Wednesday Yarn Along, Some New Friends and a Birthday

First thing first.......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!

Well Dad, if I'm old now, you're really getting old. 

And yes Dad, it's Wednesday. I didn't forget to post :)

I'm joining in with all the knitters out there in this week's yarn along.

Here goes:

I'm still knitting my Color Affection Shawl. I still love it. Sorry to bore you with another picture of it, but it's still on the needles. BUT the book changed. I finished The Art of Fielding. Highly recommend it. I loved it. I took a trip to the library yesterday. Mainly I took the baby there to get out of the heat of my house and enjoy their air conditioning. Upon returning home, my air had cooled the house off and I had a bag full of new books to read. Success!

I'm also getting ready to cast on a new project.

I have to be a bit quiet about this one because it's going to be a special gift for my little baby nephew-to-be. And this nephew-to-be needs a darn name. Liz and Nick don't have one yet and I think about names for them ALL DAY LONG! Seriously people. We need a name for this baby boy! It would be so much easier if we all liked common names. But no, we're all a bit weird and like different names...not too different, but different. See the problem here?! Suggestions???

Oh, and that book? Fun! Reads like a book but is a cookbook.

This is the inside of the wooden yarn bowls that my grandfather has started to make. They dropped this one of to me last night. Isn't it beautiful? It's nice to have amazing woodworkers in the family.

The yarn is being knitted into some baby hats for little twin boys that were born this month. I hope to get them done very soon and put in the mail!

Playoff baseball begins tonight for my boys. Oh my. Let the games begin!!!!!

Not sure if I can knit throughout their games if they count now. I think I have to watch more closely.

Well, kind of closely. :)

AND.....

Today I am super duper excited to see and old friend and meet her babies!!!!!!!!!

Andee's best friend from childhood is in town and her two adorable little kids are with her.

So today I get to hang out with a little girl (yeh!!!!) and Chase can meet his 3 week younger friend, Potter! Can't wait. As Libby (2years old) said to her dad last week, "I'm going to see alpacas in NJ!" Yes Libby, you're going to see alpacas in NJ!

Happy Knitting!

-Leanne

Ravelry Bag For Sale!

I was fortunate enough to be voted as a finalist for the Ravelry Project Bag Design Contest.

I have also had a lot of requests to purchase my design on a bag or shirt.

So with Ravelry's blessing, everything is now for sale!

You can buy it here:

http://www.cafepress.com/threeboysdesigns

Happy Knitting!
Leanne

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Joining in with Ramblings and Photos Scavenger Hunt Sunday.

Andee participates in this every week and she's always raving about how fun it is to look for things to photograph all week long. So it's high time that I joined in on the fun. (I really need to get a life)

So here goes for my first ever scavenger hunt....

Beneath Your Feet

Baby Chase almost gets tripped over a hundred times a day. He also insists on crawling as fast as he can to me and pulling up to stand while holding onto my legs.

Capturing Movement

 Never ever ever stops moving.

Texture

Face Your Fears

 

I hate numbers. Math doesn't make sense to me. It will always be my fear....that and a small plane hitting my house while I'm inside of it. THAT is truly my biggest fear, but obviously I can't photograph that. 

Currently

Dalton (my oldest son) was in his room changing out of his baseball uniform this morning and noticed that Star's tail was up. He ran down and reported this information to me. He knew it was a sign that her baby may be coming soon. So we headed out to check on her. No baby yet, but it will be here soon! So currently, there is a lot of alpaca baby watching going on here!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

 

Friday Fences

Little man Chase and some alpaca friends

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Leanne

-Joining in with Friday Fences

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

Joining in with Thursday's Pretty Happy Funny Real...

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ 

Pretty

Spicy before her shearing. Her fleece is beautiful!

Happy

Well, he may not be happy in this moment, but after all that hot fleece is off....ahhhh, happy alpaca!!!

Funny

It's getting hard to tell my mom from the alpacas. They do say that owners resemble their pets!

Real

How is that for real dedication? Our shearer's tattoo is shearing blades and comb. Very cool.

Happy Thursday!

-Leanne

Wednesday Yarn Along

Happy Wednesday Knitters!

Our Farm is CLOSED today because it is shearing day here on the farm. It's a stressful day for the animals and busy for the humans. Please feel free to come by later in the week and see how weird they will look! You can't believe how skinny they are under those beautiful fleeces!!!

Now getting on to the Knitting and Reading.....

Joining in with Ginny for Wednesday's Yarn along.

I am almost done reading The Art of Fielding. I have enjoyed it so much.

I also began the short rows of my Color Affection Shawl. This dark purple is a dreamy color. I love this project. It's just enough work to keep me interested and easy enough for on the go knitting.

I love the color combination!

