Channeling Stuart Smalley

 "I am good enough. I am smart enough. and doggone it, people like me." -Stuart Smalley

Hello my kind people,
For those of you who do not know who Stuart Smalley is, he was a character, played by Al Franken, on the show Saturday Night Live back in the early '90s. I highly recommend checking out some the skits if you have never seen them.

I know it has been a really long time since my last post, like 3 months. And while I did allow my self some time for a pity-party, it was not long lived. If you are wondering what I have been up to these long months, the short answer is 'things that make me feel clever' (a.k.a. not writing). I will you a quick review in pictures (with some narration). Enjoy:

First, I finished a few things like the ladies coat:

  

I am really happy with how it turned out.
More importantly, she loves it!





 I finally got around to blocking my sister's Elder tree shawl, just in time to ship it to her for her birthday. It is amazing how lace will just open up and be beautiful.


I started on many new projects and learning new skills like:
washing and carding raw fleece:

And trying different kettle dying techniques.
 These have since gone to some friends who help me put together and teach a knitting class that was auctioned off at a school fundraiser.

I also tried my hand at stenciling on 1/2 yard knit fabric for a cowl (I highly recommend it):

 


I worked at perfecting my stranded color work and learned intarsia by making a bunny dress for my little niece.

I learned so much! And it turned out amazing, if a little big (it is the 3 m size, but I think it will work up to 3 years). I want to make one for my lady now :-D .

Also, since my last post we had a family vacation which lead to this:

 knitting the leg of this guy by: knit-a-zoo, while my kiddos played. I learned more about knitting with tiny double points and getting (or not getting) sand out of yarn, than with anything I have done so far.

While I know that this looks like everything has been rainbows and sunshine, these were the things that were keeping me sane while two very intense things were happening.
 The first was fighting with the school district over my little guy's elementary school placement. He is starting kindergarten in the fall and they were trying to send him to not his sister's school. A.K.A. our neighborhood school. The school we walk to EVERY morning. The school he is supposed to go to because siblings have priority. The school we clearly marked as the one we wanted him to go to because: SIBLING and NEIGHBORHOOD. It wasn't a simple fix either. 20 neighborhood kindergartners were placed in other schools, of course none of the others were siblings. So we did not know if they would be able/willing to make a spot for him. Fortunately, they did make a space, and not by kicking someone else out. Although this whole thing still makes me think rude adult words, it may have also given our principle the extra leverage needed to get the O.K. and open another classroom to accommodate the neighborhood.

The second crisis was dental. Just before Easter, the children had their regular dental appointment. Little man got a clean bill, everything looked perfect. But, the lady had cavities. And not just 2 or 3, twelve. 12. One of them had become an actual hole. My baby had a hole in her tooth. It took 4 visits to a pediatric dentist, nitrous oxide, and a crown to fix 11 of them, #12 was in a tooth that fell out between appointments. Just for kicks here is a picture of the crown:

 

Finally, as it is summer again, and we are packing up for our annual camping trip. We heading out in a couple of days, so my house looks like this again:

If I don't make a post before we go, I will fill you in when we get back.

Thanks for checking in,

XOXOXO

Lue Lue Ellabee

Rejection

Hello all my comforting people,

It is official, I have been rejected. I received the letter today, and I have been questioning whether or not to share my feelings with you. Since I have declared my blog representing my life as well as my crafts, and I have shared up to this point. So here is me in my life, right now in this moment of rejection.
    I was not enough; good enough, qualified enough, passionate enough, whatever enough. I have failed. I have failed to meet the standards and expectations of others as well as myself. My heart is broken and my stomach hurts. I am sad. I need a moment to myself. I need a moment with someone who will just listen and understand. I need a good cry before I can pick myself up and move forward.
   I am afraid of forward. What does that even mean? Forward. It is moving to plan B, the back-up idea. The thing that will allow me to continue on the path I have set for myself. Do I want to continue on that path? yes. no. maybe. yes.
    Yes. It is just hard right now. Especially since plan B is less than perfect and plan C is difficult to pin down. I know there will be a lot of other moments. Some may actually break me for a time. This one has been more difficult than expected, of course you never know how you are going to react to something until it happens. I will be okay. We will see how plan B works (plan C has to do with crafts, but you are not allowed to root for that one)
It is not a perfect post. There are a lot of ideas and thoughts I wanted to add. But I am done writing now and, honestly, I do not have the energy to say anything else.
Thanks for listening,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

February part II

Hello again my sweets,

As promised, here is the re-cap of what I was up to the second half of February. (by the way, I think February is the worst spelled month ever! I mean really, Feb-r-ua-ry? Every one pronounces it Feb-u-ary. Sorry, I have spelling issues, and February and Wednesday [pronounced: Wen-s-day] get me every time.) Anyway, back to the re-cap. 

