Splindarella's Blog

2010-12-26T02:20:00.002-05:00

Portable North Pole

My cousin turned me on to this, and it's the coolest Christmas thing ever.

Fill out some information about your child, upload some photos, and Santa sends a personalized video message. My five-year-old loved it! She sat watching, amazed that Santa had her photo, called her by name, told her all about her school, the things she'd done all year, what she wanted for Christmas, etc etc. Her eyes lit up as he spoke to her, and she nodded along in answer to his questions of "You're five years old, right?" and "Do you think you've been nice enough?" She got so excited that she decided to make him a video message in return. She said, "Santa showed me his office, so I'm going to show him my room." It was truly magical.

Merry Christmas, and may the magic of the season be with us all.

2010-12-12T00:52:00.002-05:00

Our First Christmas Card of the Season

And my five-year-old came racing through the house waving it like a banner and shouting, "Look, Mommy, it's the Baby Genius!"

2010-11-28T02:06:00.003-05:00

You Know What Happens When You Blink...

You miss it.

It feels like all I've done since my last blog post is blink, but it's nearly Christmas and where the heck has all that time gone?

It's been a strange fall. Strange and hectic. With both girls in school, I've had to adjust to a whole new schedule, and I still don't feel settled in. Big Girl goes to school 5 afternoons a week, and quite frankly, I think I'm as grateful for half-day kindergarten as she is. I just don't know how little kids do the full-day school thing. There are some days that she comes home so exhausted that she just falls right asleep. Fortunately, she really likes school; she's in a great class with an excellent teacher, she's made lots of friends and her only complaint is that some of the "big girls" (first graders) on the bus ride home are mean to her. My 81-year-old mom's advice to her: "Don't take anything from anybody. If anybody bothers you, punch 'em in the nose." That, as DH commented, is old-skool. It's also, I patiently explained to my mother, not exactly tolerated in schools these days. Although, honestly, it kills me to hear about kids being mean to my kid. Just kills me. Fortunately, Big Girl is not the punch-'em-in-the-nose type, although if she were, those other kids might think twice before being mean to her.

Little Z is now in pre-school two mornings a week. She's one of the "babies" of the class since her birthday is in October and she wasn't even 3 yet when the school year started. She also loves school; she's already got her little group of friends and she comes home full of talk about Katherine, her best buddy, and the others. Nobody is mean in pre-school. The teachers don't allow it, and the kids are so very supervised that not much happens under the radar. Little Z is definitely the punch-'em-in-the-nose type, so I think I'll have both more and less to worry about when it's her turn to start riding the school bus with the big kids.

And me? I'm still struggling with carpal tunnel, or whatever the pain in my hands is that I've yet to see a doctor about. I continue wearing braces and trying to vary my fiber routine, switching from knitting to weaving to spinning to just plain resting, hoping that eventually things will work themselves out. Yes, I can indeed spell "denial," and why do you ask?

But, I'm busy working on Christmas gifts: hats for DH and the girls (all finished, thankfully), socks for Mom (also finished) and Aunt C (unfortunately not), and maybe even Abi Grasso stripey watermelon socks for the girls if I can get to them before the 25th. I feel lucky. I feel blessed. We're all together at the end of the year, and I'm thankful for all that we have and all that we have to look forward to.

If only I could keep from blinking.

2010-09-08T08:19:00.004-04:00

First Day of School

Kindergarten...riding the school bus all by herself...every penny spent on pre-K more than worth the moment when she stepped on board without a tear or a backwards glance, waving good-bye, excited beyond belief to be heading to her first day of school.

2010-08-22T01:16:00.005-04:00

My Day in Pictures

2010-08-17T23:16:00.004-04:00

Omega

I teach. The pay sucks, the benefits (as a teacher at a university, as opposed to, say, a public school) are minimal and my own personal commute is pretty ridiculous.

One bright spot, however, is our faculty spending account. Every year, we get a certain amount to spend on "professional development." While the administration has gone all Ebenezer Scrooge on technology purchases (as though having access to a computer doesn't contribute to the teaching effectiveness of the faculty), they are simply delighted to send us to professional development workshops. Which is how I wound up spending a week last summer at the Omega Institute, taking a Spanish Immersion class.

The class absolutely blew, which was shocking considering the fact that I'd loved every class I'd ever taken at Omega up till that point. The rest of the class agreed with me, and when we went en masse to complain we were each given a free R&R weekend as compensation.

I just came back from mine.

R&R at Omega is lovely. No schedules, nowhere you have to be, no one you have to answer to. I timed it so as to be there the same weekend as a colleague who was taking an actual workshop and who I love to pieces, and it wound up being the perfect combination of alone time and friend time.

I arrived late Friday and enjoyed dinner and some quiet knitting time with my audiobook (Scott Sigler's Nocturnal) in the Ram Das Library. When I started feeling sleepy, I headed back over to my single dorm room for a little spinning out on the front deck, then settled in for a good night's sleep.

I woke at 6:45am, no alarm, no kids jumping all over me demanding breakfast, nothing but soft light coming in around the edges of the windowshades and a desperate need to pee. Breakfast with my friend, then knitting in the organic vegetable and flower garden, followed by a group reiki session and more knitting, this time in a comfy hammock down by the lake. I went to lunch only when the first drops of rain started to fall,rousting me from my spot under the trees.

I spent Saturday afternoon knitting, drinking tea and browsing the shelves in the Omega shop for small gifts for the girls and DH. After dinner -- all vegetarian, organic, locally-sourced and absolutely delicious food, as always -- the evening found me again at the library, knitting, then back at my room, spinning.

Sunday, my last day, was cloudy, but I still woke to the gentle morning light at around 6:45am. I spent the entire morning except for meals down at the lake, swinging in a hammock and putting the finishing touches on the socks I'd been working on all weekend. By the time I left after lunch, just ahead of an approaching storm, I'd been thoroughly rested, relaxed and pampered.

Here's what I have to show for it:

First and foremost, Mom's socks. She picked the yarn out last Christmas -- a colorway so totally unlike her that at first I thought she was joking. But for some strange reason, my plain-vanilla mom wants some funky rainbow socks, so who am I to argue? I just put them up to block tonight, and once the ends are woven in I'll tuck them away for this year's Christmas present. Score one for me for being ahead of the game!

Four ounces of Crown Mountain Farms Targhee singles in the Woodstock colorway, from their 2010 Fiber Club. This was an absolute breeze to spin and felt like it took no time at all. I didn't get crazy about setting up a control card or being super-duper careful to make all the singles exactly the same grist; I just let it flow, and it was so much fun I didn't want to stop. I actually spun up the second bobbin here at home in just the couple of days since I've been back, a true feat since I rarely get much spinning time around the house. I'm planning to spin up another 4 ounce bump of CMF, this one a lovely Polwarth in various purple tones, also from this year's Fiber Club. At the end of it all, I plan to 4-ply the singles to get what I hope will be a nice, lofty worsted-weight yarn.

And finally, this. My latest podiobook, Nocturnal. DH loves Scott Sigler, but I got totally turned off from him when I tried to listen to Infected, which is gory, to say the least. Nocturnal is pretty gory as well, but for some reason I got completely hooked into the story. As a kid, I was always a sci-fi/fantasy/horror junkie, so I think I'm just returning to my roots. I listened to what must have been something like 30+ hours of audio during a single weekend, and I didn't want the story to end. I absolutely love audiobooks and podiobooks. My latest pick is a classic: Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.

And all this productivity has allowed me to get started on yet another shawl: a Blue Curacao in Misti Alpaca Worsted. So far, nearly a dozen rows in, it looks like this:

Not incredibly impressive, I know. But just you wait. This shawl is gonna be a knockout.

Now if only I had another weekend of alone time to work on it.

2010-08-05T00:32:00.003-04:00

Hold the Mayo...and the Dessert

Sugar makes me crazy. Not crazy like my toddlers get crazy when they have one too many spoonfuls of sprinkles on their ice-cream sundaes. No, this is a slower, more insidious crazy. The kind of crazy that you know is taking over, but still you keep going with it because, well, that's what the crazy is, after all...crazy.

Now, you have to understand something about me. I grew up in a house with two parents who grew up during the height of the Great Depression. They ate mayonnaise sandwiches and made tomato soup out of ketchup and re-used teabags when they were kids. Let no one ever tell you that growing up poor doesn't do something to the way you look at food as an adult.

What it did to my parents was make them rather...liberal...in what they considered a healthy meal. If it was filling and home-cooked (my mother never did and never has prepared a meal out of a box), it was nutritious. Which is why I spent my childhood fervently believing that a big ol' piece of apple pie , warmed up just enough to melt a slice of American cheese on top and served with a nice, tall glass of whole milk was a perfectly acceptable breakfast. As both my parents attested, it had all four food groups: fruit, grain, dairy and -- since pie crust is made with lard, yanno -- meat. Bill Cosby does a famous bit about how as a father he fed his kids chocolate cake for breakfast because it covered all the food groups. Well, in my house, it was no joke. All our food was home-cooked from the best of the full-fat, high-calorie foods around. None of us ever thought anything of it.

We were also a family of late-night eaters. Oh, we had our meals early and like clockwork. Since Dad worked nights, Mom got up at the crack of dawn to get breakfast on the table by 6am, when he got home. We had dinner together every night at 5pm exactly, never any earlier (except for Sundays, when "dinner" was served between 2 and 3) and certainly never any later. But eating that early means you tend to get hungry again right around 9 or so, and that's when Mom would bring out the cookie jar. Or the frozen Sara Lee. Or the ice cream. You get the drift.

It didn't hurt that Mom was naturally skinny. When she got married at 22, she weighed 99 pounds and had a 22 inch waist. As a kid, she was under doctors orders to drink a milkshake every day to put some weight on her. Naturally skinny my dad was not, and I definitely take after him in the metabolism department. Thanks, Dad.

So, junk food and eating late at night have always been the bane of my existence. For a long time, I didn't even realize that this was a problem. I was teaching crazy hours at a bunch of different colleges, getting home at 10pm or later, and either picking up fast food on the way or raiding the fridge for whatever I could grab. So what if I ate it at midnight -- dinner was dinner, right?

Wrong. Of course, wrong. You know it's wrong. It took me years to figure out it's wrong. And, boy, is it hard to change something so hardwired.

At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to lose close to 50 pounds. I'd put on weight before I got married, then kept on weight after each of my girls was born, and quite frankly, I was sick and tired of seeing a fat, middle-aged lady in the mirror every time I looked. If I'm going to be middle-aged, dammit I'm at least going to be svelte. I don't have to be skinny. I just don't want to be fat.

