Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year from the Life in Cleveland family.

(and yes I totally photoshopped that picture so that ALL THREE of them were smiling.  BOOM.)

Random.

So!  It's been a week since Thanksgiving!  How did that happen?  All of a sudden we are in the thick of the holiday crazy.  And I don't even know where to start.  You know when you have so much to do that you are overwhelmed and end up getting nothing accomplished?  That's basically where I"m at with this blog right now.  So! Many! Things! So how about a random list of fun  I found when downloading photos off my phone?

Oh but before I get to that sign ups for the Road Trip Yarn Club are still open!  And I'm even offering a monthly payment option!  It's the perfect gift for that special knitter in your life.

1.)  The dude and his partner in crime at their preschool Thanksgiving party:

2.)  Tiny straight up refusing to be put into a highchair. 

 He is convinced that he's a big kid and who am I to argue with that?

You do not argue with the Tiny.

 3.)  My girl.

I love everything about this picture.

4.)  So I rarely am ever able to volunteer at my daughter's school (no child care option.  Toddlers?  Not very helpful unless you want lots of messes and/or screaming) But!  Any time they've put out the call for random craft supplies?  I am ALL OVER IT.  Recently they were hoping for fiberfill.  I don't know what they were going to do with it I just knew I had a giant bag kicking around my attic that I inherited from my great-grandmother's house.  While digging it out I found this:

Remember when yarns like that were a thing?  Back in like 2005?  Yeah... right at the time when I was just getting into knitting and had disposable income.  I purchased many nonsense skeins like this one.  I also have a ribbon yarn poncho somewhere that I shouldn't even admit exists.  Ugh.  Anyways I threw it with some Patons and boom:

Elsa scarf. Perfect Christmas gift for my girl.

5.)  The Book Advent Calendar is back:

I added a few new things and reused a bunch from last year.  This year's interesting twist?  Watching my 3yo try to have the self control to not open the next one until that night.  It's tough.

Yay random!  Hopefully this gets me back in the mode of posting again....

Road Trip Yarn Club!

I am super excited to announce that Jeanne Stevenson of Destination Yarn and Kate Jackson of Kate Jackson Knits have teamed up to bring you the Road Trip Yarn Club!

This collaboration of yarn and patterns will take you on a road trip knitting adventure. Each month we will travel to a new location where the project, pattern, and yarn will all work together to capture the spirit of a place. By the end you will have traveled 3,000 miles via knitting!

Some pretty Destination Yarn.

Every month from January through August 2015 we will release a limited edition, hand-dyed yarn by Destination Yarn and an accompanying knit pattern by Kate Jackson Knits available only at Knitting on the Square and the Destination Yarn Etsy Shop.

Some pretty Kate Jackson Knits patterns.

For more information and to sign up go to the Destination Yarn Etsy Site.  Space is limited and pre-registration is only open until December 25!  I'm thinking this is about the PERFECT Christmas gift for the knitter in your life.

So you know when you're working on something in secret and you want to tell everyone but you can't?  THIS.  I have been waiting to tell everyone about this for weeks now because it is just going to be so awesome.  Seriously you guys I am having so much fun with this club!  Kate is a fantastic designer and just wonderful to work with.  This has been a true collaboration from start to finish.  The first colorway is dyed already (so that Kate can design and knit the pattern) and when she first saw it her response was "OOOOOOH I can't wait to knit with that!!!"  YUP.  It's going to be SO good.   SQUEE!

Tiny's First Haircut.

So.  Our Tiny?  Has amazing, curly hair:

Glorious toddler locks!

I've been obsessively photographing it for months now.  It's downright angelic:

Middle child:  "Why aren't you taking a picture of meeee?"

But lately we've turned the corner from "shaggy baby" to "seriously when are you going to cut it?"  And it's always in his face.  And.... SOB.... it was time:

So on Sunday we took him for his first ever haircut.

Before.

I wanted to just trim up his bangs.  Make it so it's not in his face but keep the "curlers" as my girl calls them. 

But once we did that he looked like a girl.

 Plus Matt was in the background yelling "Cut. His. Hair." at me...

 So.... I told her to just trim it around his ears a bit.

That ended badly:

Why would you give me a mullet?

Glorious Mullet of Toddler.

So I gave in and cut it all:

My heart on the floor.

And you know what?  HE'S ADORABLE:

Yes.  With one swipe of the scissors he transformed from a baby to a little man.  And No I wasn't quite ready for that.  But... actually I kindof am.  A world with only big kids and no babies sounds kindof interesting.

Everything with 3 kids is interesting.

He looks so grown up!!!!

Before vs After.  Baby vs. Man.

All 3 of the men in my life have had haircuts this week and are looking quite dapper:

And for as worried as I was about his curls never coming back... well all it took was a bath:

Short curls!

Love my Tiny!

New Colorway Decisions.

So.  GAH!  Time totally got away from me there while I was preparing for my Destination Yarn show at Yarn Cravin'.

He's super helpful while I"m packing for a show!

Yarn Cravin'!

