Homemade Friday: Plain Tunic for Adele

 Sounds exciting, no? 

But it's something I actually finished for Adele for Christmas and turned out exactly how I wanted it to.  Well, sort of.  Nothing is ever perfect, right?

I wanted a tunic, something that Adele could wear as a dress or a long shirt, and really just another layer to keep her warm.  She's not a big fan of actual sweaters and I think the sleeves bother her, so I figured this would be the perfect solution.

It's the Plain tunic pattern from Pickles.  I love their stuff.  The patterns are simple but functional and stylish.  Sometimes all of the knitting embellishments and whatnot get on my nerves when I'm looking for a basic item to knit.

I made the dress a bit longer than the pattern because I thought she could grow a bit bigger and get more than a couple of months use out of it.  Hopefully she can wear it next year, too, provided I can get the mac & cheese from Christmas dinner out of it.

I wasn't fond of the garter stitch edge so I found a flower eyelet lace pattern that I could work into the stitches without hurting my brain too much.  However, as I had to alter the pattern to suit myself I found myself doing entirely too much math.  And I enjoy math.

One thing I didn't take into account when choosing the lace is that the first and last lace flowers I knit would end up right next to each other instead of an even number apart along with the rest of the flowers.  And it bugs me.  A lot. 

Maybe one day I will fix it when I run out of other things to knit.  (Ha!)

As always I made my mom sew the buttons on because I am button-sewing inept and every time I try to do it myself the buttons fall off within a day.  These were vintage buttons that I probably found at a thrift store.  There the only ones that fit and that I had enough of, so I think it turned out well. 

I really like this little dress.  She looks adorable in it and it's functional and warm. 

Yarn is Knitpicks Andes del Campo in Latte Heather.
 

I know you can't really see the dress in
this photo, but I just thought it looked cool.

I'm sorry for the wordiness and all of the pictures but I have a lot to tell you

So I guess December is a slow month for blogging, at least for me.

I feel like it's been forever since I've written an actual post, but I don't know where to start.

With knitting?  Let's start with knitting.  Or rather, my epic failure to knit the plethora of woolens that I planned on.  Apparently I am somewhat delusional regarding my abilities and also time in general as I was under the impression that I could knit five pairs of gloves, two children’s sweaters, two men’s hats, one pair of mittens and a shawl in three weeks.

Spoiler alert: I couldn’t.  And so I kind of gave up.  I realized that I could spend the Christmas holiday time super, ridiculously stressed out of my mind, or just mildly stressed out of my mind.  I chose mildly.  This was after I accidently knit two left gloves for someone, not even realizing it until I was almost finished, and after I’d already had to tear the knitting out once because I’d accidentally knit a glove for a 7 foot giant with giant hands instead of a normal teenager with normal teenage hands.

So.  No gloves.  Maybe by Valentine’s Day?

Christmas morning was awesome and magical and everything it’s supposed to be.  Part of the reason for this was because I wrapped almost everything ahead of time so I didn’t have to stay up until 2:30 a.m. setting up presents.  However, since I am still a child in my heart I was too excited to sleep so I ended up awake all night anyway.  Chris had to stop Sebastian before he came downstairs so I could get out of bed and see him see what Santa brought for the first time.  My husband is incredibly thoughtful.  I’m not sure how long this will last, however, because at some point Sebastian will do what all kids do and sneak down at 3 in the morning under the guise of having to ‘pee’ but really just so he can see the tree and all of its Santa-infused glory, then go back to bed to not-sleep until it’s late enough to get up and by that I mean 4:30.

And then, since we were staying home for dinner and just having the four of us, I decided to cook more food for Christmas dinner than anyone would ever want, including armies and Italian families.  (I can say that because I’m Italian.  And we like to eat.  Mangia! Mangia!)  But by the time it was all finished everyone was exhausted so Chris and I ate at the table while the children ate in the living room watching television.  Because we are awesome parents.

After that we were pretty much on speed until the end of last weekend as my brother-in-law and his now wife got married on the 29^th.  On Friday we dropped the kids off with my mom and Chris drove me to Louisville for a bridesmaid luncheon, then nail salon visit where they gave out wine and it’s now my new favorite place to be even though somehow I injured myself on the massage chair.  Chris picked me up there, then we had to race to my mom’s to pick up Sebastian for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but we had to sneak so Adele wouldn’t see us because she didn’t feel good and so probably would have screamed for hours if she saw me and wasn’t allowed to go with me.  But we were going to be out late and I didn’t think she would be very good company.

