So, as you may recall, I jumped into the Ravellenic Games (aka the Knitting Olympics) on day 6, which is a little crazy but I figured I’d be able to challenge myself to something and actually do it.

I am beyond happy to report that I did! This is my official project page on Ravlery, I knit 100 puffs for my Beekeeper’s Quilt with literally just 15 minutes to go!

Since I focused all my efforts on this one event (the Modular Relay) I will only get one medal, which is what I originally set out to do, but as I watch so many other knitters collect a zillion medals for painfully easy tasks (like knitting 5 puffs, or knitting a stack of unstuffed puffs) I’m all butthurt! Haha. Which is totally ridic, I know. I could have chosen to knit like 10 puffs for that event, and I could have made cross-event projects (like if I had made a pair of quick baby socks from the pink bamboo in my stash it would have counted for 3 events; Baby Dressage, Synchronized Stash Busting and the Sock Put – actually, if I made them as a Chrismtas gift then I would have also gotten the Holiday Hurdles event). Anyhoo, I’m setting the lofty goal right now that I will try to participate in ALL the events in 2014. So I think I need a loom lol.

As for Menu Monday this week, I’m not sure what I’m doing because it’s been so hot! Last night we had sandwiches. Yes, really. At first I was thinking I should just BBQ this week, but I’m not as great with charcoal as I am with gas and my gas BBQ is about eleventy billion miles away. Soooo, we’ll see. I’m thinking at the very least I should have brought my slow cooker or toaster oven down with me for temps like these!

I did however, order this and can hardly wait for it to get here so I can make frozen treats for the wee ones!

Behold! Here are all 62/100 of the puffs I’ve been knitting for the Modular Event in Ravellenics 2012. Total I have over 100 puffs for the actual quilt I’m making these for, but as far as the knitting olympics goes, the count is 62, leaving 38 to do by Sunday. I think I can get them done by Friday, maybe even Thursday night. If I manage to do that I will cast on for another event over the weekend.

When I decided to challenge myself to make 100 puffs I figured getting one medal would be awesome, but my sister already has 12 (in order from most recent finish line crossed; TWO medals in the Shawl Sailing event, TWO medals in the Lace Longjump, Balance Beads, Synchronized Stash Busting, TWO medals in the Single Skein Sprint, WIPs Wrestling, Holiday Hurdles, Charity Rowing, and Scarf Hockey). Some of the events overlap, so for example if you make a scarf from stash yarn to save as a Christmas gift it would count in Scarf Hockey, Synchronized Stash Busting, and Holiday Hurdles. Clearly, I went about this all wrong. Watch out 2014!!

I’d like to make a little something special for Sammie‘s little one on the way, but I think I want to make her something more grand than a weekender project. Actually, I guess I could knit something small for her to go with a bigger package. If I do, that would be part of the Baby Dressage event, and hey if I make a wee pair of socks it would also count towards the Sock Put event (or the Toy Toss event if I made a little toy).

Anyhoo, less typing, more knitting!

I mentioned yesterday that I’m knitting furiously for the 2012 Knitting Olympics and promised a little background. So here goes. In 2006, one of my long time favorite knitting bloggers, The Yarn Harlot, had this crazy idea that we (‘we’ being readers of her blog) challenge ourselves to knit something personally ambitious during that year’s Olympic games. Her official post with all of our names and projects listed (scroll down, I’m there!) is here. Since it was the Yarn Harlot’s love of the winter Olympics specifically, she didn’t host again until 2010 and given that this year is a summer year, she’s not doing any crazy marathon knitting right now, she’s on the Friends for Life Bike Rally. Anyhoo, so Ravelry was born in 2007 and every Olympic year since then, there have been Ravelympics groups ranging from the standard ‘official’ group, to teams for different countries, to teams for different projects (like fingerless gloves, socks, etc).

It remained a relatively small thing, I say relatively because almost every knitter I know at least knows about it, but the only non-knitters who know about it seem to live with knitters. Last month, the United States Olympics Committee discovered the existence of this little event, and instead of reading up on it, they got really upset at the general idea of it and sent a good, old fashioned angry letter to Ravelry. Of course this letter made it’s rounds on the internet and a whole lot of Olympics-loving knitters read it.