I did well for the first part of the year. I lost a solid 15 pounds. Then, the bad habits started creeping back in. For one thing, I started eating late at night again. I'd been really good about eating dinner, brushing my teeth and not eating again until breakfast. I'm not sure when that all fell apart -- maybe when I started postponing brushing my teeth until bedtime, giving myself a whole 4 hours or so of eating time after dinner? -- but I soon found myself snacking away at night with my naturally-thin husband. (A man, I might add, so naturally thin that he actually loses weight when he doesn't exercise. What the hell's with that?) And so , while I managed to keep off the 15 pounds I'd lost, I certainly didn't lose any more.

I also realized that I'd gotten the sugar crazies again. The sugar crazies start when I exceed a certain amount of sugar intake -- what that amount is exactly, I have no idea, and maybe I'm just fooling myself by thinking that there even is an "acceptable" amount for me -- and fall into a cycle of eating sweets because I crave them and then craving them more so I eat more.

Over the past couple of weeks, I realized I'd hit that point. Not only because I found myself sneaking the kids' chocolate-chip cookies and raiding their stash of leftover Halloween candy when they were asleep, but also because I was getting violent headaches.

Every. Day.

So, I quit. Today was Day 2 of no sugar for me, and Day 2 is always the hardest. Day 1 is tough because the cravings are the worst, but since it's Day 1 I'm also always full of motivation: I can do this. I can do this. Boo-yah! On Day 1 I'm also full of Cheetos or some other salty snack since I realize there's only so much I can cut out at once without going head-scratching nail-biting nuts. Yesterday I ate an entire bag -- that's six full servings for those of you counting -- of Brand-X cheese puffs because that's all the Rite-Aid in Grand Central Station was selling. But, at least I didn't eat any sugar.

Today, I felt the sugar cravings starting to subside, but I also felt the boo-yah subside as well. Now it's more like a "boo." I found myself opening the fridge just to see what was in there and wondering if a glass of chocolate milk before bed would be a good idea.

And so, I logged on. And here I am.

And I didn't eat any sugar again tonight. And as soon as I post this, I'm heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get to bed. Because the hardest part of this won't be getting through tonight or tomorrow night or even the next. The hardest part will be getting through every single moment when my default mode is to eat badly when I should be eating well or not at all.

At least I don't have to eat mayonnaise sandwiches.

2010-08-02T20:15:00.002-04:00

Bad News/Good News

I'm typically a "bad news first" kind of person, mainly on the theory that getting the bad news over with first allows for an uplift when the good news comes after.

The bad news, then, is that the Dorothy loom that I had so very much fun using is, simply put, killing my hands. The carpal tunnel that I struggled with earlier this summer is slowly creeping back, and the Dorothy with its side levers (and the force required to make them move) just makes my wrist ache. I can't even switch off hands because the levers are side levers -- all on one side, the right. I'm bummed because I really, really like weaving on a multi-harness loom, and I know the friend who lent me this Dorothy would give me a decent deal on buying it. Sigh.

The good news, though, is that now I know I really, really like weaving on a multi-harness loom; I just have to find one that is a good ergonomic fit for me. Another friend has a Schacht table loom with front levers, and she's going to let me try it out. Of course, I might just have to bite the bullet and get a floor loom that I can work with my feet to avoid the whole carpal-tunnel issue entirely. But, yanno, I'm willing to make the sacrifice. It's the least I can do for my health.

As a result, the warp I set up for some cotton dishtowels will have to sit until my hands feel better. In the meantime, I'm direct-warping my Beka RH with some leftover Tilli Tomas 100% silk to make a brown-and-bone plaid scarf. My first plaid, and of my own design, too...wish me luck!

2010-08-01T22:53:00.002-04:00

2010-08-01T02:26:00.004-04:00

A Walk to Remember

2010-07-31T00:49:00.002-04:00

I've been weaving! And knitting! And crocheting!

I finally finished my Not Yo' Mama's Doily Shawl. It only took a couple of weeks, but it felt longer. I do like the result, even though it's so light and ephemeral that I can't really imagine when I'll wear it. The stitch pattern is sooooooo pretty, though, don't you think?

No sooner had I gotten this off the needles than I started...yes, you guessed it, another shawl: a Citron in green Zauberball. I know, I know, green is not my color. But this green just called to me. And miracle of miracles, it looks good against my skin. Hooray for blue undertones! No photos yet, but if I can get through the last rows of 400+ stitches any time soon, there will be.

Not to let my weaving fall by the side of the road, I also finished my Dorothy sampler.

It was fun, and I did learn a lot. Of course, since I'm product- as well as process-oriented, I immediately warped the loom up for a set of dishtowels. Yes, I know that Debbie Chandler recommends doing a shitton of samplers. I, however, want to sample with something I can use. I'm saving the wool for when I'm ready to make a nice scarf, but I figure kitchen cotton is cheap and I can always use more towels in the kitchen. I think I'm going to combine straight twill and point twill threadings according to a sample shown in the Chandler book, and then I'll pick one treadling to stick with for each of the four towels to see what I get. At least the warping seems to be going faster this time around than the first. We'll see how the rest of it goes.

The only other thing on my plate right now is Small Shawl Wars, and believe me, that's enough. I really want my target to like her shawl, so I'm thinking a lot about what yarn to use. Can't say any more just yet except that I can't wait for this to start.

Oh, and I hope I can at least finish my target's shawl and send it off before I get killed myself. Here's hoping....

2010-07-18T00:34:00.004-04:00

The Killers Among Us

Can I tell you how much fun it is to weave on a 4-harness loom?

Pretty damn fun, that's for sure.

Here's what I've been working on:

It's my sampler, taken straight from Learning to Weave, by Debbie Chandler. Tonight, I finished my 9 inches of plain weave (3 inches each in balanced weave, weft-predominant weave and warp-predominant weave) and started on my 2-2 twill. It's tough for me to get a balanced weave in the twill; I feel like I'm hardly beating at all and I'm still getting a clearly weft-predominant weave. I'm also annoyed that my right-hand selvedge looks like crap (but the left-hand selvedge isn't too bad, so that's a plus) and for some strange reason the entire right-hand side of my fabric is slightly canted up and out, although it doesn't seem visible in this photo.

Still, the variations on the different weaves are fun, and once I'm done with this twill I'll "play around" as Debbie suggests. What I'd really like to do is find a draft that I really like and make a whole scarf using two other skeins of the yarn I'm working with now, Araucania Ranco. I've set aside a bright fuschia and an olive green, which I think will play off one another nicely and cause some cool op-art effects if only I can find the right design to weave. We'll see how that turns out.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling a bit "stuck" with my latest crocheting project, a shawl in laceweight tencel. I love the look and feel of the fabric, and it's an easy two-row repeat that was simple enough to memorize and execute, but I think I'm feeling the need for a worsted-weight project in my near future. Something less fiddly than lace and quicker than the couple of weeks it's taking me to pull this shawl together. Not quite sure what it will be, but I know I need a break before Small Shawl Wars starts and I'm going to be knitting shawls nonstop...until someone takes me out, that is.

You know, the last (and first and only) time I ever participated in any kind of "war" was in college. It was my freshman year, and my dorm played "Assassin" (or was it called "Killer"? or something equally uninspired?). We each were assigned a target and given a ping-pong ball. There were rules about when and where you could kill someone, and of course, you killed a person by hitting them with the ping-pong ball. I think I lasted all of two days -- didn't even kill my own target, I'm sure -- before my killer took me out with what I thought was a fairly clever ruse. To earn spending money, I typed papers. A dollar a page, and this was pre-computer, so I was working on a Brother electronic typewriter with the little white-out tape that could go back a whole line to correct errors...but beyond that, you were screwed. Anyway, my killer contacted me through my ad for typing services, then enlisted someone else in the dorm to walk with me to our appointed meeting place (supposedly for me to pick up the paper to be typed), and when we were in just the right place under just the right conditions (per the rules, not within a certain distance of certain buildings, other people, etc), my "escort" took off running and my assassin beaned me with a ping-pong ball. Ah, college...good times.

At least this time around, I'll get a shawl out of the deal. Much better than taking a ping-pong ball to the shoulder.

2010-07-13T00:15:00.007-04:00

And the Winner Is....

Me! Can you believe it?

First, I won two books: Cat Bordhi's Treasury of Magical Knitting and Knit Fix: Problem Solving for Knitters. Frankly, I'm surprised as heck. I hardly ever win lottery-type things (and, in truth, mine was the second name picked; I won only because the first-place winner didn't respond in time). I do love Cat Bordhi, and I don't have either of her Magical books, so I'm pretty excited.

Second, I definitely won the swap game...or this round of it, at least. I swapped two skeins of Wollmeise in Maus Jung, a variegated grey ranging from very light to medium-gunmetal, for two skeins of the same in an unpronounceable colorway that is the most amazing shade of deep blue-purple (aka blurple). See for yourself:

This is the closest I could get to a true representation of the color, and even this falls far, far short. Someday somebody will be prying these two skeins of yarn out of my cold, dead hands, it is truly that beautiful.

I also started yet another shawl, this one out of a laceweight tencel in a colorway called Pick Me. Working with the tencel is interesting. It reminds me of crochet thread, but slicker. I love how the lace pattern is coming out:

The shape is forming nicely into a U, which I prefer over just about any other shawl shape for the way it stays easily on my shoulders. Again, the colors didn't come out quite right -- in real life, this piece is less contrasty, more harmonious, with lots of purples to help blend the pink into the blue. If this is as quick a crochet as it seems, I'll be wearing it within the week.

And finally, Dorothy got some love tonight:

I finished threading the heddles at last, and now all I need to do (I think!) is tie the warp onto the back beam and I'll be ready to start throwing the shuttle.

Now if only I could find a few extra hours in the day....

2010-07-11T01:37:00.002-04:00

Really Most Sincerely Done

Blocked and beautiful, Heaven d'Or has been christened.

Here she is, right before DH and I heard a sickening crash at the bottom of our driveway. Certain that someone needed an ambulance, the three of us -- DH, me and the shawl -- went flying down to the road only to find some drunken yahoo had peeled half the side of his car off along the rock embankment and come to rest, tires shredded, car parts strewn willy-nilly, in the middle of our driveway. Before anyone panics, he was fine.