I also started the second side to my summer tank. Tara and I are both knitting this tank in different yarns. Her top is coming along and it's beautiful. Wait till you see it! We'll have to take a "twinsy" photo. Yes, again....we're super cool.

Happy Knitting!

And thank you to MomMom...up in heaven for providing us with this beautiful sunny day for shearing. After two very rainy days, we welcome this dry sunshine. 

-Leanne

Tuesday Photos

Andee is the photographer expert in the family, but I do like to have some fun with my camera as well. She links to a tutorial every week, so I'll join in today.

The tutorial was how to turn a color photo into black and white using some photoshop work.

 Naya taking a golf cart ride with my parents. She's the newest addition to the farm.

This is Vaughnese. She is at another farm being bred right now, so I thought I would give her some screen time today. She's a beautiful girl.

 Me and my middle boy, Garrett. This was taken in front of "my" apple tree. I say it's mine because every year of my whole life, it blooms the week of my birthday. This year because of the warm winter, it bloomed a month early. I got a few shots with "my" tree. Photo taken by my 10 year old.

Yarn hand spun by Liz

Thank you to everyone that took the time to vote on the ravelry design bag. 

I didn't win, but I am so happy to have been a finalist. The winning design is beautiful.

Maybe next year....

A note about the farm tomorrow:

We will be closed to the public all day on Wednesday May 23rd.

-Leanne

Final Day to Vote

Today is the day. 

Final Round.

Voting closes tonight Monday, May 21st at midnight.

One vote each.

From 253 designs....down to 11

Mine is in the mix

Oh boy oh boy oh boy....my fingers are crossed.

click here for the ravelry bag design contest link 

 Happy Knitting!

Leanne

Wednesday Yarn Along

Hello!

Sorry to be late to the yarn along game today. Working and actually getting a decent shower had to come first. Ok...so now that I'm nice and clean, did some work, had a meeting and fed the baby some lunch, I'm ready to post my knitting and reading.

I have been obsessed with this shawl. I started it after the Sheep & Wool Festival. 

The color is terrible in the photo. Sorry. The yarn is gorgeous though. Miss Babs Yummy Sock Yarn. It's an easy pattern that requires little attention right now. PERFECT for me!!!!!!!

And let's talk about this book.....

The Art of Fielding by Chris Harbach

This was recommended to me by a good reader friend's friend. So I asked for it for my birthday from my husband. Well, I sat down yesterday afternoon (I'm battling a nasty cold/cough) and started to read. Well, let's just say that at 10:30 at night, I had to close it just because my eyes hurt and I sat in the bad part of the couch (totally my doing) and my back hurt. I could not put this book down. Yes, it's a bit about baseball, but much much more than that. I love it already.

And some more knitting....

Tara asked me to knit this along with her. She has never made a "garment" as she says. So we're doing it together. She bought this yarn and wasn't happy with the color. She found some yarn at a local store she liked better, so I took her original yarn and casted on for this sweet summer tank.

It is as easy as can be. Identical front and back. I'll be able to teach her basic decreases and arm/neck shaping. We ended up sitting together in the sun last Friday, on the farm, sipping vodka lemonade drinks as we knitted away. We're so cool.

AND HOLD THE PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just went on to Ravelry to grab my links for projects and guess what?!!!!

My Ravelry Bag design made it to the final round!!!!!

I am in the top 11 designs. I yelled out loud and scared the baby.

Thank you to anyone that voted. 

This would be such a great thing for me to win. Not only does it pay some money (uh...yes please) but it would bring me so much joy to know that fellow knitters have my work on their bags carrying their projects that they put their love and hard work into.

Wow. I'm so excited.

If you want to check it out, here is the link to the contest. Voting is open until Monday May 21st. 

My design is this one:

Happy Knitting!!!

-Leanne

Voting Has Opened

Ravelry is holding a project bag design contest to celebrate 5 years of life.

The contest was open to anyone that was interested. The rules were, computer generated, three colors and Celebrate Ravelry.

The voting has just opened. So I will shamelessly plug myself here.

Ravelry members get one vote each. The winner will receive $500. 

(That would buy some darn nice yarn don't you think?)

The note on the website says that every voter will see the designs in a different order,

so I will post my entry here. Here is the link to the contest:

Ravelry Bag Contest

There were a lot of really nice designs, so please don't feel like you have to vote for me. 

0But you can if you want to :)

Happy Knitting!

-Leanne

Wednesday Yarn Along

Happy Wednesday!

I started my Color Affection shawl. 

Couldn't resist casting on as soon as I got home from the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. 

I bought the yarn from Miss Babs. It's squishy and wonderful. It's her monochrome "Yummy" sock yarn. And yes, it is yummy.

The picture is really dark, so I'll include a picture of the yarn that I took outside which is much truer to what it looks like in person.