We went home for 30 minutes and dressed in our fancy dress clothes and left again, and getting out of the car I ripped my brand new fancy-pants polka-dot pantyhose on my purse and so spent my time with a run on my knee, getting steadily bigger and bigger, especially when I had to squat down and hug a crying Sebastian when he fell off a horse onto his head.  Don’t worry, it wasn’t a real horse and only gave him a carpet burn/bump.  He’s fine.  And he only got a little grumpy the entire time, both rehearsal and dinner, when I wouldn’t open his new Star Wars Legos he got for being in the wedding.  There were tears. 

The next morning we got up early to make it to the hotel by 10 so I could start getting hair and makeup done with all the ladies.  Guys.  I was airbrushed!  And given fake eyelashes!  I honestly didn’t really want to take them off.  The great thing about the makeup was that even at the end of the night, after six gin and Sprites (Yes SIX.  Open bar.  Don’t judge.) I still looked halfway decent.  And not drunk and tired with numb toes.

I had my mom bring Adele to the Kentucky Derby museum, where the wedding was, so I could just dress there.  I knew she wasn’t feeling well and I knew she wouldn’t last long so I wanted her there as late as possible.  And I still had to chase her around a bit.  She just wanted to ride on the horses and wasn’t too interested in waiting in line to walk down an aisle.  (Damn horses!)  I practically drug her down.  She was supposed to walk with Sebastian but I didn’t have faith in her ability to make it to the front without having a firm grip on her wrist.  After the wedding my mom took the kids home with her.  I felt a little bad because I knew that Sebastian would have had so much fun, but Adele was so sick and cranky and there wasn’t really any other way to handle it.  Plus it gave me a chance to loosen up and relax for once.  (The six G & S helped with that.)

And I had so much fun.  I hung out with people I haven’t seen in a long time.  I made new friends.  I discussed the hotness of my husband with the boyfriend of the brother of one of the groomsmen.  (Read it slow.  Maybe it’ll make sense then.  Or not.)

There was a photo booth and dancing and fake mustaches and pimp hats.  If I could find the pictures Chris and I took in the photo booth I’d show them to you but I think he probably hid them since there was one of us kissing and he was probably afraid I’d post it on the internet.  As if I would do something like that!  (HA!)

I’ve been saying that the wedding is not so much of a wedding as an event.  They spent a lot of time and energy making sure they had the perfect wedding, and they did.  It was gorgeous and well-planned and totally worth the sinus infection I got from standing outside in 20 degree weather getting my picture taken.

At first I thought it was a hangover, but it never went away.  We had to go straight from our hotel Sunday morning to my parent’s house to pick up the kids and celebrate Christmas there, since we hadn’t had time to do it before, and then we had to leave early so we could take the tuxes back, and it turned out that the place wasn’t even open so we couldn’t take them back.  Sunday evening I started feeling really, really sick.  Headache and queasy and just really, really down.  On Monday I woke up and couldn’t really get up.  I lay down on the couch all day and even took a nap, which never, ever happens.  Thankfully Chris jumped in and took over all of the parenting and household duties so I could try to recover.  We were supposed to have a New Years Eve party with friends who also have kids, but I just couldn’t do it.  I felt awful for having to cancel.  But Chris took the kids to see his parents and some family who were in for the wedding so that was good for them. 

And so my continual headache forced me to finally go to the doctor today.  With Adele, my child who refuses to be still.  I chased her all over that damn office.  And back again.  And then back again.    

My oldest child is laying in the floor at my feet begging to get on the computer and play a game so I guess I’ll finally stop telling you my life story. 

Oh, one more thing!  Last night Adele was mad that I put her to bed and so threw her pillow out of her crib then somehow lunged after it and flopped out right onto her head.  On the wood floor.  Guys.  I thought I was going to puke and I keep picturing it over and over again.  She was fine, terrified and probably a little headachey, but fine.  She clung to me for a good while, then still screamed when I put her back into her bed, but thankfully didn’t actually fall out again.

And now you’re all caught up.  Here’s a lot of pictures.  And I mean a lot.

Sleeping bags!