This part of the letter was a little insulting:

We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games. In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work

So, long story short, they apologized and while people are still irritated, I think it’s pretty amazing that an organization as huge as this would issue anyone an apology, let alone 7500 knitters. LOVE this.

This year, I have joined the Ravellenic Games 2012 group. I’m focusing on the Modular Relay event and I’m on Team Knit Picks Lovers, since I probably buy more Knit Picks yarn than any other.

I’m attempting to knit 100 puffs! Wish me luck!!

I’ve been working hard this week updating our family photo site. I take a ridiculous amount of pictures in a day and an even more ridiculous amount when we’re road tripping or having an adventure of some kind. I took heaps and heaps of pictures and videos on our journey from Ontario to Los Angeles and though we’ve been here for 3 1/2 months, I just finished uploading them all this week.

Since this project was meant to be a ‘scrap yarn’ project I’m trying to work on it between projects with whatever is left from the sock I last made. The issue there of course is that I’m usually racing to finish a pair of socks for someone’s birthday (and therefore I am a week or so behind on knitting the next pair of socks). So when I finish a pair, I’m casting on for the next pair.

However. Since we’ve been in LA, I’ve been a lot more relaxed about everything. I’m sure it has a lot to do with not being ‘home’, even if we are living here for the foreseeable future. I posted a while ago that my mindset started to change just before we left Canada when I had to accept that I was going to have to start our trek down to California without having a new place picked out. That was pretty huge for me. I’m a planner. Like woah, I’m a planner. I almost want to say I was a planner. It hasn’t even been 4 months yet but I feel less of an urge to plan things now. The whole drive down here instead of stressing out about where the next hotel was going to be, we just drove on and stayed where we stayed. We got tired, Googled the closest hotel and checked in. And guess what? It was fine. It was better than fine. I was super fun and I actually felt really relaxed about the whole thing after the first night. So what does that have to do with socks? Um, everything!

In January I made a list of the 12 pairs of socks I wanted to make and who I wanted to make them for. I used to see it as a timeline (as in I have to finish Brigitte’s socks in April because that’s when her birthday is) but now I see it more like an ordered list (Brigitte got her socks at the end of May and was perfectly happy with them). I also took off a few names of people I have already knitted socks for and added a couple that I haven’t knitted for – and no projects are tied to birthdays. So I will keep knitting on my puffs until I feel like casting on for the next pair of socks in my list!

My favorite puff right now is the purple and green one in the second photo. I knew when I casted on that I didn’t have enough purple for a whole puff but in the spirit of a scrap project, I just added on the next ball of scrap yarn and kept knitting. It reminds me of our first apartment – it was green and purple. Haha. yes, really.

I am still working on that this week and today we’re meeting up with a homeschooling group in our area. I’m so excited!

Today I’m linking up with Freshly Pieced

I finished the Hedgerow socks and popped them in the mail yesterday! So in the next week or so my husband’s wonderful Nanny will get her extremely late handmade birthday gift! Photos of that after these little cuties.

At some point last fall, one of my besties Talea, my sister Nikki and I all started knitting our own versions of this amazing blanket. Since it’s a scrap yarn quit, or at least that’s the idea, it’s generally worked on in between projects with the leftover yarn. Very similar that way to the sock yarn blanket comes together (the one I linked to here is my sister’s). I’ve always wanted to make a sock yarn blanket since socks are like, 90% of what I knit, but the puffs are just too cute to resist so away I went. The problem was I’d find myself casting on for new socks as soon as I finished the last pair and my ‘must do things in order’ brain would not let me put down the socks to work on the puffs. However, as I mentioned before, I’m thankfully growing out of that and have been able to put down new socks (these are next) and crank out some puffs.

