Mustard Seed Yarn Lab

Well hello there! I’m afraid I haven’t had much to show on the blog lately. The second sock to Li’s Kai-Mei pair is still not finished (at the heel), and the Super Secret Project is still on Chart 4. Things slowed down for a bit while I had my mom here with my niece and nephew. We had fun though. We went to Crane’s beach in Ipswich.

There’s Emmet on the beach with my niece Taylor. Taylor just might be Emmet’s very favorite person. He spent the 3 days telling her how much he liked her, and telling her how beautiful and soft her hair was. My little Casanova.

My nephew, Asa, has recently learned how to knit. I can’t tell you how proud of him I am. He’s a natural! Here we are on the beach knitting together….he’s as addicted as I am and it’s all he wanted to do while visiting me. Here he is making me a cowl from a pattern I picked out on Ravelry. He finished it that night! I’m working on the Super Secret project.

None of us are really beach people and after a couple hours of sweating in the hot sun, we left and walked around the Crane Castle.

It’s a pretty impressive place. We didn’t go inside, as the tour would have been $10 per person, but we only wanted to walk around the grounds anyway. Holding Mommy’s hand took a quick backseat to holding Taylor’s hand.

While the estate is definitely impressive, it doesn’t hold a candle to the lawn!

Asa, Taylor and Emmet decided to see if they could run and roll to the very end of the lawn.

Emmet did his best to stay caught up with the big kids.

And then they ran all the way back.

They impersonated the statues:

Asa did a great job.

Taylor also blended right in….

But Emmet….well, Emmet needs a little work on his statue posing….

We laughed our butts off watching him try to pose. All this sun and activity makes for one tired little boy…..and a tired Daddy who missed out on all the fun cuz he had to work all day.

I will post knitting stuff soon!

Something I should really post about was the mini vacation we just went on.

We went to Angell Cove Cottages in Leeds, ME.  Our friends recommended it and after looking at their pictures and the website, we decided it would be the perfect place for a small vacation.

And it was. Each cottage has a bird theme. We stayed in the Mallard Duck cottage.

Although it had a bedroom with a big bed on the 1st floor, we all chose to sleep up in the loft together in the 3 small beds. Part of it was because we didn’t want Emmet to be all by himself up there, and part of it was because it was a loft! I’ve never slept in a loft before and I always thought they were so cool.  And it was! And so cozy.

And there were hammocks! A few of them were spread across the camp.

There was a small swingset.

And a beach. Mike bought 2 fishing poles on our way there, one for him and one for Emmet. Emmet liked fishing, but quickly lost interest if he didn’t catch a fish within 20 seconds. He would tell you he caught lots of fish though, because when Mike would hook one, he’d call Emmet over to reel them in. Emmet thinks he’s quite the fisherman.

The lake there is very shallow, and you can walk almost halfway out to the island you see. There was a raft WAY out in the water, but you could walk to that too!

Emmet loves the water and we had to practically drag him out of the lake anytime we wanted to do something else.

We had a fire every night on the beach. And we would roast marshmallows, but Emmet preferred his not cooked….or just a LITTLE warm. We told him he was taking all the fun out roasting marshmallows.

Who doesn’t love a hot dog in your underwear? AND a new movie that your mom bought for you special for your vacation!

I  did as much knitting on the super secret project as I could. No one ever takes pictures of me knitting…I guess my family doesn’t find it to be as exciting as I do. But somehow I did end up with this picture of me knitting at our picnic table. It could have been from Emmet playing with the camera. I’m marking a finished row on the pattern.

We ate one night at a place called Fast Eddie’s. It was like a restaurant from the 50’s, and you could eat inside or outside or even have them serve you in your car. They had old fashioned cars everywhere and this made Emmet’s night.

And on the outside there was a mural that had Emmet fascinated….well…at least the girl had him fascinated….

And Mike liked her too.

They also had a playground out back filled with things they just don’t have in playgrounds these days.

And alas, this post is getting waaay too long, I know. But I still have some nice pictures left to show, so I’ll just lump them all together here, at the end.

So, the Super Secret project is moving along. In the beginning I was flying through it. Chart 1 was done in a day. Chart 2 followed quickly after. Chart 3…well…it was a bit slower, but still felt like I was going somewhere. Chart 4…sigh…my hands hurt. My arms muscles are sore. I did the calculations. 245 stitches per row, 54 rows = 13,230 stitches. That’s only Chart 4. It gets BIGGER, people.  And yet, somehow, it doesn’t really look all that big.

Don’t worry though. I WILL finish. I will keep plugging along. I’m really still having fun knitting it.

Yarn, stitch markers and ibuprofen….aaaahhhh…