rest of the dye. What am I going to do?

Hah! Alternating the 2 dyelots on the sleeves worked out perfectly. Annoying, but you can’t tell the difference from the body. I have the ittiest bit of dyelot #1 leftover. All the button band is knit with dyelot #2, but it works, so yay!

Again, I love this sweater. So comfortable and fits like I wanted. So yay! But BOO to weaving in the bazillion ends and have I ever told you how much I hate picking up stitches? Oh, and how sloooow I am at i-cord bind off? But still. Worth. It.

Phases of the Moon

Posted on September 29, 2011 by neferstie

This week our focus has been on phases of the moon. We decorated plates yesterday (and destroyed some tortillas), and today we (*cough* I) made a model to show the different phases. All of the colored ping pong balls are placed on the board in the same orientation, but with your head in the middle as Earth is, your perspective changes.

: C’s phases of the moon plate

: A plate and our model tortilla

: R modeling our moon phase model

: 2 people have to help rotate the board around the “Earth” in the middle

: New moon

: Waxing Cresent

: First Quarter

: Waxing Gibbous

: Full Moon

: Waning Gibbous

: Last Quarter

: Waning Cresent

Killing time.

Posted on September 26, 2011 by neferstie

C had her activities day class at Crab Cove, so the littles and I hung out there while we waited for her.

: R with Teddy Dog (Brett’s childhood lovey) & his “school” bag.

: He picked sharks, of course.

: Front of bag.

: My 6 year old.

Live Oak

Posted on September 25, 2011 by neferstie

Wednesday was a math activity/school photos day for Hickman. It was kind of nice that I had so much going on that day since it kept me from thinking too much about the fact that it was my wedding anniversary and that I couldn’t even talk to Brett. He did send me an adorable email, so it was still special.