Electric toothbrushes!

Merry Christmas!

Post hair, pre-airbrushing

I can't even!

This is about as un-blurry as I could get. 
She moved around a lot.

On the way to the reception.

Best man speech!

This was late.  Notice my makeup!  IT'S STILL ON.

Bridesmaids and turkey feathers. 

End of the night riding a van back to the hotel.  That's the
groom in the middle and the bride to his left.

I don't even know.  But that's the top of my head.

Motherhood and More: Confessions of a Christmas knitter*

I did it to myself again.

Every year I decide I’m going to make things for Christmas. I alternate making cookies and candy for everyone I’ve ever met in my life with knitting warm, woolen items for everyone I’ve ever met.

I make myself nuts trying to accomplish everything I want to, no matter how idealistic and unlikely to complete I am.

Every year I start out large and plan to make 15 different types of cookies, and let’s not forget the salted caramel pieces, which are delicious, yet if you don’t pay enough attention to them they become caramel rocks instead of soft, chewy candies.

Or I decide that everyone in my family younger than 20 gets hand-knit, colorwork-filled gloves, even though I’ve never actually knit a glove before, but I’ve conquered lace and cables, so how hard can it be?

Answer: not hard, just when you make five pairs it can be a bit time consuming. Kind of like that time I decided to knit four pairs of felted clog slippers even though I had never done that before either. They took days and days to dry and so my sister ended up with a slipper IOU because hers still were wet and stuffed with newspaper. It wouldn’t be Christmas without a knitting IOU. At least for me.

One year, before I fully got the hang of knitting, I knit sweaters for three nieces and a nephew and I’m pretty sure none of them wanted them. Yes, I’m that aunt who gave away knit gifts complete with uneven sleeves and weird yarn discoloration.

Of course, the baby’s sweater wouldn’t even fit over her head, so she doesn’t count. There’s logic in there somewhere. You have to find it yourself.

But I want to make things that people will enjoy. I want everyone to understand that I love the knitting process, and I love them, so I want to put those two things together and create a magical, wonderful, Christmassy, fantastic day filled with scarves with a falling leaves lace pattern or reversible, double-knit hats.

Not everyone understands this, and that’s OK. I’ll keep knitting things that make me happy and giving them away, even to people who don’t want them. And I’ll keep shortening my list as the holidays get closer and I realize that I have some unrealistic expectations regarding my knitting speed and the fact that I have to sleep sometimes and also take care of children who require things such as food and diaper changes and other items that hinder my knitting process.

One good thing about setting a knitting deadline for me that is out of reach — and some would say insane — is that I’ve started knitting in front of my children. I avoided doing that in the past because anytime I am not giving them my undivided attention they do whatever they can to get it, usually something that annoys me and nothing annoys me more when I’m knitting than when a small person takes my ball of yarn and runs away with it, thus unraveling all of the intricate cables I’ve just spent a good while and a fair amount of cursing creating.

So I just didn’t let them see me doing something I enjoyed.  It was for their own good health, really. But I’ve had to do it this holiday season because I sort of convinced myself I actually could finish my knitting list, even though really I wasn’t fooling myself at all. And so I’ve knit. And they’ve seen me. And there have been times when my ball of yarn has been ripped away from me and I’ve had to chase down the culprit. But the more they see me do it, the more used to it they are, and the more they see that Mom is just a crazy knitting lady who shouts out "Just one more row! I’ll get you your milk if you just let me finish one more row!"

I’m OK with that.

*This column originally published in The News-Enterprise on December 26, 2012. 

Reasons I am insane*

*Alternate title: Things I have made in the past two days and things I still have to make sometime before Christmas is over:

In the past two days I have made the following:

1. Cracker Candy (Also known as 'Christmas Crack' at our house.)

2. Homemade salted caramels

3. Pecan pie - with homemade crust

4. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies

5. Tangy Spiced Brisket from smitten kitchen


Tomorrow I have to make the following:

6. Apple Pie - with homemade crust

7. Homemade Dinner Rolls

8. Homemade chicken tenders

9. Homemade mac & cheese

10. Spinach Artichoke dip

11. Broccoli

I thought I'd possibly make homemade panettone, but I think that's going to have to wait a few days.

And yes, this is a list I created for myself.

Lots of wine will be consumed over the next few days.