the knitting of the hat

Knitting has never been my forte. Don't get me wrong I like to knit. I'm just not all that gifted at knitting. I can knit scarves, I can knit headbands, and I can knit purses. In other words I can knit squares and rectangles and that's about it, lol.

My darling G was once given a beautiful hand knitted winter hat. She looooovvveeeddd that hat. She wore it everywhere. She wore it to play in. She wore it to bed. She wore it to preschool. She wore it in the dead heat of summer. She always had her hat on. After many washings, wearings, and much love said beloved hat started to slowly unravel. A strand here, a strand there. We tried our best to repair the hat but after a couple years it was time to retire it for good.

Ever since the day G saw me pick up a pair of knitting needles she has wanted to know when *I* was going to knit her a hat. So I took a knitting class where I learned to knit squares, which later turned into rectangles. I made her scarves, I made her purses, I made her headbands, but yet no hats ever came off the ends of my knitting needles. Not for lack of trying though. I tried watching knitting videos online about how to knit a hat, I watched other mothers happily knit their offspring cute little hats trying to soak up pointers and advice, but sadly I am still a bit knitting impaired lol. I will get it one day I'm sure but until then there was still no hat for Miss G.

Then last week my MIL and I were shopping together and she saw the Knifty Knitter loom. http://www.bfranklincrafts.com/KniftyKnitter.html "Knit hats, booties, scarves and more with ease!" the packaging boasted. "Knitting made easy!" Hmmmmmm...intriguing I thought.

She picked it up, "I wonder if the girls would like this?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I told her, "but if they didn't maybe I could use it to attempt to make a hat for G with it."

"Perfect!" she told me and into her cart it went. Yeah gotta love great MILs! :)

Fast fwd to a week later....my first attempt was a bit too small for G's noggin but it was a HAT, A HAT!!! I had actually made a flipping hat! I was so excited! G was so excited!

Luckily it wasn't a total loss though, the little green hat fit little Miss E perfectly, so we decided to give it to E and make a 2nd larger hat for G. E LOVES fish, so I attempted to sew a little fish of yarn with a little button eye onto the tiny green hat. Unfortunately it didn't go too well... lol. It came out a bit deformed but hey it was made with love... lopsided, slightly deformed, lumpy, skinny fish love. :)

Luckily E doesn't seem to mind at all. She informed me it was a sardine hat lmbo. :D


So the knitting of the hat: Take 2:

I found a really soft, fuzzy, pretty pink and white wool yarn and began hat #2 (although slightly larger this time). I'm halfway through with it but the most awesome thing is that G became so interested in watching me knit that hat that SHE wanted to help knit it. :)

So I showed her how to do it (and yes the packaging didn't lie, it is that easy *wink*) and she and I have been taking turns knitting her hat.

So hopefully in the next few days I will have a picture of G's finished hat adorning her cute, happy little blond head. :)

Valentine Pillows

For Valentine's Day I made the girls little pillows and tiny stuffed animals cut from the pillow fabric. Raven went with me to the fabric store to help pick out fabrics. Monkeys for R, doggies for G, fish for E (and owls for Mommy). :)

Snow Day

The snow has been coming down all day in giant, fluffy flakes coating our world in white. What a great day to go play in the snow, have a snowball fight, and sip hot chocolate covered in whipped cream, chocolate syrup drizzles, and colorful candy sprinkles. Now all I need is a big warm quilt and a good book. :)

Pioneer Cooking

The girls have been studying about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and we have been reading The Long Winter together. We have been having so much fun learning about the lives of the early pioneers. We found some great pioneer recipe books at the library and had fun making some of the recipes from them last week. We made homemade butter, blueberry jam, and some yummy muffins.

To make butter first you shake, shake, shake your cream. E took this step VERY seriously....notice the look of intense concentration on her face lol.

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Then when E got tired of shake, shake, shaking the jar she passed it on to G for some more shaking. Careful, don't drop the jar!


Then when we sufficiently wore G out (who knew making butter could be such a good workout) she passed the jar on to Miss R for some more shaking (who then got tired and Mommy and Grandma got a turn at shaking).


Once the butter was seperated we poured the contents of the jar into a clean linen napkin to squeeze and strain out all the liquid buttermilk which was used to make pancakes the following morning. E loved the squeezing part (squishin' it as she called it) and viola we have BUTTER! :)

The butter after it was chilled for about an hour. Now ready to serve.

Then it was on to blueberry jam making. R mashed the blueberries and added the water and sugar and everyone took turns stirring it while it cooked. (E and Grandma pictured below)

Mmmmm....the finished product! :)

Then it was on to muffin making! We had a slight disagreement whether we should make plain muffins or blueberry muffins so we decided to make both. Yum!

Mmmmmmmm.....fresh from the oven!

The table all set for a little tea party with Grandma and my girls (candlelight compliments of the candle R made at the Heritage Log Cabin earlier in the month).

What a great way to spend a wintery afternoon. :)