The upside is that Heaven was the perfect wrap to wear to a car accident. Large enough to clutch snugly around myself, warm enough to ward off the slight chill from the lake that Drunk Dude was lucky not to have plunged into, and with a solid, weighty feeling that comes from having a slightly heavy viscose/silk/linen blend edging on a downy light camel/wool body. I am totally and completely in love with this shawl.

I am, however, not looking forward to picking car parts out of my shrubs in the morning.

2010-07-10T01:16:00.002-04:00

A Little Bit of Heaven

You know that feeling when you're not at all sure that the choice you've made is the right one? That feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get every time you look at a project at just the right angle and think, "Holy crap, what was I thinking?"

Well, I'd been having that feeling.

It started when I ran out of yarn for my 198 Yds of Heaven shawlette. I'd had these three skeins of Bouton d'Or Ksar in my stash for a looooong time -- had gotten them in a mystery swap and just hadn't known what to do with them, but wanted to use them for something nommy because of the camel down content -- and I finally thought I'd found just the right project. Trouble was, I had also just started posting FOs for the 10 in 2010 KAL/CAL on rav, and in order for my latest project to count, it needed to use a minmum of 250 meters.

The three balls of Ksar topped out at a nail-biting, head-scratching 249.6 meters.

So, I decided to extend the pattern. I worked another full pattern repeat of the body, and then I thought I would just pick a contrasting yarn for the edging.

Easier said than done.

The Ksar is a breathtakingly soft and lofty, plied camel/wool blend in a dark chocolate brown. I had nothing in my stash to match it for structure, look and feel.

Nothing.

And so, I punted. I pulled out all the stops and went in a completely different direction. For the edging, I used a viscose/silk/linen blend -- RY Natural Silk Aran -- in a slightly tweedy bone color. This yarn knitted up nothing at all like the Ksar. For starters, it was rustic looking, to say the least. Where the Ksar was soft and inviting, the Silk Aran was crisp and stiff. The flecks of blue and red running through the slubby, 2-ply Silk Aran seemed somewhat out of place against the classic, smooth three-ply Ksar. And every time I looked at my shawl, I got that sinking feeling that this just wasn't going to come together.

So, I did what any other sane, logical knitter would have done.

I kept right on knitting.

Here's the result:

Isn't she luuuuuuuurvely???

I'm so pleased, I truly am. I can't wait for it to be cool enough to wear this. I love the way the two colors and textures work together, and the hard blocking really brought out the best in the lace pattern. At first I was regretting not having had enough of the Ksar to simply do a one-color shawl, but now I'm really glad that I had to make do like this. I got a much more interesting result and a much more attractive shawl than I would have otherwise.

Now the question is, what shawl do I cast on for next?

2010-07-06T22:02:00.002-04:00

Holy Heat, Batman!

Where has the past week and a half gone? Work, mostly, and melting into an icky puddle in this absolutely insane heat we've been having.

But the upside is I've gotten a ton of stuff done! Funny how that happens when you fail to post in 12 days.

First up, my Marigold Wrap. Ta-da!

Please to excuse the crappy under-the-fluorescent-bathroom-lights-taken-in-the-mirror photo. It was the best I could do in the middle of the night, and I just couldn't wait to post my pic on rav and call my cute little shawl finished.

I love how this turned out! It's got a nice weight and drape -- heavier than many of the shawls I've recently made, but not overly hot-feeling. The petals make it cute and I can wear it all wrapped around my neck, boa-style, like in the photo, or spread out over my shoulders for a sweet little ruffly shawlette.

I'm already onto my next shawl: Heaven d'Or, based on the 198 Yds of Heaven shawl pattern. I'd had this beautiful cashmere/wool blend yarn hanging out in my stash for well over a year, and I kept wondering what to do with it. When I saw this pattern, and saw that it called for worsted or aran weight luxury yarn, I knew I'd found what I'd been looking for.

The shawl is coming out thick and heavy despite the allover lace pattern. I love the feel and drape of the cashmere blend, and I'm making it larger than the pattern calls for because it just reads as a snuggly winter wrap to me. Plus, I have 250 meters of this delightful stuff and I don't want a bit of it to go to waste. Photos to come.

There's more, much more, but it's late and I'm sweating and in desperate need of a cold shower and about eight hours of sleep, though I'll only get six at the most. More, then, later....

2010-06-25T23:02:00.005-04:00

TGIF

What a week it's been! Getting back to work after a nice, long break is always hard, and splitting my time between teaching and administrating only makes it that much harder.

I must admit, I'm a reluctant administrator. I'm organized and competent, but I'd much rather be teaching than shuffling through student records or trying to match room capacity to class size. I do the admin because it suits my schedule...for now. I teach because I love it.

The nice thing about going back to work, aside from the fact that I love my colleagues, is that I gain massive amounts of knitting time. Traveling 2 hours one-way does that.

Lately, though, I'm devoting my knitting time to crochet. Check this out:

There's my Marigold Wrap, all squiggly-looking because it's not blocked (nor even finished), but still pretty cool nonetheless. I'm following my own path on the placement of the rows of flower petals, and I haven't yet decided if I like how it looks with the wide, open spaces between petal rows or whether I want to fill the whole shawl in with a riot of petals, one row per row of double-treble crochet.

The only thing putting a damper on my fun is this:

I've got a matching one on the other hand, and I don't think my lingering carpal tunnel is being helped by the hours I've spent crocheting this week.

At least I started warping up Dorothy last night, so getting all my threads onto the warping board without screwing anything up should keep my hands busy while (hopefully!) not subjecting them to more damaging repetitive motion.

Um...like typing.

2010-06-21T22:03:00.004-04:00

Endings and Beginnings

Have you ever had a project assume such mythic proportions in your head that you couldn't even bear to pick it up? The fear that it would be too hard, take too much time, prove too daunting just kept you away indefinitely?

Well, for me, that project was my mom's 80th birthday present: a blanket woven out of 400 4" Weave It squares and painstakingly seamed together.

I seamed it halfway, then -- completely undone by the thought of weaving in all those ends -- set it aside for the better part of a year. There it sat, still in the fancy gift bag I'd set aside for it, taunting me from the bottom of my closet of shame.

It was the shame, mainly, of making mom wait so very long for her gift that finally made me pick up that blanket again last week.

And guess what?

I finished it.

That's right, the blanket-without-end is finally finished.Mind you, I finished weaving the last of the ends in during the car ride to Mom's house on Saturday, but still it's done, done, done, and I couldn't be happier.

Here's how she looks in situ:

And from another angle:

And just because I can't seem to stop bragging on this:

Isn't she luuuuurvely???

So, that's the end. And as for the beginning?

Check this out:

Meet Dorothy, graciously lent to me by Joe, a weaver friend who is off to bigger and better looms. Along with Dorothy, Joe lent me his copy of Learning to Weave, by Debbie Chandler, and I've been reading it nonstop for the past week. I've already picked out the sock yarn -- two skeins of Araucania Ranco, one in grey and one in mauve -- to use on my first sample. Now all I have to do is actually sit down with the book on one side and the loom on the other and get started.

There are so many things I've never done before! Using a rigid heddle loom up till now has allowed me to skip past a bunch of the basic skills that a weaver has to develop, like winding a warp on a warping board (I've only direct warped). But, I just can't wait to play with my 4 independently-operating sheds! I've been eagerly poring over the drafts in Learning to Weave, trying my best to understand them (again, something I've completely managed to avoid up till now), anticipating playing with plain weave and twills and all the other beautiful designs I've seen for a 4-shed loom.

If only work weren't busy getting in the way. I went back today for the first time since the beginning of May, and while it was good to be back and even somewhat fun prepping for the start of the new semester, this whole "job" thing seriously cuts into my fiber time. If only I didn't need the "money" that said "job" brings in.

In any event, my time over the next couple of weeks will be quite limited, so I doubt I'll even manage to warp my new baby until things taper off in early- to mid-July. Till then, I suppose I'll have to satisfy myself with looking at Dorothy, reading Debbie and dreaming of warping day.

Oh, and crocheting my Marigold Wrap in -- what else? -- vibrant shades of orange, yellow and deep brick red Wollmeise.

But that's a project for another post.

2010-06-18T05:45:00.002-04:00

The Perils of Having Children

Up at 5am with a sick child, I'm sooo wide awake and yet I know that if I don't get back to bed before the little one wakes up I'm going to be a wreck all day. So what do I do? Post, of course.

What I really should do, if I'm not going to go back to bed, is keep working on Mom's Birthday Spread. I'm so close to finishing I can almost taste it: 18.5 rows of blocks sewn together, only 1.5 rows more to go. Then about a bajillion ends to weave in. Ugh.

We go to visit Mom on Saturday, and how I would love it if I could bring the finished project with me to give her. We'll see how close I get.

Then I can start the next project that's tugging at my attention: a sock yarn scarf on my borrowed Dorothy LeClerc.

Maybe I'll try to get a few more minutes' sleep first.

2010-06-11T23:49:00.002-04:00

Excitement!

Just a quick post before bed to announce some amazing, pie-in-the-sky news. I'm going to be borrowing a 15" 4-shaft LeClerc table loom for the summer!

I'll be picking her up on Monday from the friend who is lending her to me. After a crash course on using her, I'll be taking her home and figuring out where to set her up. This is a try-before-buy situation, so I'll have the whole summer to decide whether I'd like to own this little loom before committing.

I'm so excited! Since weaving my Lorna's Scarf, I've been trying to figure out what else I can do on my rigid heddle loom besides plain weave. I know that a lot is possible, but it just seems like multiple-harness looms make more complex stuff that much easier. I guess I'll find out firsthand in a few days....

2010-06-08T23:33:00.002-04:00

Hand Woven

Every year, we host a giant BBQ at my house. We invite all our friends and relatives, everyone brings something for the cooler or the grill, and the party goes until the last people decide to call it quits.

This year, my college-aged cousin happened to notice my cute little Flo wer Power face cloths hanging in the shower. "There is no way," she said to me, "that you use those as washcloths. They're too pretty!"

And so, of course, I gave her one with specific instructions that she use it, not put it in the shrine of stuff-that's-too-pretty-to-use. I said, "When it gets too old and gross and used up, let me know and I'll make you another."

This got me thinking, though, about all the things I have here at home in my own shrine of stuff-that's-too-pretty-to-use. One of those things is a hand woven kitchen towel. Made for me as a Christmas gift by a friend several years back, I still have the towel folded neatly in my linen closet, untouched save for the occasional time when I'll open it up, sigh over its cleverness, then fold it back up and put it away.

