1 Family x 12 (Feb)

 

The go-karts getting a make-over baby and we'll post some pictures when it's finished!  For now, our February family photo!

Winter Crafts

 As the weather cools and it starts to get dark earlier and earlier, I find myself with more time to craft - which is great because I feel like I've been in a bit of project slump lately.  But...not anymore!  I've started and finished so many things in the past couple months that I'm posting my winter roundup early and I might have a Winter Crafts (Part 2) coming later on.

Oct 29

First up, this beautiful two-tone cowl.  It's knit on the smallest needles I've ever worked with, Size 1.  Fingerling wight yarn and tiny lace work in the second layer meant that this one took me a LONG time to finish.

Dec 26

Jan 6

I made some pretty good progress the weekend we were supposed to be skiing but Hazel ended up with the flu and I stayed home while everyone else went skiing.

Jan 12

Finished it up in January just in time to give me time to squeeze in a last minute hat knit for myself.  (See below).  

Last Christmas I got a National Park Hat pattern book and I was so excited to dive in!  I made a Grand Prismatic hat for Jenny much earlier in the year (in prep for our Yellowstone trip) but when I finished my cowl just a few weeks before our trip I realized I might have time to make one for myself as well.  We got tons of compliments and questions about our hats on the trip...which made it all worth it!

Everyone commented how they liked that the little puffball looked like the steam rising from the thermal features!

Not the best picture...but you get the idea :)

Up next - a baby quilt for baby McIlquham (born just 2 days ago...so we know his name is Liam now...but this quilt was made before that).  I love these linen fabrics so much - they are a little tricky to work with (they fray easily) but they make great boy quilts, and I just loved the understated, but deep hues they come in.

This quilt has it's backing fully made it's ready to head to the quilter but I'm holding off because I think I can squeeze in a "twin quilt" (ie: the same quilt again for a future baby boy) while I'm at it....I don't think we'll see Liz and Bobby for a few months now that Liam is here so I've got time!

Plane project - two skeins of yarn and a hat pattern make the perfect travel project.  Hats knit up relatively quickly, their finished size (like...not a full-on blanket) and the limited amount of yarn needed meant this was the next project up on my needles.  A 2-hour delay on the runway + two three-hour plane rides and a few lobby chills gave me time to knit this one up in just under a weeks' time.  

Finished it up on our second night home by tying in all the ends and adding the puffball on top!  I love this one and I think Ryan has decided to claim this one as his own.  It makes me happy to know that he is into wearing my handmade items now too!  

Yellowstone in Winter - Chico Hot Springs

Our final two days were spent in the historic Chico Hot Springs hotel.  While the hot springs themselves were great, I have to say that after 8 nights of staying in historic (read: a nice way to say slightly outdated....but it's fine because we say historic) I made the comment that just because we're staying in a historic hotel doesn't mean we need historic mattresses!  We had two double beds in our cabin at Old Faithful and we had just one double at Chico.  We got lucky and were able to snag one of the few rooms that had a bathroom attached.  The other girls in our group had to use the communal bathrooms that were located in the hallways.  They weren't bathrooms for multiple people at one time, but they were shared acrossed a handful of rooms.

On our final day of vacation Ryan and I really packed in the activities!  We hiked twice, a total of about 7 miles and we visited Livingston, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Chico.  

Livingston was cute - it had two breweries (you know we had to visit them both!), a small little downtown area with some cute little shops like a kitchen store, a bookstore and plenty of local artist shops.  

After we returned from Livingston we met up with Jenny and Jack who had just finished a game of disc golf.  Jack, Ryan and I decided to take a hike to the Yellowstone Film Production film set (Not the Yellowstone show...the name of the company is confusing).  We looked up the movies and shows that Production company did and nobody recognized any of them, but, the film set was pretty cool to check out.

It 100% felt like we were doing something a little naughty by walking around an empty film set trying the door handles and peering into windows to see what was inside of the buildings.  Many of them were just facades with nothing behind the windows, but a few of them were fully set up, like the church and a fully functioning stable that appeared to have had animals bedding it the pens at one point.  

After 8 nights and 9 days of fun and adventure we traveled home on Thursday afternoon and made it back to Marengo before bedtime.  The kids had welcome home signs all made up for us and were jumping around in the window cheering as we drove up the driveway.  Erin held down the fort for us for the majority of the trip and I'm so thankful for her!  She did a great job...I think the kids wish she was their mom now!  She had all kinds of fun activities planned for them including a trip to Epic Air, Build A Bear, a movie at the theater and bowling!

Vacation is fun...but I'm glad to be home too!