Don't rain on my parade

Well, it did drizzle for about 2 minutes on Saturday - but mostly it was clear and dry for the annual LG Children's parade.

We got a good spot by virtue of joining friends with a good spot!

The old favourites were there:

The Cucazza Squash Drill Team:

The Jiffy Market bike stunt guys:

as well as some new groups like the excellent 'Star Paws':

We had an excellent time and feel like the countdown to Christmas has started now. We have a busy month of birthdays and anniversarys so lots to celebrate!

On the needles: Tithe

I'm currently knitting a sweater from Noro Unlimited by Jane Ellison. It's called Tithe and I'm knitting it in Silk Garden.




The colour is slightly outside my usual palette - I thought I would go for a more pink colour - this is really very pink indeed!

It's an easy knit - good television knitting - and going quite fast.

Cold feet: warm heart

Christina made me a hot-pad cover - see Sixties Retro. She thoughtfully provided me with a microwaveable pad to go in it.

Sadly, I managed to explode it in my microwave so needed to find an alternative. After searching on the internet I decided that it was something I could easily make myself, and you know what? It was something I could easily make myself:

Some left-over fleece, half a pound of rice (tuppenny or otherwise) and about 3 minutes at the machine.

Dog Pants

Over the weekend I managed to get some sewing done. The boys played outside for hours: here they are building some sort of bike ramp to do "tricks".

Finlay is modeling the dog pants. He chose the fleece fabric on a trip to Joanns for fabric paint before Halloween. He also chose some red plaid for Adam. I made these up using the same pattern as the skeleton pants, but I can't remember the pattern number. It's a basic pajama pattern. These are intended for skiing and camping trips, but Finlay had to wear his today.

I've discovered the joy of sewing with Fleece; no seam finishing; no pressing; no fraying. I can see how you might end up with a wardrobe of home-made fleece clothes - apart from the obvious!

Red stocking

The other stocking of the pair. This one for Finlay.


In Cascade 220 and the rest of the ball of Berocco Metallic FX. Thanks to a seaming lesson from Mary my finishing looks loads better. I'm hoping to put it into practise on my Tithe sweater which has a lot of seams to sew up.

It's beginning to feel...

The weekend after Thanksgiving seems to be the traditional time to start to decorate your home for Christmas. In this neighbourhood most people go to town with lights and decorations so starting early gives you time to get everything illuminated!

Here is the first of my Christmas knitting: stockings for the boys. This one for Adam.

The pattern is Ann Norling 'Snowflake Stocking'. Knitted in Cascade Pastaza and Berocco Metallic FX. Detail of the intarsia snowflake:

These will be for stocking presents so I made them longer than the pattern.

Happy Thanksgiving

Adam made the turkey which contained a pottery spoon holder shaped like a leaf. Both boys were able to tell us the story of the first Thanksgiving like the proper americans that they are.

Move over Milton Bradley

Finlay has invented his own board game. I actually don't know what it's called, but he and I played this afternoon.


The rules are very complex, and seem related to Chess - you move pieces across the board in a similar way.

For a close up of the board and playing pieces:


Sadly I lost the first round to Finlay, but he did comfort me after announcing victory "well we both really won Mummy". I guess he's assuming that if I keep losing like that I won't want to play anymore.

Warm ears and green hair

Behold my latest finished knitted object! (Well, actually not the latest - but one which is intended for me and can be talked about here). The pattern is calorimetry from knitty and I'm really pleased with it.



Knitted from a single ball of Noro Silk Garden. Details for Ravellers here . Actually I think I just told all the details anyway. Its not a clear picture of my new green hair - but it does match the hat!

Little bear

When Christina was visiting, at her suggestion, we made bears for the Mother Bear project. Mine, the knitted one, on the left, Christina's crochet bear to the right.

Its a nice sounding small-scale charity, but we were both appalled at the patterns that were provided for the bears. The construction was odd (both bears knitted/crochet in one piece from toes up to head and back to toes. There was no gauge suggested and the pattern was an odd mix of row numbers and inches... but don't let that put you off.... the odd pattern would be easy even for a beginning knitter, and the bears only took an evening to create. I also think they both came out really cute whatever the pattern limitations...and that is what counts.

So, please, if you have a free evening, and the inclination, please look up http://www.motherbearproject.org/.

Autumn gardening

Remember way back in February when my mother did some planting with the boys? They planted seeds...



..they brought them on inside, then planted outside in March.



Now, just before Halloween, they looked like this:


We harvested our pumkins for decoration over Halloween, and now are deciding how to eat them. Should we eat pie? or soup? mmm I forsee some baking over the weekend.

Big Air

Adam and I needed an adventure today - and we managed to find one here: Icerair 2007 . We had a blast!

Edited to include a photo take in the giant snowglobe at AT&S Park:

We started off in the village area cleaning up on stickers and made our way to the bmx park to watch the amateur competition. We then headed over to AT&T Park to watch the Big Air preliminary competition: Snowboard and Ski jumping from a huge snow-covered ramp erected in the stadium. It was a pretty exciting competition - we enjoyed the ski jumping better than the snowboards.

We also watched some competitors practising for the pro skate and bmx Vert (20' high half-pipe for skateboard and bmx).

After the competition we headed back to the village to watch the bmx professionals practise for a while before we headed home exhausted. While I prepared dinner Adam practised tricks on his 'bmx bike', aka the bike he got for his 2nd birthday...which has a suitable small scale to stand in. He tells me he is already saving for a bmx of his own!

No digital photos - but we did buy a disposable camera so Adam will have some pics of himself being nearly brained by flying skateboards and flying cyclists.

