Grade Six Graduation

That's Ellery, our little graduate modeling the dress and the shrug. The dress was ordered through Nordstroms (Junior dresses...clearance!) and muled here by a friend in California. Cheap and cute...I'm all about that!


The shrug is Stardust from Knitty...with a couple mods to accomodate the yarn that I subbed. I'm not completely thrilled with the results, but I did substitute a yarn that was wildly different from that called for in the pattern. I couldn't fathom wearing a mohair shrug during a humid June, so I used a cotton blend with a bit of shine. Because much of the fit of the shrug is derived from the springiness of the mohair (not so much with the cotton) I knit a larger size from the ribbed band up, to ensure that it was big enough. I think that I would prefer the garment knit as written, with a mohair blend.




Oh, Elle won an award for Language Arts. DH feels this award is a re-framing of the observation "Your Kid Talks the Most"...but hey, a plaque is a plaque!




And finally, Ellery suffering...because "Beauty IS Pain". You can never point out this correlation too early or too often.

MIA again...

Whoever said that April is the cruelest month, never had kids in elementary school. The hands-down winner for punishment meted out to mommies is June. (ok, December is pretty hectic too, but December is busy for everyone...not just the parents of medium-sized kids.)

Everything happens in June...playdays, birthdays, track and field days, Graduation (from Grade 6 no less), teacher retirements, jamborees, field trips, bbqs...you name it, we've booked it...in June.

A couple quick pics...

The monthly Youth Dance at the community centre usually hosts only students in Grades 5 through Grade 8, but since it's June and the last month of the school year, Grade 4 students were invited to attend.

Here are Clare, Ellery, Celine and Jessica all spiffed up for their big night out. Notice Ellery's mermaid hair...she was exceptionally proud of it.




I can't really criticize about hair styles...here's a photo of me in the 80's. Yeah, that's me as a blond... hey, it was the 80's...I was a hottie by the questionable standards of the day.



Clare and Gillian celebrated their 10th birthdays. Clare invited her besties to watch the new Pixar movie "UP" and then come over and eat pizza and ice cream. (For the record, Clare dislikes cake, mostly because it has icky frosting all over it. If I hadn't been there to witness it, I'd swear she wasn't mine...)

Anyway, here are the girls creating and devouring ice cream sundaes...







It's Clare's first year at her new school and I had worried about her fitting in and finding friends...but it all worked out. Clare's classmates are just lovely girls.

Knitting-wise, June is a complete disaster. I've been working on a shrug for Elle to wear over her dress for the graduation and it's seeming to take forever. Granted, I subbed out a vastly different yarn than the one called for in the pattern, so I am the author of my own misfortune...

I was knitting some peachy-pink Lily Chin Manhattan (bamboo blend) into a Debbie Bliss jacket for a baby girl gift, but I got 3/4 of the way through the project and realized that there was no way that I could consider the results gift-worthy. The yarn has a very interesting texture, but when knitted is not dissimilar to thick terrycloth and it doesn't give teeny tiny garments a pleasant drape.

Thick and thirsty is not something I associate with baby garments unless they are soakers. I frogged the whole thing and gave the yarn to one of my proteges from the Knitting Club. I've no doubt that she will tame the yarn into something gorgeous.

I will knuckle down and finish that shrug. But after that, there isn't much on the needles except a Clare sweater that has been dragging on for months and an experiental Kid Silk Haze/Stainless Steel wool scarf that I've been toying with.