Yarn Chicken

Tomorrow is Syttende Mai which means The Seventeenth of May in Norwegian and is their Independence Day.  My mom gave me a Norwegian flag for my birthday and I hung it up today and just love having it out.  Marek has a Norge shirt I found at Saver's and will be wearing it to daycare tomorrow.

How time has flown!  It seems like Easter was yesterday!  We were able to travel home to Iowa to stay with my parents once we were all vaccinated.  The boy is three and that speaks volumes.  I love him to bits but boy does he make it difficult sometimes.  The Trying Three's.  When he wants to do something, he wants to do it now and when he doesn't want to do something...well, you get the idea.  We went to the Easter egg hunt in my home town which is a sweet tradition they do there.  At the time we were still very early in the vaccination process and we were in Iowa which means there wasn't a mask to be seen.  Even though the event was outside, I was still so nervous being in a group that large without masks even though I knew I was fully vaccinated.  He wanted to get down and run and we were holding him back waiting for the hunt to start, and when it finally did, he refused to pick up a single egg and instead wanted to see the Easter Bunny.  Aaaarrggh!

Today we finally had some decent weather to put the garden in.  I planted a bunch of pathetic seedlings and some robust store bought seedlings.  I planted seeds over a month ago but it has been so cool that they took forever to sprout even in the house.  We were so far ahead by this time last year.  While working, I had to show him how dandelions work.

He approached it the same way he does bubbles.  I don't know why kids find it hard to blow but it always ends up touching his mouth.  I do think it is a funny picture and might end up on our Christmas card!

He is three and likes to help and be involved and I try to introduce him to cooking and food prep where appropriate.  He is my little kitchen boy and is going to be a good from scratch cook some day.  Here we are sorting dry northern beans for baked beans.  I usually eyeball them and throw them right into the pot but he loves to stir them around with his hands.

We have baked bread together quite a few times and he likes to stir the dough and knead it.  I put him in charge of adding flour to the pastry cloth and he likes to sprinkle it.  His desire to be independent comes through though and we've had some tantrums when I try to correct or take over.  He will try to elbow you away or sometimes he'll shush you when you're saying something he doesn't want to hear.  His tactics are so funny sometimes.

Here is the chair with his flour footprints after we were done!

We've been working on Paint With Water, or "scrub books" as my grandpa Maynerd used to call them.

I've been frantically knitting while we still have cool weather.  This pattern is called Livaï and includes sizing from toddler to adult 3X.  

This sweater was knit with Cloudborn Merino superwash fingering yarn.  This was one of the many closeout quarantine yarn purchases I made from Webs over the past year.

To get these pictures, I had to lie in wait or chase him around the yard with my camera.  He is obsessed with this screen door from the existing crude screened in area outside our downstairs walk out.  Every time he went through it, I held my breath just sure he'd snag the knitting.  He has since broken the screen and now just walks through it.  Aaaaargh!

He was in dire need of a haircut as you can see in these photos.

Here is a picture showing his beautiful blue eyes.  I was hoping to have this done for Easter, not that we were going to wear it anywhere.  I was sidetracked by a promise I'd made last spring...

Dave's sister and her husband are so awesome and help us out all the time with repairs or advice or babysitting, etc.  I think they must have fixed our hot water heater and I asked if there was anything I could do to repay them with my special skills of sewing or knitting.  They took me up on it!  Their son coaches high school baseball and had this hamper frame on wheels with no liner.  It would rarely be taken out of the rack, he just needed something to line it so it could be wheeled from the locker room to the laundry area.  They brought me a photo, measurements and canvas.  I worked out a plan and started it but then everything shut down including last year's baseball season and this went on the back burner while I sewed scores and scores of surgical caps.

My sister in law politely asked me if I could finish that hamper liner because they are having baseball this year which is a good thing.  I basically had it assembled but I finished the initial seams as French seams to control fraying and did the final hem at the top to fit the required measurements.  One thing I'd been dragging my feet about how it would be secured to the frame.  I settled on grommets and the whole thing could be lashed with cording.  I used an awl and a series of knitting needles to make the holes for the 36 needed grommets.  I have to say I was really pleased with how it turned out!

My other knitting compulsion was to knit this vest out of some Baby Llama I had in my stash.  I got this years ago on sale at some yarn shop Dave drove me to when I first moved up here.  I wanted to find a project to use it up and it was going to be close.  When it came time to finish the sleeves, I measured what I had left and had exactly 14 yards for each side!

I just love how it turned out!  This pattern is Poseidon and was a pleasure to knit.  I would make this again in a larger size as he grows.

Here we are running through that screen door again.  He goes out, runs around the garden and through the patio.

This was cleverly constructed and so well proportioned.  He will have a little room to grow in this piece.

This one has since been finished but it needs to be blocked and buttons sewn on.  This was knit with some beautiful subtle mottled gray washable worsted Rowan.  I bought 2 balls in Fargo years ago and wanted to use it for a long sleeve house sweater for the boy.  This one was a photo finish because I didn't have enough for the cast off row and instead had to just pull each stitch through the next making for a tight cast off row.

I don't know why I felt the need to get those few particular balls of yarn out of the stash because THIS is my yarn closet!  It is floor to ceiling packed with yarn I brought with me when I moved from Iowa and more I've purchased living here.  There is foreign souvenir stash and domestic acquisitions.  It was just a drop in the bucket, but it is still satisfying knowing it got used up.

Happy early Syttende Mai!  And go get your vaccine!  I don't understand people who are refusing to get it.  This vaccine is nothing short of a miracle and if you don't get it, you are squandering it.  Our mask mandate has been lifted but I was out shopping on Friday and saw only 3 people not wearing masks in all the stores I visited.  I'm glad people are being responsible and thinking of others.  I mask up and still won't take Marek out in public because he is not vaccinated and there are variants out there and India is on fire.  We all need to do our part especially now that we are so close to the finish line.  Continue to stay safe and enjoy our long awaited spring!