Crafts for the Crafty

I actually feel very good about what I have accomplished in the last few months.
I've knitted three baby sweaters and am halfway through another. I made one pair of baby booties and made up a pattern for another pair of little shoes. (Can you tell that my women friends are breeding like crazy around here?) Not pictured below is the garden which is weeded and the herbs that have sprouted from seeds and my little sunflower plants put into the ground. Whew! For now though, here's just a little bit about the knitting projects.

This sweater was my first attempt at the linen stitch. I made it out of two skeins of wool I had lying around the house. And I just fell in love with this knitting stitch. Although it does go slower than regular knitting, the fabric texture feels really good and thick and it makes such a lovely pattern when you change color. Wonderfully fun!
Although the sweater turned out too small for any child....I was really proud of how well I guessed the size for how much yarn I had, since I had no idea what kind it was or where to get more if I ran out. The piece of yarn pictured below is ALL I had left over after I was done!


Louis Emmanuel Haug of the House of Haug received this sweater. I was so excited to try this cable pattern so I inserted it into the sweater body, and I was really happy with the way it turned out. Also, I found little blue alphabet letters that matched the sweater perfectly, so Louis got a monogrammed sweater! (tee hee!)


Miss Chloe Grace Heaton looks pretty in these.

Although she will have to grow a bit more to properly fit into them!


Catherine Slippers
The linen stitch inspired me to try to make shoes, since it has such a solid texture. I figured out how to decrease and increase to mold these little slippers for my friend Catherine who turned two in May. I was very pleased with the result, and the little heart buttons for the straps were a great find at my local fabric store!

I got to decorate her cake for her party. It was a fun bunny !


I also stitched for another three and a half hours on the Duvet of Insanity, which confirmed that I am still insane to be attempting it....however I am still optimistic about reaching my deadline!

Piano & Voice Recital

In the beginning of May was the final Piano and Voice recital for my students in Seattle. It was a lovely evening, and everyone did really well.

At the end, I sang a song and dedicated it to my students which made several parents cry and then they all gave me a standing ovation. It was really sweet and encouraging and corny all at the same time! I felt like I had stepped into my own version of Mr. Hollands opus for a minute. Now my students are working on their own student compositions with me before I finish teaching at the end of July.

Mundane Home Life

An interesting assortment of flowers have bloomed, faded and dried their way through our house.



Jonathan has been reading the Transformation series of Carol Berg books out loud to me. We are unashamedly great fantasy fans. We are also going to bed later and later as the story gets more exciting.


I have managed to almost kill my littlest rice pot by boiling edamame beans dry in it. Shortly before that Jonathan melted the water kettle onto the stove burner and then I burned rice into our only other pot. We've been scrubbing a lot of carbon around here!

Erik Visits Seattle

My brother and his girlfriend Cat visited us in April for a couple days.

We went out to Ethiopian food and had Pho and went to the park with Cole.


It was just great to hang out with them and get to know Catherine a little better. I just love spending time with my brother!

Semary Saga

Though we don't know where we will be living or how we are going to transport our posessions, August 14th will see us on the road to St Louis, Missouri. We would covet your prayers for all the details between now and then.

We did get a start on packing Memorial Day weekend...I'm afraid it is going to get quite messy around here as we try to get organized and purge all the non-essential.


Also, I think you should know that my envy of Jonathan getting to go to school again has sprouted and flowered into a full fledged plan to get a MA in Educational Theology myself when we move to St. Louis. My little sister, "me too, me too" plan will be helped quite a bit by the 100% spouse scholarship offered by Covenant Theological Seminary. Hopefully I can finish my two year degree by doing it part time in the four years Jonathan needs to complete his MDiv.

Enjoying the Weather

Seattle is doing it's usual spring dance--80 degrees one weekend followed by hail and two inches of snow and the low 30's, back to 70 and sunny and now it is grey and 50 with chance of showers. I've heard there are places in the world where you can pack away your sweaters or shorts depending on what season you are in. We don't get to do that here. But I absolutely love the variety and I'm trying to soak up as much Northwest weather as I can before we move in August.

Some pictures of a Saturday outing I took to Bainbridge Island with some friends on the ferryboat in 80 degree weather on April 4th.......


And a picture I took of it snowing when we had Abby and Caleb over for dinner on April 18th!


Here's a funny picture of Jonathan and I trying to soak up sun and watch a movie at the same time...It was pretty funny!

"pride goes before the fall"

In an attempt to update you on the mundane happenings of our home, there is something I must confess. I have lost a sock.

Ever since we got married, I have been priding myself on not being one of 'those people' who can't keep track of their sock pairs. "I mean really!", I used to think, "There are only two of them, and you have to wear both of them and if you wash both of them, how hard can it be to put them both back in your sock drawer again---Right?" Also a house is finite. There are a limited number of places the missing sock can be. So, if you loose a sock, then just FIND it! Socks don't dematerialize!

As in all things, this sad little single sock sitting on top of our dresser illustrates very clearly that I am one of "those poeple" and pride does indeed go before a fall!