Disney World

This is completely off topic, but I have to write up a post about why I've been absent from my duties lately... ;)

My family got early Christmas presents this year: a trip to Walt Disney World.  I grew up a Disney kid.  My parents were strict about what we were allowed to watch on TV, and they cancelled all channels but the Disney Channel, which back in the day, you had to pay extra for.  I've seen every Disney film, own most of them, and my kids love them just as much as I.  So when my husband suggested we take the boys to Disney World for a Christmas present this year, I was more excited than anyone. 

We planned the trip for right after Thanksgiving, flying out on black Friday.  We had uneventful flights from Oklahoma to Atlanta, and then on to Orlando.  The kids love flying, and each time we fly their etiquette is better...as they get older.  It's so much easier for the parents when your kids are good on a flight!

Once we landed in Orlando, Disney picked us up on their Magical Express buses, handled our luggage directly from the airline, and drove us to the Disney Beach Club Resort.  It was beautiful there.  Inside the lobby, we were greeted with a life-size carousel made entirely from gingerbread and icing.  It smelled heavenly.

Looking across the lake from the Beach Club to Disney's Boardwalk Resort and storefronts.

Disney's Beach Club Resort, taken from the bridge across the lake.

After unpacking and settling in, we ate dinner at Cape May, the on-resort restaurant and had a fabulous seafood buffet.  The desserts were outstanding!

Day 1, we set off for the Magic Kingdom.  To me, this is the flagship theme park, and it was certainly the busiest.  There was so much to do there.  I'll try to concisely recap:  It was cool that morning, only about 50 degrees, so we jacketed up and walked in.  Here's the requisite castle photo:

We rode the carousel just past the castle, watching Cinderella's stepsisters and evil stepmother ride right before us.  The sisters were carrying on about how fast the ride was, while the stepmother rolled her eyes and looked irritated. :)

We rode Tomorrowland Speedway, where the boys drove race cars on a track, Pooh's Many Adventures, Mad Tea Party, Dumbo, Barnstormer (Goofy's rollercoaster - which we had to ride twice and then came back later for 2 more rides.  I think it was a favorite.), It's a Small World, Peter Pan's Flight, Stitch's Great Escape, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Under the Sea (Ariel's ride), Astro-Orbiter, and Mickey's Philharmagic.  I'm probably leaving some out, but that's most of them.  Ones I didn't mention are the ones we used Fastpasses for: Monster's Inc Laugh Floor, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (our unanimous favorite!).

Chris and Elijah making Noah too dizzy on the teacups.

Riding Astro-Orbiter with great views!

Elijah and Chris going back for a second ride on Dumbo.

One of my favorite pics - Noah gazing at Dumbo's ride.

Chris and Noah on Aladdin's magic carpet.

Goofy was here.

At Monster's Inc Laugh Floor, pictured above, Elijah was picked to talk, he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he said a firefighter.  He was asked what grade he was in school, and then was given some jokes to take back to his class!  That was fun.

Magic Kingdom at night.  Beautiful!

Watching the dance party with a great view.

The sea of people...

So magical for kids (and big kids).

The throngs of people were slightly off-putting.  It seemed everywhere you went, there were people stopping in the middle of the walkways, slow-moving scooters, and Disney people saying you can't go the logical way.  This problem really came to a head in the evening, during the Main Street Electrical Parade and the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular.  They were nearly miserable because of all the people.  We were smashed in like sardines and couldn't see anything well.

Our knees hurt and we didn't get back to the room until after 11pm, but we had a lot of fun!


Day 2 was Animal Kingdom day.  We once again rose early and headed off to the park. 

The Tree of Life is huge and centered in the park.  Very impressive.  In this park, which was mercifully less inundated with people.