I absolutely did not mean to neglect this blog for so long!  Especially after all of your great suggestions for my new colorways!  Here's what I decided:

Provence was just perfect.  I can't believe I didn't think of it!  And I had to do this:

Yeah.  Why fight it?  It is what it is.  Amazing how deep those kids movies become entrenched.  Meh.  In other news check out this yarn I bought this weekend:

It's handyed Baby Llama from Behind the Pines.  So soft and squishy!  I want it to be a hat to go with my houndstooth coat.... commence the Ravelry pattern stalking!

So! Many! Options!

Anyways thanks for all of the suggestions on my yarn.  Stay tuned - Destination Yarn has some more cool things coming up!

Help Me Name My Yarn.

So!  Those of you who are new around here might not know this but in addition to this blog I'm also the dyer behind Destination Yarn.   Occasionally I'll post about it here because who doesn't want to see pictures of pretty yarn?

Me with all the pretty yarn.

Sidenote:  The advice I keep hearing about blogging is that you should find a niche and stick to it.  Post only about that one thing and find your tribe of people interested in that one thing  And every time I hear that I just think HAAAAAAA OOOOOPS.

Anyways!  Yarn!

New Colorways!!!

I have a trunk show coming up next Saturday, November 15 at Yarn Cravin'.  I haven't been there in awhile and they are such a fun group of people so I wanted to dye up a couple of brand new colorways.  I was feeling uninspired by my own travel so I paged through pintrest until something struck my fancy:

Quebec City.

I found that image of Quebec City and just loved it.  The colors spoke to me even if I had never been there myself.  So I interpreted it as this:

Black and pink and teal and blue!

Which, LOVE.  But then my daughter saw it and said it looked like something that I now can't unsee.  Any guesses?

 Here let me put it next to a skein of one of my other colorways - Helsinki - see if that gets you there:

Hmmm.. those colors look pretty familiar together...

Maybe this will help:

"It's ANNA yarn!!!"

RIIIIIIIGHT.  So I accidentally dyed Anna yarn.  Exactly.  I perhaps maybe have seen that movie one to many times.  So I did a little research and it turns out that Frozen is based on Norway:

Pictured:  The North Mountain?

My question is this:  Do I stick to calling the yarn Quebec City or do I lean in and name it Oslo?

Either way it's pretty.

My next new colorway is this one:

I've had the color combo of greys, purple, and yellow floating around my head for awhile now.  Finally I put it to yarn.  Even if I had no place to reference.  Which is not how I normally do things.  I loooooove it, though:

But I have no idea what to name it.  I mean what place is purple, grey, and yellow?

Help?

Both of these new colorways and a bunch more pretty will be at Yarn Cravin' all day November 18!

Halloween 2014!

So are you sick of adorable pictures of children in costumes yet?  Because NEVER.

The boys were Jake and Cubby from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  I made their costumes this week.  Quick and easy.  Much glue gun involved:

The vests are the Dana Made It Pirate vests that I altered a bit.  For Jake's I added a collar.  For Cubby I made the whole thing a bit smaller:

This is my new fav photo ever.

The shirts are a package of toddler undershirts with some felt glued to them.  Bonus that they could both wear the same size!  Jake's I cut up a bit, Cubby's I left alone:

I bought the bandanas at JoAnne's b/c easy.  The pants they already owned - although Jake's were about 3 sizes to small.  Meh.  Cubby's were just a pair of grey sweatpants - I threw them in a dyepot with some red and BAM.  Cubby pants.

Of course if you're familiar with Jake and the Neverland Pirates you realize that someone is missing.  They are a pirate crew of 3.  Just like my kids!

 Except our girl wanted NOTHING to do with this nonsense.  So someone else had to step up:

Noone can ever say I'm not a good sport.

We rocked our costumes at the preschool party:

two jakes, a cubby, and a bee.  Btw of the 18 kids in his class at least 5 were Elsa.

Where Tiny continued to think that he's a big kid:

What.  I totally belong here.

Before we headed down to costume parade at the girl's school.

Her school requires that the kids dress up like characters from books.  I LOVE IT!  Obviously her choice was easy:

FANCY NANCY!!!!

Her skirt was one that I made for-ev-er ago when she was a toddler who loved tulle.  But she then rejected it b/c it was too scratchy.  I saved it and it found new life here.  The rest of it is thrown together out of clothes she already owned and a tiara we embellished with some pipe cleaners.  I think the red hair is the perfect detail!

But she didn't want to be Fancy Nancy for "real" Halloween.  She wanted to be "ponies turn into people" aka the My Little Pony Equestria Girls ridiculous.  I said ok, though since she was so determined and the costume was easy to put together. 

My friend made here the awesome mask which has been a dress up box staple for awhile.  I made the skirt out of fabric she picked out.  I threw together the "boots" aka leg warmer things the night before.  Her shirt is a school shirt.  She wore the ears and leggings from last year's costume.

Our pirate crew had a ball trick-or-treating.  And pillaging their pirate booty:

 Afterwards we headed out to our own Halloween party - the same one we go to every year:


I did not change costumes.  Which means all night I had to explain.. yeah it's from a kid's show.  It was still funtimes.

My brother had no problem with people not recognizing him.

A demon and a grinch.... evil theme?

Halloween around here was INTENSE.  3 parties and trick or treat all in one day!  I... yeah.  We spent all day Saturday in a sugar coma of lazy.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Oh yeah and we carved pumpkins, too.

Thanks to my dad and my sister in law for the pictures!