If I can't make one for myself once this one is all used up, my thinking goes, I'm just going to make darn sure that this one never gets used up.

Problem is, I also make sure it never gets used at all. And that's a sad, sad fate for a lovingly hand-crafted item of any sort.

Which is just one of the reasons I'm so very chuffed with myself. Not only did I finally break out my rigid heddle loom after way too many years of studiously ignoring it, but I finished my first project in all that time.

Ta-da!!!

There she is, in all her glory: my Lorna's Woven Scarf. Lorna's because she's made from two colorways of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn; and woven scarf because I frickin wove this all by my very own self! Who knew I would be so proud of something so very simple as a plain weave scarf?

Honestly, I love how it turned out. Oh, the selvedges could be better, but then again, can't they always be? (OK, I'll amend that: Can't they always be for me?) The colors worked so well together, and the hand is just right: not too stiff, but not too loose. A definite winner.

Which brings me to the question of what to warp up for next. I'm thinking kitchen towels, if for no other reason than it will finally allow me to pull my friend's gift out of the closet and let it see the light of day and a bit of good use. But, I want to try something other than plain weave. Trouble is, I know next to nothing about weaving, to the point where I don't even know where to search for weaving drafts for a rigid heddle loom.

Ideas, anyone?

2010-06-08T01:30:00.003-04:00

Tagged!

A big shout-out to gibknitty of the Urban Muser blog for tagging me with a Beautiful Blogger award! So, now it's my turn to share 10 things that I think people in the blogosphere might not know about me.

Here goes:

I can play the violin. I studied from age 7 to age 15, and even today could scratch out a bit of Vivaldi or Bach if I needed to. But the instrument I really, really wanted to learn to play as a kid was the harp.
I've seen more of the rest of the world than I've seen of my own country. Aside from a single trip to visit a friend in Boulder, CO, the farthest west I've ever been is Philly.
I bellydance.
I have an entire 3-drawer dresser crammed full of nothing but sock yarn, yet I still stalk the updates of dyers I like and check the swap boards on rav for special sock yarns that I might want to trade for.
Some of the best things in my life, I found online. My husband is one of these.
I was on the back of an elephant when it panicked and stampeded in the jungle of northern Thailand. It was the most terrifying 60 seconds of my entire life.
I've always wanted a cool nickname.
I've had an old circular sock machine for years now and still can't make a decent sock with it.
I consider myself very lucky that my husband's hobby, blacksmithing, costs more money and takes up more space than my fibery pursuits. This way, he doesn't bat an eyelash when I mention buying more yarn.
Just tonight, I finished my first-ever weaving project using sock yarn! Photos to follow....

Also to follow, my 10 nominees for Beautiful Blogger awards. I've already stayed up way past my bedtime, so forgive me for simply heading off to sleep...with a quick detour to scoop tonight's FO out of its soapy bath and lay it out dry, of course. I can't wait to share what it looks like!

2010-06-04T23:32:00.003-04:00

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

What happens when you take 2 sick kids, mix them with massive amounts of crocheting, and toss in a dash of swap stalking?

Carpel tunnel, that's what.

No fear, though. The fibery goodness just does not stop, pain be damned. Since knitting with wrist braces on is dicey and even the thought of crocheting makes me wince, I've pulled out an old and sadly neglected friend.

Blog, meet Beka.

Beka is a 36" rigid heddle loom from the 1980s. I think they're long out of production; the largest Beka made today, I believe, is 32".

I got a great deal on my loom a few years back, but I never wove a whole lot on her. A couple of throws, a scarf or two, and then an ill-fated project that so disappointed me that poor Beka sat, unused and unloved, in the basement for so long that I thought I'd never go back to weaving again.

And then, wrists out of commission and a basement clean-up in progress, I finally decided to just cut the stupid, hateful warp off my nice little loom and give it another go.

And you know what?

I'm having a great time.

I warped her up at 12 epi (or is it dpi? I can never remember), which simply means there are 12 warp threads per inch. I used nearly every single inch of two full skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the colorway Woodlawn, which is a somewhat unimpressive mix of muted, subtle golds and browns. The weft is the knockout colorway Irving Park in the same yarn. I'm even using a boat shuttle for the first time and loving it, though honestly, it's a real pain in the ass to have to work with such little yarn on the bobbin. If I have a couple of hundred yarns in a skein, I want to weave up all of it without having to cut it up to fit into my shuttle, yanno?

But, I digress.

The weaving is coming along nicely. I'm not terribly delighted with my selvedges, but this will be a good practice piece. I love how the two colorways are working together, and I'm looking forward to having yet another finished scarf in my wardrobe. I'm already contemplating whether I should weave up some dishtowels out of kitchen cotton once the scarf is finished.

Now, if only I could figure out how to do something on the rh besides simple plain weave....

2010-05-27T00:11:00.005-04:00

A Word of Thanks

Oh. My.

OK, I need to take a sec here and catch my breath. A minute ago, I just finished posting about my cool crocheted shawl and blahblahblah and as I was about to skip back over to ravelry before heading off to bed, I noticed this:

Someone made a donation to the Spina Bifida Association of Northeastern New York through my firstgiving page. A hundred dollar donation.

I wish I could thank this person by name, but the donation came in anonymously, at least as far as I could see. (Can you tell this is the first donation that I've ever gotten?) So, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, my most sincere thanks go out to you via this post. You truly took my breath away.

For those who might not know, my younger daughter, Little Z, has spina bifida. For those who might not know what spina bifida is (and I had never heard of it before Little Z was diagnosed), it's a birth defect with the potential for some absolutely horrific consequences: profound cognitive delays, paralysis, hydrocephalus and more. Little Z is tremendously lucky that she's managed to dodge many of the worst effects of SB, and we are eternally grateful for that.

We're members of the Spina Bifida Association of Northeastern New York because of Little Z. SBA of NENY has been a lifeline for us, and we try to raise what funds we can so they can keep helping families like ours. I could prattle on and give statistics about how many families they work with, or how much information on SB prevention they've distributed, or the advocacy work that they do. But, that's not the real face of this organization.

It's this.

When Little Z was first diagnosed with spina bifida, when I was just 20 weeks pregnant with her, the doctor who made the diagnosis told me flat out that I should schedule an abortion for the next week. No suggestion of a second opinion, no attempts to find out the extent of Little Z's neural compromise, nothing. When Little Z was born (in a different hospital with a different team of doctors), so much of our energy was focused on helping her get well; what little we had left over went to her older sister, Big Girl, who was a trooper throughout that difficult, difficult time. Instead of the joy and excitement that accompanies the birth of a baby, all our friends and relatives were asking how Little Z was faring -- were there infections? complications? setbacks?

And then, our welcome packet from SBA arrived in the mail. It contained lots of information about spina bifida that we desperately needed, and it even contained a very sweet gift: a CD of lullabies. But, most importantly, it contained a welcome letter. And that letter began, "Congratulations on the birth of your baby!"

God, I needed to hear that. In all the whirlwind surrounding Little Z's birth, I don't think anyone actually congratulated us. No one omitted it intentionally, no one was trying to be unkind or thoughtless, but everyone -- us included -- had other, more pressing thoughts on our minds. And I had no idea how much I needed to be congratulated on the birth of my precious baby until the people at SBA did it.

We raise funds for SBA because they need to keep their doors open. They need to keep educating, advocating, and yes, congratulating new parents on their precious babies who just happen to have spina bifida.

I'm incredibly moved that someone I don't even know has donated to a cause so near and dear to my heart. I don't have any other words but the ones I've already said: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

2010-05-26T23:48:00.003-04:00

A Knitter, a Crocheter and the Pope Walk into a LYS....

I'm sure you know the old saying: "You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." Otherwise known as "Crap in, crap out."

Now, I've been crocheting since I was so young that I don't even remember learning how. Growing up, I either worked with Red Heart acrylic, that mainstay yarn of the 70s and 80s, or crochet thread. When I went back to crocheting after a many-years-long hiatus, I mainly stuck to dishcloth cotton. All of those materials have their places in the pantheon of fibery goodness. But, boy, let me tell you what a difference it makes to use really, really good stuff when you crochet.

Check this out:

It's a shawl I just finished out of Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball in the Fuchsia colorway. Holy crap! The difference between crocheting with this stuff and crocheting with anything else I'd ever used was like the difference between eating a perfectly-steamed lobster and dropping a brick on a bare toe. And it served two important purposes for me.

First, it's really inspired me to crochet again. Oh, I've been having fun with flowered dishcloths lately, but this is an entirely new league for me. I can't wait to find the next amazing pattern I can crochet in an absolutely kickass yarn. All those skeins I've had sitting in the stash waiting for the Pope to visit? Out you come, my pretties! It's time to work you up.

And second, it's a good reminder for me to use the good stuff. If the day ever comes that the Pope shows up at my door demanding a day of crafting fun, I can always run out to the LYS for a skein or two of something...um, Popely. Till then, I need to step away from the dishcloth cotton and break out the crown jewels of the stash. And now I know I can crochet those special skeins up as well as knit them.

It doesn't hurt that crochet progresses at lightning speed compared to knitting. That shawl up there? Two days. That's right: two days. And not two days of being away on vacation, sitting by the pool, doing nothing but crocheting, either. These were two days with a sick child, a visiting houseguest, party planning...you know, the usual detritus of life.

I am hooked.

(Ouch. Pardon the pun. But honestly, did you really expect me to be able to hold out forever?)

2010-05-21T00:05:00.004-04:00

Dilemma

I may have mentioned that I love crochet. My mother taught me to crochet when I was so young that I don't even remember learning. All through my youth, I made lacy doilies, pictures in filet, and the occasional scrap-yarn blanket in shell stitch. Despite all this, I never really liked the look of crochet. Lace was fussy and old-fashioned; granny squares were too 70s. I laid aside my hooks because I simply had no use for the stuff I could create with them.

Now, however, I'm rediscovering crochet through some of the amazing new patterns that are coming out. True, there are still way too many granny-square thises and shell-stitch thats to suit my taste. But some of what's out there is really cool.

Like these:

The Chrysanthemum Dishcloths (pattern number 25878), a freebie tear-off sheet available at Michaels. I lovelovelove this pattern. It uses up nearly a full skein of Sugar & Creme yarn (if you work it as I did, without a separate contrasting color). It takes all of an hour to crochet up a whole cloth. And they really do look like flowers. Too cute.