Dem bones

Preparations for Halloween started a few weeks ago. The boys were very specific about what they wanted to be, and how we should make the costumes.

Somewhat disappointingly I was not able to get glow-in-the-dark paint (it's probably toxic). Adam helped me cut out the trousers, we bought the t-shirts from Old Navy.

We had to paint the costumes in 2 sessions to allow the paint to dry. Not forgetting the skeleton feet.

Halloween celebrations started at Adam's school with a parade and classroom party.



As it grew dark we prepared to hit the neighbourhood. Front view (with scary faces):

Back view:

Finally, we ended up at the top of the road when someone suggested that Finlay was the ideal complement to her decorations!

Happy Halloween!

House in motion

We just experienced our biggest quake since we came to California. Reported by the USGS as a 5.6 we certainly noticed it!

We were just sitting down to eat when the entire house started to sway rather severely. We could hear really loud creaks, but nothing even fell off the shelves. We went outside to check and the water in the pool was loudly sloshing about. The quake seemed to last for ages, and we both felt rather queasy afterwards.

It's amazing that the ground can move so much, yet the power didnt even flicker. The movement was really quite strong to us, I can't imagine how a major quake would feel.

Ferret in motion

Remember this http://ferretworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/brotherly-love.html?



Well, he's got it now!





Finlay has been a cycling maniac since he mastered riding a 2-wheeler...he has ridden into town, not to mention the obstacle course that he has built in the back garden.

Another birthday?

We celebrated another birthday here at Ferretworld. The boys were very excited as usual to share in the present-opening.

Here is Nigel about to open his present from us - the boys suggested both the present and the birthday activity...

...and although Nigel accused me of trying to kill him on his birthday he did join in the Skateboard lesson. His new board is very fast!

Adam really had a great time at the skate park, he can now do several of the smaller ramps on his own, and both boys tried drop-offs, and skating off a 'table' (dont know what the skate jargon is here...Adam probably does.

We wrapped up the birthday celebrations with Carrot cake from Icing on the Cake, and a take-out curry for dinner!

The idle hands come to Ferretworld

Blogging action has been a little light around here recently...but knitting action has been hectic!

Christina came to LG to visit and knit.

We spent the weekend at the Full Thread Ahead knitting camp in Carmel.

We had a lovely room overlooking the ocean in Carmel...

and of course we participated in the underwater knitting contest...

(The yarn and needles had to be submerged. The boys were completely thrilled by the idea of this!).

We made bears for The Mother Bear project:

...and a jolly good time was had by all!

Pinnies on Women's Hour

Women's hour is a venerable BBC institution and one that I missed very much before I discovered the web streaming version of it. This week they broadcast an interesting item about the publication of This book . This is 'The Gentle Art of Domesticity" by the woman better known as Yarnstorm .
The podcast of the broadcast is available for download from here .

I've mentioned this blog before - with her colourful and enticing description of a life spent knitting, quilting, and baking fresh buns for her 3 children's return from school. It's a fantasy life - but an appealing one - for all I know this is actually the author's real life - as much as a blog is ever real.


However, what has amazed me is the storm of criticism that the publication of the book seems to have generated, largely accusations of 'anti-feminism' . It is astonishing that even in 2007 women should be called on to defend their choices to work - or not, to knit - or not. To me, the legacy of feminism is that I have the choice to work, be a mother, bake, and knit... if that is what I want to do.


The other avenue of criticism against the book is that it is elitist. That because the author has the leisure to spend her time quilting or icing petit four, before collecting her three children from their fee-paying school, it somehow excludes the rest of us without the income to support such a lifestyle. This really amused me because the one thing that you can say about cooking, baking, and knitting, is that they are not typically the pastimes of the rich!

What has warmed my heart is that my sentiments seem to be shared by the majority of the Women's Hour listeners who commented on this broadcast, as well as the readers of the Yarnstorm blog....well maybe that last one is not so surprising...but Hurray for Women's Hour! After all, this is really just a knitting/crochet/quilting/baking book (which I have not actually read).

The book has been labelled "pinny pxxx" so, to close, here is a picture of me in my pinny.

On the needles

Apart from 'the big project', which is nearing completion, I have been doing a little sock knitting.

That is both 'a little knitting' and 'a little sock'. These are short socks for Adam. He requested blue socks, and this wool is leftover from my Charlottes Web shawl. It's koigu so should make nice socks as long as I have enough. I should have knitted them both together to make sure - and may even unpick and reknit them as Adam says they will be too long. His objective is that his socks not show above his shoes.

Bike Ride - take 2

On Sunday we set off for a bike ride. This was the second attempt; on Saturday we got half-way to Santa Cruz before the boys fighting in the back turned us around and back home! Sunday was a much better day


We went to the coastal side of Big Basin State Park to try to Skyline to the Sea trail (although we were headed from the Sea). It was a lovely trail, heavily wooded and running alongside Waddell Creek.

We didnt get too far up the trail, after a couple of miles the trail became very narrow with steep drop-off to the side so we turned back.

But not before we had a snack in the tree. Tea for us and hot chocolate for the boys.

This is the view headed back down the last part of the trail, where Waddell Creek joins the ocean. There is a historical marker showing where some of the missionary priests camped for a few nights in the 18th century, and the boys were most mystified as to why they would camp...their idea of camping of course involves loading the car up with a million and one things!

Of course after all the exercise we needed sustenance, so we headed to our favourite wharf restarant: Gilberts.

What did I eat? This one for Farve:

Sanddabs!

We spent some time after lunch watching these guys:

and pointing out to the boys that there was plenty of room on the pontoon for all the sea lions and no need to be fighting over places....we never like to miss a chance!