Elijah wanted his face painted and he picked a super-hero mask.  We rode/saw: It's Tough to Be a Bug (which scared the boys), Triceratops Spin, Dinosaur, the Boneyard, Finding Nemo - the Musical (fastpass), Kilimanjaro Safari (fastpass), Forest Exploration Trail, Winged Encounters (a fabulous bird show), Festival of the Lion King (fastpass).  We then paused to go on a hunt for a Mickey Fantasia Wizard's hat for Elijah, and finally found one.  We had some time before our dinner reservations, so we adults split and took turns riding Expedition Everest (I LOVED it, but Chris didn't care for going backward).  Then we rode Kali River Rapids as a family, but the sun was setting and Chris and Noah got soaked.  This induced grumpiness, which of course was my fault...

We ate dinner at Tusker House, which had great food and then we caught a bus back to the resort!

Here are some more photos of the day.

One of my favorite pictures also, meeting Donald Duck.

Santa Goofy and Pluto

Expedition Everest Ride

Boys watching birds at lunch.

Excited for the Kilimanjaro Safari!

Noah's one desire: a lollipop.

Sorcerer Elijah.  He wore this nonstop for the rest of the trip.

Us in front of Everest as the sun was setting.

Day 3 was our off day.  We didn't have a park to go to, and Chris had meetings, so the boys and I started off by walking to the Disney's Swan Resort to play mini golf.

Disney's Dolphin Resort - right across from the Swan.

We arrived an HOUR before they opened for mini golf, so the boys played on my phone while I took pictures of the pretty poinsettias that were everywhere.  Disney does a fantastic job of maintaining the grounds.  These poinsettias were glittering like jewels in the morning dew!

Mini golf was fun, it was a Fantasia-inspired course.  The boys are pretty clueless about golf, so we just had fun.  I think their moves more resembled hockey...
























Next we decided to explore the many pools on the resort.  The boys particularly loved the sand beach and the water slide.  I forgot my swimsuit at home, so had to watch from the sidelines.  As you can see below, it was sad for poor Mommy.

After getting cleaned up from swimming, we caught a bus to Downtown Disney and walked along the shops, eating at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant and getting ice cream at the Ghiradelli treat shop before returning to the resort.

Day 4 was our Epcot Day.  Chris had morning meetings again, so I took off with the boys and arrived around 8:30am. 

We started off riding The Land - a boat ride through the gardens of Epcot.  It was a favorite ride (we did it twice), though I thought they would hate it.  Then we ride Journey into Imagination, Ellen's Energy Adventure, and Imageworks Labs before stopping to meet Mickey, Goofy and Minnie at the Character Spot. Noah has a fear of costumed characters, so he wouldn't stand for pictures, but I did coax him into giving each one a high-five (or four if you get technical).  As we were leaving, Elijah was telling me how he wished Pluto was there, and the Disney cast member overheard and pulled us aside to tell us where Pluto was right then, so we headed over and saw him too!

We then met up with Chris for a hibachi lunch in Japan.  It was a lot of fun to watch the chef's theatrics.  It began raining hard while we were eating, so we had to wait a while on the veranda.  Unfortunately, I left my jacket on the stroller, which caught the downpour. :(

After the tasty lunch, we walked through the ending drizzle to use a fastpass on Spaceship Earth, right near the "Ball".

It's so photogenic...

Then we split, Elijah and Chris rode Soarin - a hang-gliding ride, while Noah and I explored the Seas with Nemo and Friends.  The ride was uninspiring, but the aquariums afterward were fun.  We watched dolphins play with divers, saw sea turtles and of course NEMO!  A bunch of NEMO!

Elijah and I then rode Test Track, where we designed and test-drove our own concept vehicle.  Elijah picked a monster truck, of course.  It was his favorite ride at that park.  Then we had 7pm reservations at the Coral Reef restaurant, where we could eat while watching the huge aquarium.  After dinner I rode Mission: Space (I about lost that nice dinner a time or two...), and the boys rode Spaceship Earth again.  We met up to use a fastpass for seating for Illuminations.  It was a fantastic fireworks and laser light show.  Much better experience than Magic Kingdom.  Near the end of the show, it began raining again, so we got warm showers before bed.

Christmas tree and lighted Epcot we admired while waiting for fireworks.