I needed a bit of an instant gratification project today. Earlier this week, I finally finished plying the 4 oz of Crown Mountain Farms Superwash roving in the "Oh, Pretty Woman" colorway that I'd started spinning way back in something like February. It came out looking stunning, I must admit.

I truly think this is the most even, well-balanced yarn I've ever spun. I'm quite proud of myself.

But now, this puts me in a bit of a quandry. There's nothing that I want to do next.

I thought of starting to spin some more CMF fiber. If I want a break from superwash, I can always pick out one of the fiber-of-the-month offerings to try out.

But, I tend to spin in fits and starts. Knitting is my true go-to craft, and while the urge to start another spinning project hard on the heels of the one I just finished is strong, so is the knowledge that I need something on the needles to make me happy.

I thought my OTN project was going to me my Impasto Shawlette. I even got so far as to knit through the entire first color stripe and 3/4 of the way through the second. That's when I ran out of yarn. Sadly, my leftovers from Big Girl's rainbow blankie won't be enough to make the shawl. And while I've considered several other options, nothing is grabbing me enough to make me want to cast on those 321 stitches yet again.

Of course, I'm avoiding the giant elephant in the room: my mother's afghan, which I've yet to finish seaming. I wove over 400 squares on my little 4-inch Weave It loom, but the job of seaming them all together is just killing me. Mom is coming for a visit next week, so I'm considering recruiting her to work with me to seam it up. I wonder if she'd go for it.

So, I'm torn by guilt over the project I should be finishing, but sufficiently uninspired to start any of the hundreds of projects in my favorites list. Which is why I spent today crocheting face cloths.

Now if I could just figure out what to do tomorrow.

2010-05-18T00:32:00.006-04:00

Candy Dots and Other Stuff

What a day yesterday was! The only reason I didn't blog about it then was that as it was I got to bed after 2am, and these days, getting to bed at 2am makes for a nasty wake-up call in the morning.

But, I digress.

Yesterday, Sunday, the supposed day of rest, I woke up at the ungodly hour of six-something a.m. But, I put the time while the rest of the family slept to good use. I finally finished pinning out my Salsa Picante, aka modified Multnomah, shawl:

This photo is only partway through the blocking process; I love how it turned out after the wet-blocking. The crochet bind-off really opened out and makes for a beautiful looped edging, and the shape of the shawl is exactly what I like. Here's how it looks all blocked:

And with the pins out:

All in all, a definite keeper.

But wait, that's not all. The family and I spent a relaxing Sunday at home, hanging out on the deck most of the day. While DH and the kids played, I watched and finished up these:

Big Girl's Candy Dots mittens! Many thanks to gibknitty for providing the inspiration for the name "Candy Dots." She said that the colors reminded her of the little colored candy dots that come on that long strip of white paper, and as soon as she said that, I saw it too. I love the image, especially as these will be for my daughter, who at age 5 is head-over-heels over candy.

And speaking of candy, I even managed to whip up a last-minute recipe for no-bake candied sweet potatoes that turned out just about as good as any Thanksgiving sweet-potato recipe I've ever tried. Make it at your own risk; it's addictive!

No-Bake Candied Sweet Potatoes

Peel 3 medium sweet potatoes and cut in half lengthwise. Cut into 1/2 inch slices and set aside. In medium saucepan, melt 3 Tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. When butter bubbles, add sweet potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook sweet potatoes, covered, in butter until browned and fork-tender, stirring occasionally, approximately 10-12 minutes. Lower heat, add 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed, and ground cinnamon to taste. Let sugar melt and stir gently to coat potatoes. Cook an additional 2-3 minutes until sugar caramelizes. Serve immediately.

Yes, indeedy, that's just a little ol' slice of candy-coated heaven, and it takes nearly no time at all to make. If you do happen to give it a try, let me know how you like it.

Finally, I even started a new project: an Impasto Shawlette, from the latest issue of Interweave Knits. I'm using up some of the leftovers from Morgan's Birthday Blankie, and I'm hoping that I'll have enough of each color to do the 4 loooooooong rows for each color repeat. Let me tell you, I'll be pissed if I wind up only 3 or 4 stitches short on yarn and have to rip out 1,000+ stitches to get back to the last color. So far, though, I'm really enjoying the slip-stitch pattern. Keep your fingers crossed that it all works out!

And then, what kept me up till past 2am:

Wollmeise.

Specifically, two skeins of WM Twin in the colorway Maus Jung (Young Mouse; it sounds so much better in German, doesn't it?) that I scored in the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary swap group.

Now, I haven't swapped with this group, or with any group, really, for well over a year. For awhile, I was swapping like mad. But, when DH became worried about his job, I became worried about the money I was spending sending out my swaps, so I stopped cold turkey.

It really wasn't so bad. I'd sort of reached stash nirvana (or maybe just stash overload) at that point anyway. I still lurked on the swap boards, but I didn't play and I knit from stash. (I could probably do that for the next 10 years and still not make it through all the yarn and spinning fiber that I have tucked away, but again I digress.)

But, last night, that Maus Jung called to me. It was in a thread for which I actually had valid swappables. And the person offering the yarn is someone I know from back in my high-frequency swap days. I like her. She was online at the time, had just posted the offer, in fact. I dallied. I looked up the yarn, looked up projects knitted with it. I tried to buy just enough time for someone else to claim. I was nervous. I hadn't claimed for so long, I was actually afraid to go for it. And then, reason prevailed. It's only freakin yarn. So, I claimed.

In the end, I swapped away 3 skeins of Socks that Rock for 2 skeins of the WM Twin in Maus Jung, both from the same update. That should give me enough for a decent-sized top for myself, or some killer, killer thigh-high stockings. A very fair trade, I daresay.

Now I just need to start getting ready to do a spinning demo at Big Girls preschool on Wednesday. Twenty-five five-year-olds and me.

Send good vibes my way. I'm going to need them.

2010-05-14T23:03:00.003-04:00

A Rose by Any Other Name

Sometimes, you just have to know when to give in. I reached that point yesterday, when I realized that the growing yarn snarl hanging from Big Girl's otherwise lovely mittens-in-progress was threatening to go from unmanageable to irredeemable. So, rather than do what I normally do -- stick my fingers in my ears and loudly sing "lalala, I can't heeeeeeear you," hoping that the problem will magically go away of its own accord -- I actually stopped knitting, unwound about half the rainbow yarn from its cake, and cut. Once I rewound the yarn, I had my original solid-color yarn still being worked from both ends of the same cake, but with the much-needed ability to unwind the rainbow yarn when the four independent strands started to tangle.

Here's what I'm up to:

I lovelovelove how the colors are turning out. I dyed the rainbow skein myself using leftover Easter dyes, and quite frankly, I wasn't at all sure if I liked the result. The yellows muddied, the purples hardly showed...it was a definite disappointment in the skein.

But, as with most creative endeavors, it's more about how you use the materials you have than about what exactly those materials are. And I did manage to find just about the perfect use for that jacked-up skein of rainbow yarn: Robin Hansen's Salt and Pepper Mitten pattern.

Instead of the colors piling atop one another, competing and clashing, the alternating stitch pattern allows the colors to flow harmoniously, in gentle waves. I couldn't be happier with this project.

Except.

I can't for the life of me think of what to call it.

Now, until ravelry became the greatest thing ever to happen to the fiber world at large, no one but artists named their projects. When my mother knit a sweater, she called it "that blue sweater" or "the sweater in the hall closet" or "your sweater, you know which sweater I mean, and don't you give me that look young lady, you just march yourself back to your room and put it on rightthisminute."

Now, however, every project must have a name. If my mittens were black and white, I could simply call them my Salt and Pepper Mittens and leave it at that. For now, they're on my ravelry page as my "Two-at-a-Time Mittens," which, while accurate, is less than poetic. No, I'm loving the colors so much that I want a name that I love just as much. Something fitting. Something memorable. Something better than "your mittens, mit-tens, the ones I knit for you and put on a string specifically so you couldn't lose them, those mittens, now findthemfindthemfindthem."

Here's a close-up of how the colors play together.

Any suggestions?

2010-05-13T00:02:00.002-04:00

Eye Candy

I love two-handed colorwork knitting. And I love the two-at-a-time method of knitting two circular items on one long circular needle. I just don't know if I love the two things together.

Unlike peanut butter and chocolate, two-at-a-time and two-color knitting just don't seem to go together easily or well. At least, not when working from both ends of a ball of yarn. Too many tangles, too much time spent unwinding, or trying to unwind, twisted strands. I think it would work better if I were using 4 separate balls of yarn instead of 2, but that's neither here nor there now as I don't plan on attempting to re-wind my yarn with my project still on the needles.

So, it seems I'm stuck with this clunky, lunky method, at least to the end of the hand portion of these mittens. Fortunately, they're durned purty to look at:

2010-05-12T01:00:00.004-04:00

Learn Something New Every Day

I really wish I could live by this axiom. Unfortunately, once you pass a certain age, it really is hard to learn something new every day. I mean, when you're two, there's so much to learn. Nouns, for one thing. What's that? A shoe? Cool! And what does it go on? A foot? Even better! Two things learned in the space of two seconds. Learning is a full-time job for a kid.

The curve does taper off, of course. By the time you've reached the grand old age of...er, 29-plus, as I have, most of the nouns have been mastered, as have the basic motor and social skills needed to make it in day to day life. Barring a sudden relocation to a third-world nation, it does get tricky to learn something brand-new every day.

Which is why I'm so very chuffed with myself today. Because I learned how to do this:

That's right, I finally took the plunge and taught myself how to do two circular items at a time -- in this case, mitten cuffs -- on one long circular needle. And as soon as I grasped the concept, I wondered why I'd waited so long.

I took the technique from the 2-at-a-Time Socks book by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. I've had this book for awhile, but for some strange reason, I was reluctant to give it a try. I'm not usually this intimidated by a technique, so I'm still puzzled by my resistance. As it turns out, it really is simple. I do all my circular knitting magic-loop style anyway, and this just tweaks things enough to make the process interesting. The hardest part about this project so far has been winding my yarn into a decent center-pull ball, a necessity since I'm working from both ends at once.