The yellow is my favorite. The nice woman in the booth went all the way out to the van to get it for me. I had seen it in a three skein combo, but not on it's own. I went down there with the perfect yellow yarn in my head. I'm so happy to have found it. I started with the yellow, then added the grey/purple and the third part will include all three colors and ending with the dark purple. It's going quickly so far, but I know that as I increase two stitches every row, the rows will begin to get very long.

Last night my oldest boy had a baseball game and Chase fell asleep in the car, so I was able to park the car at the field and knit for over an hour uninterrupted. Heaven!

I am almost done with Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult.

Wow. This book gives you so many things to think about. Jodi Picoult has a wonderful way of taking very controversial topics and creating a novel around it. This one does not disappoint. I am looking forward to finding out what happens in the end.

And see those other two books? I'm very excited to read them both. 

They are birthday presents from my husband. 

The Art of Fielding was recommended by a friend. It follows a baseball story, so it's funny that I'm actually going to read about baseball when I spend 5 days of the week at the baseball fields.  

The Uninvited Guests just came out and sounds like a fun read.

For the people that read this blog and have kids, I wanted to include the new book that Dalton is reading. He is sooooooo excited about this. The local bookstore in town asked for some middle readers to pick out a pre-released book and review it. Well, my son was beyond happy to be chosen to do this for the August newsletter. My oldest boy is so much like me it's scary. He picked out this book,

The Land of Stories, The Wishing Well by Chris Colfer.

There was a handwritten note in the book from the author. He thought this was so cool. 

Ends up the author is the actor on Glee that plays Kurt Hummel. The note that Chris wrote says that writing a novel was a promise he made to himself when he was ten years old. 

Dalton is ten right now. He now has decided that he wants to be a book reviewer and get PAID to read! Love it. That's my boy.

And just a few pictures of my other boys...

G's first catch in the pond this year. Nice!

My never sit still, curious, constant movement 9 1/2 month old baby boy.

Today is my birthday. There are 34 candles on my cake.

I am enjoying my coffee right now, going to have lunch with a dear friend and thanks to MomMom in the weather department up there, I think we get to cancel the outdoor fishing boy scout meeting at my house and I'll get to go out to dinner with my favorite four men at my favorite restaurant  :)

 

The Coop will be closed today. We are going to start opening up on Fridays from 10-4 and soon we will be open on Saturdays. We'll put the sign out!!!!

 Joining in again with Ginny at Small Things and all the other wonderful knitters out there.

Have a wonderful day and happy knitting.

-Leanne

Sheep & Wool

 Another wonderful trip!

 Fondling some roving.

 Chase won the best baby award this weekend. He was awesome. Here he is taking a graham cracker and water break.

 Score! Great roving for Liz.

 Yarn and more yarn...

 I liked this poncho. I might have to find a pattern for it.

 Gyros on the hill. Worth the half hour wait in line.

 Snoozin' on the hill

 My yarn purchase. Miss Babs "Yummy" Sock Yarn. I will be using this for my Color Affection Shawl. I am so happy with this yarn. I've been wanting some Miss Babs yarn, but never had the perfect project for it. This is it and I'm so excited about the colors. They are perfect for me.

 Sheep! I love sheep. Didn't spend as much time in the sheep barns in years past, but we had to cut the day a bit short. This funny little guy baaaaed really loudly at Chase and scared him. It was funny.

This is a picture of me last year. I was 7 months pregnant with Chase.

 
 One year later, my sweet little 9 month old boy on the same hill.
The festival was much more enjoyable with him outside of me!
I have memories of a hurting pelvis and dizzy spells from gestational diabetes.
He was a joy. I'm pretty sure that next year he will stay home. Almost 2 year olds aren't quite as sweet if I do recall correctly.


 And this is Liz's belly this year!
My little nephew is in there getting big!
He's due in September. Next year, he'll be hanging with us on the hill :)


We had a wonderful trip!!!!!! Everything was perfect. We all came home with good memories, the perfect yarn, roving and tired legs.

My sister, Andee, also documented it over on her blog, Match the Pictures.

Please pop on over there if you have a minute to view more of the fun we had :)

Click here to see her post.

And while we were away, a new puppy joined the family! My mom adopted a rescue dog from India. She is a sweet little thing that is very shy. It will take time, love and patience for her to feel safe but I know she is in the best place for that.

I'll have pictures soon.

-Leanne

Yippee

Can I just say that I am such a dork and so gosh darn excited for the Sheep & Wool Festival?

I had a dream last night that we all arrived at the fair and the vendors were empty. Ah! That's a nightmare in my book. Hopefully the vendors will be there with lots of great stuff!

So excited.

Patterns are purchased and printed. Color combinations are thought out.

Hotel is confirmed. Clothes are packed. Camera is charged.

Yippee

Here we come.

Can't wait to share pictures of our finds.