First, on the Master/Credential front, I have officially been wait listed. I received an e-mail a couple weeks ago stating that they had sent out their first round of acceptance letters. When I called to see where I might be on said wait list, I was essentially (although, very kindly) told that it was probably not going to happen this time. After the initial sting of rejection, I took stalk of what this meant. Those of you who have been following along know that my plan B is to apply for my substitute teaching licence and sub for the next year couple of years. I will wait until 2017 before reapplying, by then I should have some quality classroom time under my belt.

Second: the lady and I had a mommy-daughter weekend while the men went to visit family. The lady had a Saturday birthday party that could not be missed. Unfortunately, once the birthday party was over, our 1987 pick-up decided it had no interest in starting (later found out that the new battery had not been secured properly and it now starts fine). We had to take Uber home. That Sunday it decided to rain (pour), and without a car we were stuck in the house. We used the opportunity to dye some wool! 

 

 

  I feel that the pictures

speak for themselves. We dyed 3 skeins of 2oz hand spun and 4 oz of roving.

Of course, as soon as the roving dried I had to spin it up:

They turned out so pretty! It was at this point I realized that my current spools and flyer were to small to ply more that 3oz total. Fortunately Stitches West was the 19-22 of February, and my friend and I had already made arrangements with our loves to go!

I will say this about Stitches: It Is FABULOUS! So much yarn and knitting and spinning and everything in between in one place. If you ever get a chance to go to a Stitches event, go. But make sure you have a list of necessities and a good size budget. My list consisted of a larger flyer, 2 large spools, wool, interchangeable circular needles, and yarn for the lady to learn how to knit with.
This is what I came home with:

*sigh* I love this picture ;D.

And now that I have the bigger flyer and spools, I have plied:

  Although, not evenly. That small skein on top of the spool in the second picture is the left over single. Despite the extra, I still love the end result, about 3.75 oz of sock weight.

Well, that covers February (with the exception of the class project, but that might be a post all on it's own)

Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

February part I

Hello my treasures!

Well another month has past between my posts. I have thought about posting several times, unfortunately I kept getting distracted by small children and projects. Between new babies, Valentines Day, Stitches West, and a class art project for my daughter's school auction; I feel like I have been all crafting all the time. Because there are so many things to show you, and  I have spent the last 3 days trying to write this post, I have decided to do February in (hopefully) 2 parts. Things I did/ worked on up to Valentines day:
 You might remember this sweater from my last post:   
It is the sweater I was making for my friend that just had her second baby (Baby E). I finished it, and I love it so!

.   The hot pink hearts are my favorite bit. I think they make the sweater. Of course, baby E has a big sister. And I could not ship something to Mama and baby without making sure big sister had something fun to open too. So, I went through my fabric stash and found enough snoopy valentine fabric for my favorite skirt pattern, the one I made my lady's plaid skirt from back in October:

   

I am not positive on sister's exact size, so I used some of that elastic with the buttonholes and made it adjustable. 

I made one for my lady too: 

Also from my stash ;D.

Babies and children are not the only ones I have been making for. My oldest sister, MC, has a February birthday. And I had promised her some fingerless mitts to go with the shawl I knit for her two Christmases ago. 

This is the Shawl:

The pattern is Silvia Bo Bilvia's All About Love Shawl. Using the half skein of Cascade pure alpaca that I had left over from the shawl, and Fiona Ellis's #40 Lace mitts pattern. I managed to make her these:

 

I think they turned out fabulous! Especially since I had to do some re-adjusting and this was my first time with thumb gussets. The yarn I used is a worsted weight and the pattern calls for a sport weight. I ended up knitting one mitt twice, because I realized that (despite already casting on 8 less than called for) it was going to be way to big once it was blocked. In the end I cast on 32 stitches and the count on the thumb gussets is 12 stitches instead of 15. 

