Memorial Day Weekend Edition

I had the most amazing morning. We went to the Veteran's Cemetery here in Marietta for the placing of the flags on all of the graves. There were boy scouts everywhere. A slew of them.

Did you know that there are over 18,000 graves in there and that the oldest date from the civil war and go through every conflict since then? It took 10 minutes flat for the boys to have a flag on each one. I'm not joking, 10 minutes flat. Simply amazing.

The Eldest salutes the Soldier's Grave

They had some re-enactors there, but not the ones you usually think of around here in the South. Nope, not the civil war ones, these dudes were the first ones, Revolutionary War re-enactors. For your viewing pleasure, here's a posterior pic:

Revolutionary Booty Pic

How in the world did girl's ogle the gents behinds back in the olden days when they wore these types of uniforms? And don't tell me they weren't lookin' either, cause I won't believe it.

And not to be left out, The Youngest spent his time trying to uproot all the flags:



Sorry for the hazy pics, all I had was my camera phone since I forgot the real camera.

I swear that I've been knitting and will give an update soon.

Oh! Forgot to mention, I'm $203.00 closer to my wheel! Someone bought the barbie I had listed. Yay!

Awards, but they're just not for me.

There was little knitting today, but a whole lot of visitin' going on today. Today was honors assembly at the Eldest's school. He got several awards (all A's and a Reading award) and had grandparents on hand to watch him walk across the stage and get his certificates and medals.

Take a look at the pic I took of it. His school principal is an amazon woman. She's over 6 foot and wears heels. Even bending over to give him a hug she's huge, and I don't mean huge in a fat, mean way either. She's just a big, tall lady. I feel so short and small next to her especially when she wears heels too. But anyway, where were we?



I went into the class after the assembly and saw one of the boys just crying away at his desk. He didn't get anything at all, poor thing. He's had a tough time this year with his schoolwork, some of it because he has a hard time getting the concepts, some because he doesn't get everything done that he needs too. It's hard to know what to say to a kid in those situations. I just hugged him and told him that I loved him and left it at that.

Hopefully, if I get motivated and I am left alone long enough tonight, I'll have more knitting for you tomorrow.

Mother's/Father's Day Gift

It's a little late, but today I get to show you the Mother's Day gift that I had the children make for their Grandmothers. This would also make an excellent gift for dads for Father's Day.

This is Reverse Pen & Ink/Painting. You do all the writing and painting on the back of the plate:

The names have been removed, but I wanted you to see where they went instead of just blurring them out.

This is so easy! Here's how it was done.

1. Get a clear, glass plate. Ours was square, but round works great as well.
2. If you have any writing to go on the plate, do it first. It's a bit tricky. To get it right, I took a sharpie and a piece of paper. I wrote the Name 1 down. Then, turned the paper over and traced what I had written, again using the sharpie.
3. Next, I placed that side of the paper under the plate. Your plate should be face down! Trace the backwards name onto the plate. When I was done, I flipped the plate over and checked to see everything written the correct way. I continued with any other names or phrases and did them the same way.
4. Now for the next layer. I had the kids dip their hands into acrylic paint and then put their hands on top of where I had written their names. This did not go over so well with the Youngest. He absolutely hates getting stuff on his hands. I had a tough time keeping him from wiping his hands on his clothes. It was a full on wrestling match as a matter of fact. Acrylics and clothes don't mix well. I'm just sayin'.
5. Let that layer dry. Then I followed up with the background color.
6. Last step - Apply a sealant. I used spray on polyurethane.

Done! Simple huh?

New WIP

I have begun yet another WIP, Soleil, from Knitty.

Easy peasy so far. I'm adding an extra repeat of lace at the bottom to make it a smidge longer. I don't like where it's been falling on most folks who've made this over at Ravelry. See, that's the genius of Ravelry. You get to see how a pattern looks all made up on a bunch of different body types. Then you get to seethe and hate on all the gals that have nicer bodies than you. :)

I'm doing this in Knitpicks Comfy again since I love the way the last Comfy tank feels. The colorway on this one is in Blackberry. Usually my camera hates purples, but it seems to have gotten over it for this photo shoot. The color in the photo (at least on my monitor) is fairly close to the actual color of the yarn.


The first tank pattern I picked up was the Lelah tank. Very pretty, I was going to add wide straps to it. But. I couldn't get anything to go right on that one. I hated the way the lacework looked on the needles recommended. Way too wide. The pattern on the site is not correct either. I will revisit it later when I feel like sitting down with a calculator to get the needle/gauge/cast on number thing going. So, on to Soleil!

This tank could be similar if I took the lacework all the way up to just under the breasts, but I think I like this one as is.

Once again it's been proven that I'm getting old. The Eldest went with his Dad on Sunday to a Braves Game. They were chillin' in the seats and rockin' out to the music being blared over the loud system. A song came on and he asked his dad "Is that a 60's song?" Uh, no son, that's an 80's song.

That night, the Eldest was telling me about it. I asked him which song it was. "I don't know the name, but they said Hanimah." I said, "Hanimah?". Yep. Ha-ni-mah.

Have you guessed the song yet? Panama. By VanHalen. From 1984. You know, the one played on the oldies stations.






Back to knitting tomorrow! :)