Each puff takes me between 20-30 minutes, but with three wee ones underfoot I’m lucky if I get the opportunity to have 20-30 uninterrupted minutes when I’m not supposed to be doing something else. Originally I figured this quilt would take me approximately eleventy billion years to finish but then I thought, I’m sure I waste 20-30 minutes at a time doing random things. I’m just going to channel my randonmess into puff knitting and I’ll have this thing done by next year! Do not snap me from this delusion, thankyouverymuch. Right now I have 43 and I’m keeping a tally going in the sidebar, I have to see what happens when they’re all laid out but I will likely need upwards of 400 puffs! It’s going to be a fun, colorful quilt! Some of the yarn scraps I’m using are in the bag in the back of the first image. I can’t wait to see it!!

Here are a few pictures of the finished Hedgerow socks! Socks #4 for the year!

This week brought us the completion of my fourth pair of socks for the year! Happy Birthday Nanny! Her birthday was in April, but she’s sweet enough to totally gloss over that when these cuties arrive in the mail next week. 🙂 This week was also full of fun homeschooling lessons, I think we all genuinely enjoyed each day! Ok, that’s a dirty lie. Wee One #2 isn’t so keen on French (or cursive writing actually…), and while I’m aware that we are not currently in Canada, I am including it because even though we will be here longer than we originally planned, we’re not going to be here forever and they’ll need to know French eventually.

After whining about having to buy jugs of juice instead of squeezing my own, I found a little hand juicer! It’s perfect for making us each a glass in the morning to go with breakfast. This is probably what I am most hyped about in my kitchen right now.

Our little patio garden is doing well! I was pretty confident the seeds would sprout, but you never know until they do, so the kids were pretty excited when they saw the first little pieces of green poling through the dirt!

Hope you had a great weekend!!

Sunday = pair of socks #4 for 2012 DONE!	Monday = train wreck!
Tuesday = cursive writing practice for Wee One #2	Tuesday = juicer and fresh oranges!
Wednesday = Wee One #1 reading about nomads	Thursday = butterflies and fuchsia crayons
Friday = our seedlings in TP tubes are doing well!	Saturday = cinnamon brown sugar muffins

I hope everyone is off to have an amazing and memorable Father’s Day! If you are lucky enough to be able to hang out with your Dad today – go hang out with him! My husband and I will have to settle for Skype convos with our Dads tonight, but that’s after we spend the day celebrating here with the wee ones!

For now though, here’s a quick look at our week!

Sunday = my personal cheerleader	Monday = rad new shirt
Tuesday = so ugly it’s cute cookie jar	Wednesday = knitting on the patio
Thursday Morning = these animal crackers are not for sharing	Thursday Afternoon = time to plant some patio garden seedlings
Thursday Afternoon = patio seedlings started off in repurposed toilet paper tubes
Friday = the possibilities in soap making combos are pretty much endless – so exciting	Saturday = making personalized recipe cards

I have been knitting a lot more lately, and I even managed to finish sock one and get about 1/4 of the way done sock two on this pair – let’s ignore that it’s been two weeks since my last WIP Wednesday. Homeschooling and visitors and exploring and all that good stuff gets in the way of knitting, you know! Also, I had to rip the first sock back 3 or 4 times after I turned the heel. Total Nightmare. However, this second sock is well on it’s way to being done by next Wednesday so I can finally send it off to the birthday girl (whose birthday was in April)!

Do you love my new knitting basket and the so cute it hurts notebook? I know, right? I go the basket when I was out thrifting with Vanessa and the kids on the weekend (I should do a post on their haul they made it home with, I’m impressed with their choices), and the lovely notebook was a gift from my girl Emerald. She picked it up for me when she was in Hong Kong (ooooh, fancy pants – thanks Em)! The pages are lovely and each section is done in a different color, the best part though is the back cover, it says ‘where troubles melt like lemon drops’. Ha! I love random stuff from Hong Kong (that’s another post I should do soon, she brought back a lot of cool stuff).

Annnnyhoo, I sincerely hope these socks are done by next Wednesday and I’ve casted on for my fifth pair of socks for the year. With a goal of 12 pairs of socks this year, I’m already a pair behind if I want to knit one per month. Maybe I’ll knit a pair of ankle socks in there somewhere!