I was so eager to finally give this a try that I cast on this morning, only to get called away and leave my knitting out on the living room ottoman. Sure enough, Little Z got ahold of it and turned it into a minor rat's nest. That wouldn't have been much of a problem, though. I was my subsequent poor winding skills that resulted in not one but two completely unserviceable cakes of yarn. Far from being "the charm," my third attempt resulted in the great-granddaddy of all rat's nests. Both DH and I have spent hours on this thing today, all to no avail. Luckily, I had two more skeins of the KnitPicks Bare that I'm working with, and once I overcame my rage and pigheaded determination to fix that stupid skein rightnowgoddamit, I simply wound up another one -- correctly, this time -- and had a go.

And because I can't do anything halfway, tomorrow I start the patterned portion of the mittens. Two cakes of yarn, both being worked from both ends simultaneously, carrying strands in both hands. It'll give me something new to learn tomorrow, too.

2010-05-09T22:12:00.004-04:00

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day seems to be a day for finishing in my house. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, just commenting. Last year, my Mother's Day gift was enough peace and quite for me to finish the tubular bind-off on my Spring Thaw Socks:

This year, my Mother's Day finish was my Salsa Picante Shawl, based on the Multnomah pattern:

I absolutely love how this shawl turned out! I'd been wanting to use this yarn -- a skein of Dashing Dachs Sox in the Matuey the Cat colorway -- for a long time, and at first, I thought a Multnomah would be the perfect pattern for it.

I was wrong.

The garter stitch of the Multnomah just didn't work with the wildly variegated colorway, and everything wound up looking muddy and unattractive.

So, I ripped the whole thing out and started over, this time working the body of the shawl in knit one below stitch instead of garter. I followed the directions in the Knit One Below book, making sure never to work a knit one below immediately before or after a yarn over, and I also kept the center 5 stitches in plain stockinette. I worked the body on size 3s, then switched to size 8s to work the feather and fan border in stockinette. I worked 18 rows of f&f and bound off with a picot bind off on three stitches.

I just love how the knit one below stitch produced vertical "rays" of color radiating out from the center band of stockinette stitch. I think it makes a striking and lovely contrast to the horizontal bands of color in the feather and fan border. I'm a little burned out on this pattern right now, but I would definitely make this again in another wildly variegated yarn. I'm also going to remember the knit one below trick for working with wild colorways to help avoid unattractive pooling and flashing.

Now, I need another project. I'm debating between working some quick colorwork mittens for the girls using some Knitpicks Bare that I dyed myself using our leftover Easter egg dyes or doing a Green Gable for myself. For tonight, though, I think I'll just spin. I have some Crown Mountain Farms superwash in the Oh, Pretty Woman colorway on the Journey Wheel that I need to finish up. I'm taking the JW into Big Girl's nursery school in a few days to do a spinning demo, and I need my bobbins free.

Off now to spin and listen to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls on my iPod. Jane Austen meets the undead. It just doesn't get better than this.

2010-05-06T22:20:00.003-04:00

A Moment in Time

Did you submit your photo to the NY Times' "A Moment in Time" project?

I did:

2010-05-05T22:24:00.002-04:00

How Unfortunate

My mother raised me to be one of "those" shoppers. Always polite, but also always ready to question a price that seems incorrect or return a product that turns out to be defective. I'm the person who checks the supermarket receipt and goes to the customer service desk to get my two dollars back when the scanner at the register blips up the wrong price. I'm the person who will call the seafood counter and complain that, of the three dozen clams I purchased, four were DOA and another 3 were smashed to smithereens at the bottom of the bag.

Which is why, when I found myself dissatisfied with the quality of a skein of yarn recently, I emailed the producer -- a small-scale, indie dyer -- to ask about the exchange/return policy. I first explained how much I liked the yarn itself, then described the problem I'd found with the skein, and finally I said that I would like to buy more of this yarn, but only if I knew that, were I to come across this problem again, I would be able to exchange the skeins for problem-free ones. I wasn't looking to exchange this particular skein, mind you, and I said exactly that. But I did want to know that if I bought more, I wouldn't get stuck with yarn that I felt was sub-par.

The response I got was disheartening, to say the least. I was told that lots of people love this yarn, so if I bought any in the future that I didn't like, I would find it very easy to give away.

Yes, that's right. The solution to the problem of defective yarn is to give the yarn away.

Let me state right up front that I have no qualms about giving yarn away. I'd much rather give away yarn that I know I won't use than trash it or otherwise have it go to waste. But, really? Really? The best that the dyer could do was suggest that I give the yarn away? No chance of an exchange to keep a customer happy? And a snarky tone in the email to boot?

Sigh.

I was really annoyed over this earlier. Really annoyed. When I'm really annoyed, I tend to vote with my feet, as we say in my line of work. If I don't like what I find, I walk. So, the solution for me is never to buy yarn from this dyer. Too bad, really, since it's nice stuff on the whole.

But what I'd really like to do, so I don't wind up ending my night with an upset stomach from annoyance, is contrast this decidedly unfortunate experience with its polar opposite. While I won't give the name of the company from which I will no longer be purchasing yarn, I will happily give the name of the company from which I wish I could still purchase yarn: Sonny and Shear.

If you never shopped at Sonny and Shear (The "I Got Ewe, Babe" Yarn Shop), you truly missed out. They were a fantastic online store, and in addition to selling superb yarns, they really put their customers first. They did all sorts of cool stuff, like giving you discounts if you sent in the labels from skeins of yarn that you'd knit up, whether or not you'd bought that yarn at S&S. Small, family-run, they were something else.

Sadly, they shut down several months back, and at that time, they had a huge going-out-of-business sale. I bought three gorgeous skeins of Dream in Color Starry in a deep ocean-blue colorway. I think I paid half price for the three.

When the yarn arrived, I took one whiff and knew something was wrong. The yarn absolutely reeked of black mold. I checked with my husband, who agreed: that yarn seriously stank.

Well, I figured, S&S was going out of business. Maybe they'd had a storage issue, and the yarn had been stored in an area with a mold problem. For half price, I couldn't really complain. I would wash the yarn and see if I could get the smell out. If I couldn't, I would probably have to trash it. Who would want to knit with (and wear an item made out of) moldy yarn?

But, since my mother raised me to be the customer who at least provides feedback, I contacted S&S and told them about the smell. I said I certainly didn't expect them to do anything about it since they were going out of business, but I did want them to be aware that wherever they were storing their yarn might be harboring dangerous black mold, especially if that place were in their house.

Imagine my surprise when I received a reply the next day stating that it wasn't a case of mold at all; it was a defect on the DIC end that they'd identified months earlier. It had something to do with the final rinse of the yarn after the dyeing process, and it had left the yarn smelling of the dyestuffs used on it. S&S was very apologetic, saying that they'd thought that they had pulled all the affected yarn off the shelves when the problem was discovered, but that they must have missed the skeins that I'd purchased. They gave me instructions for what to use on the yarn to get the smell out.

And then they issued me a full refund.

Can you believe it? A full refund, after telling me to keep the yarn and letting me know how to get the smell out so that I could use it. And all this from a company that realistically shouldn't have cared a bit about providing good customer service since it was going out of business.

Sonny & Shear, I miss you. All companies should be as good to their customers as you were.

2010-04-29T22:33:00.002-04:00

Winna, Winna, Chicken Dinna

Folks, the random number generator has given us a winner! Congratulations to Amy, aka knitterofhats on ravelry. Amy, I'll PM you on rav and as soon as I get your address, your copy of Sweater Quest will be winging its way to you. Many thanks to everyone who entered the contest!

I'm especially happy to be able to spread a little cheer today as this is my last day of the spring semester. As of tomorrow, I'm free, free, free...for the next 6 weeks, that is. Still, a half-summer vacation is better than no summer vacation at all, and by the time I have to get back into the classroom at the end of June, the sweltering heat will be just about ready to kick in and I'll be grateful to be out of the house and into the air-conditioned coolness of the office. Till then, I'll be home with the kids, playing in the garden, pulling weeds and generally enjoying myself. Aaaaaah, good times, they are a-comin'.

Hopefully, I'll be able to squeeze some knitting in along with all of that. Most of my knitting time comes during my looooooong commute. With a month and a half off, I'll have to try and figure out when to knit here at home. I still have my Multnomah to finish, and after the problems I've had with the feather and fan border, I don't want to put it down for too long because I might not want to pick it up again.

I think I've worked the kinks, or at least most of them, out of the project, so once I'm finished posting I'm going to sit down and try to get a few rows into the pattern. I still love how the knit 1 below patterning looks on the main body of the shawl; I can't wait to see how the feather and fan will look paired with that.

Will post photos once I'm a bit farther along....

2010-04-25T22:05:00.002-04:00

It's a Small Internet After All

I'm not about to tell you my age. I will, however, point out that I earned spending money in college by typing papers for a buck a page on my state-of-the-art Brother electronic typewriter, the kind that had a double ribbon (one half black ink, the other half white-out) and a memory of about a single line of text. Goof up your spelling and catch it in time, and with a touch of a button that clever little machine would go back and blank it out so you could type over it and no one would be the wiser. Much, much better than the old cast-iron Underwood I'd learned to type on in junior high. Screw up with that thing and you probably wouldn't even be able to manage to line your text up again after smearing liquid white-out over the offending error, resulting in anywhere from a single letter to a series of words hanging half a line above or below the rest. Ah, technology.

I mention all this as a preface to why, when I glanced at my April 22 post, I was taken completely by surprise to see that Adrienne Martini had left me a comment.

Adrienne Martini, in case you don't know, is the author of Sweater Quest, a very clever and entertaining book that I happen to be giving away in a blog contest. Now, to my knowledge, almost no one reads my blog. As of today, I have exactly four followers, at least one of whom I suspect must have clicked the "follow" button by accident and then not known how to take it back. And yet somehow, the author of this book managed to find out that I'm giving her book away as a contest prize, and she was gracious enough to publicly thank me for doing so. According to my reckoning, it took all of three days for this to happen.

Back when I was banging out my junior-high typing class assignments on that noisy old Underwood, the only way to touch base with a favorite author was to write an honest-to-goodness letter -- on paper and everything! -- and, after scrounging up both envelope and stamp, mail it to a publishing house, hoping it would get forwarded to the author in question. Whether that author would give a crap enough to answer fan mail was anyone's guess. (Incidentally, while I never took the step of writing a favorite author, I did receive a very handsome photo of President Gerald Ford in response to a letter I wrote while in elementary school. I'd just like to say a belated "Thank you, President Ford." I do believe I still have that photo somewhere at my mother's house, tucked away with the other treasures of my childhood. Nothing's quite as sweet as getting an answer to a letter, especially when it's from someone famous who sends a publicity shot along to boot.)

It still amazes me how much the Internet has changed, not only how we communicate, but the very dynamic of communication itself. That a published author could find out that little ol' four-person-reading blogger me is giving away a copy of her book is marvel enough. It goes hand-in-hand with the very fact that I can even give a copy of her book away to a total stranger with just a few clicks of my mouse. Put a note on my blog, post an announcement on ravelry, and the offer is out there for anyone to see.

No, the larger change here is the dynamic between author and reader, seeker and sought after. Authors who, in the past, would have been as static as their books to a typical reader such as me, unreachable and unknowable beyond those words they committed to the printed page, are now instantly accessible in half a dozen different ways. Got a question about how to turn a heel on a sock? Message Cat Bordhi over on ravelry and get the answer straight from the designer's mouth. Sounding off about how much you love -- or hate -- somebody or something? Better watch out; far less than six degrees separate us from those we choose to discuss online, and we never know when our words may come back to us. For better or for worse, the famous and the completely not-so are talking more than I would ever have dreamed possible back when I scrawled my little letter to President Ford and was giddy with surprise months later to receive a heavy manilla envelope from the White House in return. What an amazing world we live in.

All of this to say, did you notice that Adrienne freakin' Martini left a comment on my blog? My blog!

How. Cool. Is. That.

Thank you, Adrienne. You made my day.

2010-04-24T23:16:00.005-04:00

Modified Multnomah

Have you ever struggled with a skein of yarn that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be when it grows up? Well, I'm working with one right now. Meet Matuey the Cat:

Matuey came to live with me via a rav swap well over a year ago. I was in a sock yarn phase, and I was swapping for just about anything indie that I hadn't yet tried, just to see what was out there. These are definitely unusual colors for me. I have nearly no white in my stash, far preferring jewel tones and black or otherwise dark undertones to a white base. But, like I said, I was swapping for new stuff, and I'd seen Dashing Dachs before but never scored any. This skein came up on swap, and I jumped.

Upon arrival, Matuey was not what I'd expected. Well, that's not exactly true. I suppose I hadn't "expected" anything except a new and different sock yarn, and this certainly fit that bill. What didn't fit, however, was the construction of the yarn itself. First of all, it's a very light fingering weight -- 560 yds in 4 oz. Second, it's 100% merino; there's no nylon to help strengthen this very thin yarn. Finally, it's a two-ply. The notes on rav say it's a 4-ply, but god help me, I can't seem to find those other two plies. No, this is definitely a 2-ply, and I far prefer a 3-ply for socks.

So, I puzzled. What to do with this yarn, now that socks seemed out of the question? The colors seemed too wild for a lace shawl, which is what this somewhat fine 2-ply seemed best suited to. What, then?

Knit One Below, that's what. I bought the book not too long after it came out and was intrigued enough with the technique to cake up Matuey and start to play around. I thought maybe a pair of kid-sized socks for my daughter, who at that point really wasn't up on her feet all that much anyway. I could experiment, she would get a new pair of socks, and by the time she managed to wear holes in them, they would be too small anyway. I figured the wild variegations in Matuey's colorway would blend nicely with this dropped-stitch technique.

What I neglected to note as I started the sample sock pattern from the book was that the author recommended using a sock yarn with some elastic since the K1B technique is all stretch with no snap back. A couple of inches into the cuff, I realized that these socks would never stay on a human foot, and certainly not on a human toddler's foot. Annoyed, I put the cuff in time-out along with the now-caked-up Matuey.

Fast forward. I've completed an Aran cabled vest. I'm most of the way through a dropped-stitch scarf, and I'm contemplating what to start next. Another sweater or top, while tempting, still feels too long-term; I'm in it for the quick fix now. But this drop-stitch pattern is killing me. It's so simple I can't wait for it to be over. I know I want more of a challenge.

That's when I start thinking shawl.

Not a heavy-duty, serious lace shawl, mind you. I've had one of those -- beaded -- on the needles for the past couple of years, and I'm sure it will be there a couple of years from now. No, I mean one of those shawls that people seem to knock out in a couple of weeks. A small one that can be worn as a stylish shoulder scarf instead of a full-out granny wrap. Something that would get that freakin' caked Matuey out of the stash and into my closet once and for all.

I decided to try a Multnomah. I picked it because I'd heard a lot about it fairly recently, and while I never seem to get on the bandwagon until the band has packed up and gone home, at least with this one I could still hear the lingering echoes of music in the air. Also, it's a simple garter-stitch body (quick-n-easy; no years-long project, this) edged in feather and fan, which is excellent for wildly variegated yarns because it seems to break up pooling nicely.

Here's what my Multnomah looked like at about 100+ stitches across:

And, guess what?

I hated it. Hated it! Why, dear lord, why did it look so muddy, so bleh, all the colors sort of bleeding together and weird with the greeny-blacky streaks, and where had all that white gone anyway, it all looked yellow and I look horrible in yellow and maybe it will look better if I just keep knitting but, really, when is it time to cut your losses and call it quits and damn, I wonder if I can ditch this yarn on anyone else now, shit.

Matuey was turning out to be one great, big, pain in the ass.

As I gritted my teeth and prepared to frog my Multnomah, I started thinking back to that cuff I'd knitted. I'd liked the way the yarn had looked; I'd only frogged it because of the fit. How had the yarn looked so good in the cuff if it looked like such crap now?

And that's when it hit me: knit one below.

Here's what my Multnomah looks like now:

Isn't she purty? I'm working her using K1B techniques, which produce a non-curling edge and help prevent unsightly pooling. I'm so pleased that I keep stopping after every row just to stare at the colors. It's somewhat slow going as I'm now purling back every other row, plus all that knitting below tends to take the steam out of a good knit, but no matter. I lovelovelove how this looks now.

Let's just hope it stays that way.

2010-04-22T20:43:00.004-04:00

Yarn Review and a CONTEST!

Exciting things have been happening here at Maison du Splinarella. First off, I've finished something! After spending over 3 months working on my Cabled Aran Vest, I needed something quick and cute that I could whip on and off the needles, something springy that I could wear right away and enjoy.

I picked the Drop Stitch Scarf, by Christine Vogel. And I knew just the yarn I wanted to make it with: Tess Microfiber Ribbon.

I'd been hearing about Tess Microfiber Ribbon on The Knitmore Girls Podcast for months. Jasmin had been raving about the stuff, saying it knits like water and is perfect for cool and comfortable summer tops. I had, therefore, been delighted when I won a skein of it in the Knitmore Girls' "Do Some Good" contest earlier this spring. I could hardly wait to finish my aran vest so I could cast on my scarf.

So, here are a few details about the yarn:

It comes in generous 150g/333yd skeins for $25, although today the website shows them on sale for 25% off -- get 'em while you can! The colorway I used is #832411, a rainbow blend that transitions from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple to pink and back to red again. The colors are bright and vivid, a riot of tropical flora. The yarn itself is a true ribbon yarn with a width of about 1/8"/3mm by my measurement.

I knit up my scarf on US size 8 Knitpicks Options, the nickel-plated tips. At first, I found the knitting fiddly. I almost never knit with ribbon yarns, so that alone took some getting used to. The yarn is quite slippery, and for the first few rows I felt as though the project were in danger of slipping right off the needle tips. As the scarf grew longer, the weight of it was just enough to pull the yarn down onto the needles and get rid of that slipping feeling. The ribbon tended to twist and kink as I knitted it, which may just be a function of ribbon yarns and not a reflection of this particular brand. Fortunately, any twists that found their way into the knitting straightened themselves out in the finished product with no effort on my part. The yarn is so slippery that the twists just seemed to fall right out as soon as I lifted the scarf. I found myself frequently poking the tip of my needle into the ribbon (again, my inexperience with ribbon yarns was the culprit), but even though the Options tips are somewhat pointy, they never actually managed to pierce the ribbon. I did, however, snag the ribbon on just about anything that was remotely snaggable: a slight crack in a fingernail; the rough skin at the edge of a finger. In that sense, it was very much like working with silk. I would definitely recommend a good sugar scrub before taking up the Tess.

Overall, I liked this yarn. Except...I found a knot in the skein.

I debated about whether to even bring this up. After all, I received the skein as a prize in a contest. Free is free, and who complains about free, right? I can certainly understand a dyer wanting to provide prizes from mill-ends or seconds, and knots are part of that territory.

But.

After I found the knot, I checked the label thoroughly. It's not marked second, or mill-end, or anything else to indicate that it's not a first-rate, grade A skein of yarn. Now, I find knots in big-box yarns all the time. I don't like it, but kind of like mill-ends, I also figure it's just part of that territory. Big-box is big-box for a reason, and part of that reason is price point. A knot or two finding their way into the occasional skein, while not desirable, is probably unavoidable.

But, I expect more from high-end yarns. Again, price point is an issue. If I'm going to pay $25 for a skein of yarn, I want that skein to be just that: a single skein, not two mini-skeins knotted together. Then, there's the issue of this particular yarn. It's a microfiber ribbon. The instructions on the label say "Use fabric glue such as Fray-chek to seal ends & fasten." Not only is it impossible to join ends in a somewhat invisible manner (via a Russian join, spit splice or the like), but the yarn is so slippery that it needs to be knotted and then glued together. You better believe I want as few knots as possible in my project. Finally, this isn't a big-box production employing hundreds or thousands of employees in factories worldwide. It's a small producer who, I assume, must take a fairly hands-on approach to the production process. I would hope that a knotted skein would be pulled aside, labeled as a second or mill-end and priced accordingly. Ultimately, I would have to think twice before paying MSRP for this yarn simply because, if this is an indication of what can be expected in a first-rate skein, I'm not sure I would be willing to spend quite so much on it.

So, there's my review. I like the yarn, I love the way the finished product looks, but that knot really bugged me. Finding a knot in any skein of high-end yarn bothers me, which is why I almost never knit with Noro. But that's a story for another day.

And now, on to a CONTEST!

I just finished reading Sweater Quest, by Adrienne Martini. Adrienne tells the tale of her quest to scale the knitterly equivalent of Mount Everest by knitting Alice Starmore's Mary Tudor sweater over the course of 12 months. I won't say much except that I really enjoyed it, and now I'd like to pass my copy along for someone else to enjoy.