 Day 5 is Hollywood Studios day.  The boys and I decided to ride to this park by boat.  Side note: the Beach Club is an "Epcot" resort, meaning we walked 5 min to Epcot, we were that close.  We could hear Illuminations each night from our room.  The lake I showed in several of the pictures is trolled by boats, which will take you to the Swan, Dolphin, and Boardwalk resorts, as well as Epcot and Hollywood Studios.  It was nice.  Digressing - our boat ride took about 10 minutes and we were dropped off at the front entrance.   Here's a picture of the boys on the boat.

Above, you see the Hollywood Studios icon, Mickey's hat.  We were told that it was going away next month, and they were bringing something else in.  Wonder what it'll be!

We started off seeing the Great Movie Ride, Muppet Vision 3D and Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground.  The kids loved the playground with all its slides, pathways, spiderwebs and such.  I had to drag them out.

My favorite picture for the day!

We were just finding seats for the Indiana Jones' Stunt Show when Chris arrived.  So we watched the show together.  It was fun, full of stunts and explosions.  Shortly afterward, we saw the Lights, Camera, Action Stunt Show, which was filled with car and motorcycle stunts.  The boys were mesmerized.

 We saw Beauty and the Beast, the Musical, Elijah and I rode Star Tours, Elijah and Chris rode the Tower of Terror.

We watched Disney Junior, Live on Stage (Noah loved this), and the Little Mermaid puppetry show.  Then we ate dinner quickly and rode Toy Story Mania with a fastpass, which the kids loved.  It was an arcade-style 3D shooting ride.  The last thing of the day was the Fantasmic show - a great ending to the vacation.

The boys waiting for the Fantasmic show.  With their blinding wands.

On day 6 we flew home, pausing for this photo at the Orlando airport.

It was an unforgettable vacation, and a great get-away from life.  We were sad for it to come to an end, but home - with homecooked food, our own beds and bedrooms, and comforts of home were great to return to.  Until next time, Disney, because I'm sure you'll get our money again!

The Haxton Shawl

One of the most rewarding things about knitting is having an idea in my mind, figuring out how to knit it, and then trial/error until I succeed.  The Haxton Shawl stated out as a custom order - someone looking at shawls of mine and telling me what they liked about each one. 

Here is the result! I'm so happy with how it turned out.  You might notice that it has similar coloring to my Striped Sothia Shawl - that was a requested aspect.  However, the shape was completely reworked to make it larger, with a hexagon-like shape instead of triangle.

It was knitted from madelinetosh tosh merino light yarn, which is an all-time favorite of mine.  It is so soft and machine washable.  In my opinion, the luxury from this yarn comes from the fact that it's single ply.  They do such a great job of dying this yarn.  Its lovely tonal color variances are interesting to knit and give the color depth.  I used 4 skeins, 2 each in colorways Hosta Blue and Terra.  The colors are just fabulous.  It reminds me of pictures I've seen of the pueblos at Taos, New Mexico.

Now, it's not like I just start knitting and it turns out perfectly the first time.  I started in on the project, got about 32 rows in, and decided I didn't like the increases that were on the edges of the shawl.  So I ripped it all out and started over.  Here is the picture I took just before ripping out:

I tried KFB increases first (to keep it consistent throughout the shawl) but decided against it and went with yarn overs instead.  My 3 stitch garter stitch border appeared to have 4 stitches on the edge on the right hand side of the picture.  That just wasn't gonna work.  Once I paused to think about it, I realized that the KFB puts one the increase on one side only, so it's now obvious why this happened.  The yarn overs worked much better.

The next problem I encountered was a problem with the eyelet row (orange).  I had a moment of stupidity inattentiveness, and did not knit the correct number of rows before doing the eyelets.  So those had to come out.  Never fun with over 400 stitches on the needle.  But I used my needle, went down to the area before the mistake (picking up the last row of blue before the orange), picked up those stitches across the piece, and started over.  SOOOOooo much easier than ripping out blindly or tinking (knit spelled backward!).  *singing - I take two steps forward, two steps back...*

I wrote up the pattern and it will be published and available on my Ravelry designer page for $2.50.

Click here to purchase the pattern now! 

Click here to view the pattern on Ravelry.