That is about it for the first half of February. I will try to get to the second half soon (and I will show you what I got at Stitches West!).

Thanks for checking in!

XO Lue Lue Ellabee 

January at a glance

Hello my loves,

Wow! has it really been a month since my last post? Well, it has been a full month. I will start with me most exciting news first. I now have two babies to knit and sew for. My sister-in-law and one of my best friends each had a baby. Two girls born a day apart. So, I have been trying to churn out baby stuff for the last 3 weeks. I have a couple of things I like to make for new babies and their mommies. First is a nursing cover:

I used the tutorial offered by See Mommy Doing. It is a really great tutorial and I made pockets on both bottom corners with some terrycloth scraps. This was one of my favorite things I made for myself as a nursing mommy. Of course, not everyone would find this useful so be sure to check mommy's plans/ comfort level.

The other thing I like to make are car seat canopies. They are basically blankets with straps for infant car seats. I used Rachel and Nicholas' tutorial for a guide line.

In addition to these staples I have been working on a quilt, two baby sweaters and a baby hat.

 

I love making things for babies! The purple sweater is for my friend's little one it is the #36 Baby Cardigan. The orange one is The Hoot Cardigan. I made it with some Spud and Chloe from my stash and had plenty left over for a matching hat.

In other news, I have officially passed all of my exams! I am so happy to never have to take those tests again. I was also invited to go in for an interview for the program this past Friday. I think it went okay. I found out they interview 50 applicants for 20 positions. I figure I have about a 50% chance of getting in this time around, and I am okay with that. My plan B is to simply be a substitute teacher for a year before re-applying. And, of course passing the exams was the new requirement for playing with my Ashford Joy. I now have 4 hand spun skeins of yarn:

  I already have plans for a lacy shawl for the two blue skeins. I LOVE my spinning wheel!

Well that is my month in a nutshell. I hope yours was as fulfilling.
Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee

A good start for a new year!

Happy New Year my sweets!
I hope your new year is starting off on the right foot.
We are at the tail end of our road trip, and will be heading home Sunday. We were in Utah through the 26th and were lucky enough to enjoy a white Christmas:

 This is my father-in-law's "moat". He dug it himself a few years ago because he wanted a waterfall in his back yard. I think it is 6 feet deep, 5 feet wide, and 9 feet long. Creativity comes in all shapes.

Speaking of creativity, the lady convinced her daddy to build her this for Christmas:

It is a bed for her 18" doll, Molly (a hand-me down from my childhood).

But wait, what is that in the bed? It is not the doll. It is a...Hedgehog!!!
Yup, I made a second one and only decided to give it to the lady after seeing the bed love had made for her. When we get home I will have her pick out fabric for a quilt for the bed. I might even be able to get her to help me tie it.

After Christmas, we made our way to a small family cabin near Lake Tahoe. Love was hoping to snowboard, but the conditions were just not good enough to legitimize spending the money at a ski resort. So we found an okay spot to sled and build a snow cave instead.

Have I mentioned that I do not care for snow. Or the cold for that matter. I was happy to leave early and head to my mother-in-law's for New Years eve. 

Do you remember that big quilt I was working on. The one with the Japanese style ladies and other Asian style fabrics? It is for the bed we use when visiting my mother-in-law, and I finished it in Tahoe. We visit about once a month and have a room on the property that is all ours, and we needed a better blanket for that bed.

  I think it turned out amazing and is exactly what this room needed.
I have also picked up that green and purple sweater for the lady. It is funny how much longer things take when you stop working on them. I know this could be done already, but I had other projects and I want to do something different with the hood.
but the sleeves are done!

As you can see, I have started on the hood, but my count was off and I will need to rip it back. (sigh) I will have to buckle down when I get home. But for now I am choosing to focus on the fabulous bit of surprise:

  This was my Christmas present from mother-in-law and her fiance. Fiance had seen me ogling it a couple months back at a local fair we all went to. This is not wool. It is raw cashmere! It will take some time to pick out all the guard hairs and figure out how much I can use. But, this is one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received.

Well I must get back to the family.
Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee