Wake up and smell the pumpkin seeds

You can hide.

You can try to pretend you have other things to do.

You can be inordinately cute

But your pumpkin guts belong to us!

Addie and Gilad's preschool went to the farm this last week (and Addie's 2 year old class used it as an excuse to teach the children all the standard nursery rhymes and songs, so all week we heard her singing "Old MacDonald" and "Baa, baa, Black Sheep" and so on). They came home with popcorn and pumpkins. So we've hacked the tops of their heads off and scooped out the brains and guts and are soon to eat fresh roasted seeds.

The Hedgehog Hats Pattern

The pattern is now available for download on Ravelry. If anyone doesn't have a Ravelry account, I encourage you to go ahead and make one; the free patterns alone are so worth being there. If you choose not to and want the pattern, though, feel free to contact me and I can send you the pdf attached to an email.

Other updates: school is going terrifically for Feivel. This is so much a better fit for him academically, socially, and psychologically. He's enjoying it, he's learning, he's fitting in, he's not a discipline problem, he can start feeling better about himself because he's not a trouble maker any more now that he's in an academic environment equipped to deal with his needs.

I've actually handed in my resignation at work. It's just not working having 2 full time working parents in this family given all the special and the run-of-the-mill medical needs. In two weeks I become a SAHM; well, maybe more of a stay-at-the-doctors'-offices-mom.

Kayla's got a virus but nothing too terrible. She just needs to rest and recover.

And Addie just got a copy of the book, "The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!"

The second hedgehog hat

Done. Now to get the pattern properly written and the charts too.

Plus I've started spinning some comeback type fleece dyed in cochineal and have a sock pattern packed in my knitting bag.

It's not blocked yet but:

Here it is off the needles, with all the steeks whipped and so on:

Minor crisis when finishing off the steeks. I trimmed the first one down to about 3 stitches like I usually would, and then found that wasn't enough for the slippery alpaca and llama yarns, which slipped and began leaving holes! I think I fixed it, and I didn't trim the other 3 sleeve steeks, just whipped them down. The neck ones are all wool and a little yak, and those I was able to safely trim.

Now I just need a chance to wash and block it.

And I finished the first hedgehog hat today, too:

Tirtze's big day

She gets her orthodontic braces tomorrow. I'm sure she won't let me take a picture since she won't let me take any now of her without braces.

I've finished the first sleeve and am on to the ribbing of the second!

I have to finish the knitting tomorrow, because I need the needle in it to finish the hat I'm designing for the Jan Brett lovers group on Rav:

Wednesday night headaches seem typical

Don't they? But on the knitting front, I've finished the sheep motif on one sweater sleeve, and am about to start the bottom border and then work the cuff. It's really hard to believe I'm so close to done. I don't have pics because I keep waiting until my 2 sleeves match before I photograph each section. I do have photos of the Avery scarf I finished last week and I think I forgot to mention (yarn is Cascade Alpaca Lace which I dyed in coreopsis plants):

and of Addie in the ladybug hat I finished today:

and yes, I know she's really too old for the baby bottle, but she likes to have some milk in the bottle when she comes home from preschool every afternoon (both for comfort and because she's allowed to walk around with the bottle but not a cup). I'd rather she drank the milk, which she doesn't want in a cup, than that she drank juice or lemonade, which is what she wants in the cup.

Oh, and Feivel is liking his new school and program, hooray!

sleeves with goats