Today I’m linking up with the WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

As if I haven’t posted a WIP Wednesday since I got to LA! The last one was in early March and those socks are finished!

I casted on for these babies, Hedgerow Socks almost a month ago! I had a serious issue lining up the pattern after I broke off for the heel. Ugh. I knitted and knitted and then ripped back daaaaays of knitting and then? Then?! I did it again. This time it has lined up and I’m keeping my fingers crossed the second sock lines up too!

Pattern syncing issue notwithstanding, these socks are a quick and painless knit. The pattern is a four row repeat, but really it’s just two rows repeated twice it’s even easier!

The effect is a pretty but not too fancy sock that hopefully my husband’s Grandmother will love (and wear).

I’ll also show off the finished sock from March’s WIP, the lovely Bintje. These are pretty special socks because while just like a lot of the socks I’ve made in the last two years, they were cast on in the woods of Central Ontario, but theeeeen they were knitted on across the United States. I knitted on these socks in ten different states (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California – for the curious). The recipient of these socks will absolutely love that little trivia about them so she’s the right person to have them for sure!

Today I’m linking up with Giggles Glitz and Glam, A Bowl Full of Lemons, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night, The Kurtz Corner, and Reasons to Skip the Housework. There is so much inspiration packed into those links it makes my head spin.

There are about eleventy billion ways to make soap yourself. You can go the super simple route and buy a melt and pour kit, or you can use one of several recipes for hot process or cold process soap. We decided to do cold process, and the four of us (my husband, his friend and his friend’s girlfriend) took on this hilarious project. We were in charge of ingredients and they were in charge of gear. It worked out pretty well I think considering we ended up with everything we needed! We actually ended up with unmatched amounts of what we needed (tooootally my fault whoops), but the guys are both good at math so we were ok! A little recipe altering and away we went!

Most cold process soap recipes I’ve seen stop where this post stops, but this is only stage one for us. We are going to shave down and melt these bars of soap and add to them. Oatmeal perhaps? Poppyseeds maybe? Oils, for sure!

The recipe we used was from an old book our friend found at a second hand store and that we quickly became a little obsessed with. I will leave you to find a soap book or website with a recipe on it because there was a lot of changing of things going on in my kitchen when we did this so I don’t want to lead anyone down the wrong path!

Also, we opted for a vegan soap instead of a traditional soap and that changes the recipe as well. Having said that, we used:

Olive Oil
Coconut Oil
Cocoa Butter
and of course, Lye

You’ll also need safety goggles, gloves, a plastic container to heat the lye in, two tall pots, wooden spoons, a scale to measure it all out on and two candy thermometers.

Gather your ingredients and gear, cover your table and then do any recipe math you need on your table covers!
Now following the directions on the lye packaging, add water slowly, pop in the candy thermometer and wait for it to heat up (it’ll do it on it’s own – like magic).
Now pour the oilve oil and coconut oil into a tall pot and add your cocoa butter, poke at it here and there until it’s all melted and then mix it a bit but you don’t have to really get into it yet.
Fill a second tall pot about halfway with water and once it gets hot, set the plastic container of warm lye and water in it. You’ll need one candy thermometer with each pot. One IN the soap mixture, touching the melted oils and cocoa butter and one IN the lye and water container (not in the pot it’s sitting in). The necessary temps are different depending on the recipe, so check yours to be sure!
While we waited for our concoctions to reach their desired temperatures, we gathered and set out all of our soap containers. Remember that we’ll be popping the soaps from these containers and then grating them down and remelting them so we can add to them. Our final containers will be much prettier!
Once both mixtures reached the right temperatures, we poured the lye into the soapy mixture and mix, mix, mixed! It starts to thicken up a bit but is still runny, and that’s how it’s supposed to look so we’re all relieved!
It’s a slightly messy process but that’s why we covered the table before we started, right?! We filled almost every container we pulled out for this project and then covered each one with tinfoil and set them on top of our kitchen cabinets to dry for a week! Stay tuned!!