I have thus far only listed free patterns, so I'm excited to take a step.  There is a lot of time and work that goes into writing a pattern.  Now that I have done it quite a bit, I'm appreciative of that effort more than ever.  I haven't designed anything with complex fitting, or with multiple sizes... I can't even imagine the work there.  But I'm sure I'll cross that bridge eventually.  I'm too much a sucker for a challenge!

Bon Voyage, Haxton Shawl!  Keep your new owner warm and snuggly this winter!  I've added my love into it!

Look! It's Spiderman!

My 4 (nearly 5) year old Elijah is 100% boy.  He's into Legos, superheroes, ninja turtles, dirt, and playing hard.  He's such a fun kid to have around, and he always makes me smile.  When I saw the pattern for a Spiderman blanket, I knew he would love it. 

It has a clever construction, started small in the middle and then increasing, with decreases and increases making points radiating out from the center like a web.  However, shortly after this picture was taken, I realized the instructions were insufficient and flawed, so I had to rewrite the instructions completely.  It was a major pain and I wasn't too pleased.  But I carried on and I'm glad I did.

After completion, the "spokes" of the web are crocheted in through the knitting.

I had the worst time getting the edges to keep from curling, and ended up making a 2-round double crochet border to help.  It still curls some, but Elijah will never know.  He saw me laying it out for photos and said "Oh my goodness!  It's AWESOME!".  Ahh....kids.

It is now proudly spread on his bed, ready for bedtime cuddling tonight.  This is why I make stuff.  To make someone smile.  Cuddling is a big bonus too!

Speed Knitting? Or not...

I'd like to think that I am a pretty quick knitter.  But I really don't know.  I don't TRY to knit as fast as humanly possible, I take my time and relax.  I'm usually watching TV or reading a book on my phone (if it's an easy pattern) while I'm knitting.  Kids constantly interrupt me, and they further impair my progress by clicking my row counter, stealing my tape measures, or chasing my dogs - who in turn jump onto my lap and send my yarn balls flying.

In addition, my style of knitting is not typical.  I am a "thrower".  Here I am knitting:

In the last knitting class I attended, some 4 years ago, I was quickly told that I knitted "wrong".  They put that working yarn in my left hand, and told me to force myself to learn that way.  "You'll be so much faster of a knitter that way, and your tension will be much more even".  I gave it the ol' college effort, but went right back to my old way when the teacher turned her back.  (I'm convinced there's NO WRONG WAY to knit.)

Regardless of barriers, I knit every day.  Knitting calms me, distracts me, and focuses random energy into something productive.  It occupies the creative section of my brain and challenges me.  It really doesn't feel like work.  More like therapy.

So today, curiosity led me to time myself.  I'm working on a shawl, which right now is in garter stitch.  Easy peasy.  On the needles are 329 stitches of fingerling weight yarn.  I started my stopwatch, and away I knit the whole row.

Here's what I got.

...which translates to approximately 578 seconds.  That's 1.75 seconds per stitch, or just over 0.5 stitches per second.  Now that I have this information....I'm not sure what to do with it!  HA!  Maybe I'll come back to this post in 3 years and time myself again.  I hope I'm faster!

Striped Mittens

I have been in designing mode for the last several weeks, and in preparation for beginning work on the new designs, I finished up a pair of quick mittens.  I love making mittens.  It's therapeutic.  Well, I guess that's a silly thing to say - all knitting is therapeutic for me.  But I love how mittens come together quickly and surprisingly simply.  There's no fuss of finger knitting.

 

These are knitted in 100% acrylic yarn.  The benefit there is they are washable and will wear well and retain their shape.  I love the gray and maroon colors.  Doesn't look like maroon?  Oh, well that's because evidently I'm a poor photographer.  Nothing I did make the color come out true.  But trust me, they're maroon.  The colors are sporty, and reminded me of something I'd wear to a fall football game, sporting school colors.  

I worked these entirely in the round with double pointed needles.  It's nice to be able to try them on as I go!

They made my hands sweat while I was photographing them, so I know they'll be warm.

Hooray for fall and mitten weather!  My favorite time of the year!