Entering the contest is simple: Leave a comment on this post by next Thursday, April 28. Tell me about your own knitterly equivalent of Mount Everest. I'll pick one winner by random number generator. Please include your ravelry ID in your post so I can contact you by PM if you win. And if you're not on rav...why aren't you? Go sign up: www.ravelry.com. I'll wait. Or, if you insist on remaining rav-less, please do make sure I have some way of contacting you in case you win. I'd hate for you to miss out on your prize because my mind-reading skills aren't up to snuff.

If you like what you read on my blog, sign up to follow me -- there's a box in the sidebar where you should be able to do that. And if you feel extra inspired, please feel free to make a small donation to the Spina Bifida Association of Northeastern New York. My younger daughter has Spina Bifida, a birth defect that affects approximately 1 in 1,000 pregnancies and is the most commonly-occurring, permanently-disabling birth defect in the United States. SBA of NENY does a great job providing families like ours with support and advocacy, and every penny they can raise is both important and needed.

Finally, if you're a woman of childbearing age, the United States Public Health Service recommends that you should consume 0.4 mg of folic acid daily to help reduce the risk of having a pregnancy affected by Spina Bifida or other neural tube defects.

OK, public service announcement over. Go play with some fiber, check out the links on this post, leave your comments and keep your fingers crossed. One lucky winner will be announced next week!

2010-04-19T22:52:00.010-04:00

Bugga!

Rav can be dangerous for lots of reasons. For one thing, it's a huge time suck. I love it, mind you, but time spent there is time not spent knitting, spinning or otherwise playing with fiber.

For another thing, there are way too many paths toward enablement. There are the ever-popular destashes, the messages detailing the latest and greatest yarn sales online, and of course, there's the CPA (Completely Pointless and Arbitrary) swap group.

A year or so ago, I was swapping about $20+ a week in shipping costs. That was maybe 7-10 packages a week sent out. My local PO thought I had an ebay business. DH threatened to add "yarn shipping" as a category in our monthly budget. And I spent waaaaay too much time hunched over the PC swap stalking.

Then, we heard DH's job was not secure. After the initial panic subsided, I decided to stop swapping until things were all worked out. And so, I did. Cold turkey.

It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be. I still stalked the swaps, but I didn't claim. Brand-new, gotta-have-'em yarns came and went and came again. I slipped swiftly out of the loop, sitting on my stash and feeling virtuous for not buying yarn for most of 2009. I loosened the purse strings in the beginning of 2010 only to find that DH's job situation is now at its least secure yet. Ugh. So, back to the no-yarn-buying plan, which is actually OK since I'm pretty stash-happy these days (and, quite frankly, could probably clothe a small community if I managed to kit up all that I've got on hand).

And yet...I've really, really wanted to try Bugga! This is the sock yarn from The Sanguine Gryphon that's part merino, part cashmere, plus a touch of nylon for a bit of strength amid all that softness. Bugga! is notoriously hard to score during updates; popular colors sell out fast, and it's pretty much a free-for-all.

But today, I read on rav that The Sanguine Gryphon is picking a different colorway for each update and making it available in unlimited quantities for one day so that people can order as much as they want. The yarn will then all be dyed at one time and sent out to fill these "pre-orders." So, I went to the website. And, lo and behold, the colorway of choice today is "Twice-Stabbed Lady Beetle," which actually looks far prettier than it sounds. It's a deep, dark purple with flashes of muted fuschia that looks like it will knit up beautifully.

So, I ordered a skein. I also ordered a skein of Skinny Bugga!, a lighter-weight version of Bugga!, in Cowkiller, which is also a dark, rich, purply-browny sort of color that I'm looking forward to seeing in person.

All together, I spent around $58 on the two skeins, including shipping. If my mother ever knew the amount of money I spent on socks that I have to make myself, she would pass out. And I was hesitant to spend the funds that I really should be saving for a rainy day.

But, honestly, I couldn't resist. I've wanted to try this for a long time; these were colors I loved; and I've been so very good for so long, not even spending my birthday money "just in case." At the end of the day, I'm ok with it.

Now to stalk the mailman until my yarn arrives.

2010-04-13T22:15:00.005-04:00

One Down, 11 to Go

Sunday was Big Girl's birthday party. She turned 5 last Thursday, and we celebrated with nearly a dozen of her friends at our house. They ate cake, played outside, and in general had a riproaring good time.

I, however, came down with a cold.

The last kid had barely left the house when I felt it come on. That first sneeze told me I'd better break out the neti pot and honey, which I did in short order, all to no avail. So now, in addition to the thrown-out back, the injured leg and the torn something-or-other in my heel, I have a killer head cold.

The only upside is that today, in between bouts of fitful sleeping, coughing, sneezing and neti-potting, I managed to finish my Aran Accent Vest from the Patons "Cables" booklet:

I must admit, I'm very, very proud of myself for reworking the pattern to do it in the round with steeks. I followed Eunny Jang's tutorial for crocheted steeks, and they turned out marvelously well. The inside is so neat and tidy! In the end, the vest is just a tad large at the shoulders. I probably should have followed the size M instructions for the front but the size S for the back. No matter, though. It's good enough and I'm wearing it as-is tomorrow when I go back to work.

It's my first of 12 completed for IntSweMoDo 2010, the KAL on rav that's a takeoff on the writing competition where you write a novel in a month. Only for this, you knit 12 sweaters in 12 months.

It's April, and I've just finished my first of 12 sweaters for the year 2010.

There might just be a chance that I won't get them all done in time.

2010-04-09T22:54:00.003-04:00

Legs

I am easily influenced. Not in the usual ways, mind you. As a teen, I just said no to drugs, much to several friends' chagrin. I don't smoke, don't drink, eschew carbonated beverages and limit my caffeine intake to whatever is in chocolate (preferably dark, just in case, you know, you're thinking of enabling me). I avoid much pop culture by choice, which is one of the reasons we don't have TV in our home. In short, I like to do my own thing.

Except when it comes to knitting.

I just hopped over to the Yarn Harlot's blog and read this post. It's about legwarmers. Deep green, cabled legwarmers that she knitted for her sister. In the obligatory blog photo, the legwarmers are shown on legs (Stephanie's sister's, one guesses) clad in skinny, dark-blue jeans that end in the most violet pair of cowboy boots I've ever laid eyes on.

Now, I am a Yankee through and through, a city kid whose only use for cowboy boots would be to pry them off a sexy young cowboy for my own nefarious purposes. And I loathe the color green. So why is it that I suddenly want, no need, a pair of purple, high-heeled cowboy boots and some dark green leg warmers? How can I even envision myself wearing them like the skinny legs in the photo, leg warmers over the outside of the jeans and covering all but the heel and toe of the boot, purple leather barely peeking from beneath dark green cabling? What am I, crazy?

I get this way whenever I see good knitting. I want to make shawls that I will rarely wear. I desire sweaters that will neither fit well nor look good on me. I yearn for knitted skirts that will make me resemble an overstuffed pork product, sexy tanks that will spotlight my upper-arm deficiencies, and accessories either many years too young or too old for me. In short, my knitting eye, while able to recognize and appreciate great knitting when it sees it, is completely and utterly deluded about what an appropriate knit for me would be.

No matter. It's spring, the time of year to throw caution to the wind and start new things. Maybe high-heeled cowboy boots will be just the thing to spice up my staid wardrobe. Maybe I'll wear green cabled leggings and somehow manage to avoid embarrassing flashbacks to my '80s youth.

But maybe I'd better pour myself a good, stiff drink first.

2010-04-07T23:16:00.004-04:00

Snip Snip

Well, I finally got up the nerve to cut the steeks in my Aran cabled vest. And you know what?

Cutting your knitting is the coolest thing evah!

Here's what it looked like before:

With a close-up of the first (and smallest) of the 4 steeks that I cut:

Post-cutting:

And, of course, the obligatory in-the-bathroom-under-awful-fluorescent-lighting shot:

I've just finished picking up 112 stitches around one armhole to finish it off with a few rounds of 1/1 ribbing. I'm so close to the end I can taste it! I'm especially happy that this thing actually fits. I gave myself a slight bit of heart failure today as I read other people's notes on rav about how this vest knits up waaaaay large. How had I missed this the first time around?? But, since I had no way to try the darn thing on without cutting it first, I just took a deep breath (OK, I took a few hours' worth of deep breaths), broke out the snips and had at it. And it worked! Unless I wake up tomorrow morning and find the entire thing has spontaneously combusted overnight, I've actually successfully cut my first real steeks!

2010-04-01T22:39:00.006-04:00

Ah, Spring....

Today was my first "real" day in the garden for the year 2010. Meaning, of course, I overdid.

The results:

A whole mess of day lilies relocated. I'm not sure they'll take in their new spot, but at least they're out of their old spot, where they were doing nothing but wreaking havoc. Score one point for me.

One leg injured.

Yes, I managed to trip over a small concrete statue and slam my left leg into it hard enough to make me weep. DH offered not once but twice to take me to the hospital, that's how much of a baby I was being about it all. Seriously, though, it did hurt like a sonofabitch. Score one point for the garden.

Once case of poison ivy, acquired.

If there's one thing I hate more than hurting myself in the garden, it's accidentally getting myself tangled up in poison ivy. I spent much time today pulling raspberry canes and wild roses, and darn it if there wasn't some poison ivy mixed in with all that. I've been hoping against hope that I just managed to scratch my arm up some and get an itch from it, but now the fingers on my left hand are itchy, too, and I'm facing up to the fact that I may be starting a course of steroids in the near future. Bummer. Score one for the garden.

Final score: Garden - two, me - one.

When will winter be back?

2010-03-29T21:20:00.005-04:00

My Day in Pictures

2010-03-23T00:09:00.003-04:00

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Actually, here's what I did after my summer vacation:

The vacation album! Just finished it tonight, and only seven months after the fact. Hooray for finishing!

2010-03-21T00:19:00.005-04:00

Knit More!

Today was a double victory. First, this:

That's right, BGM's rainbow afghan is finished, only 13 days after it was begun. I still cannot get over how quick crochet is compared to knitting. Too bad I love the look of knitting so much, or I swear all I'd do is crochet just to finish projects.

The next victory happened awhile back, but the prize just arrived today. Behold, my award for being one of the winners of the Knitmore Girls' "Do Some Good Contest":

How cool is that? A gorgeous skein of Tess' Designer Yarns Microfiber Ribbon, the yarn that Jasmin of the Knitmore Girls is always raving about. And how appropriate -- it's in rainbow colors! Plus they were kind enough to send a Verena Knitting magazine, a sample of Soak, and a whole bunch of Knitmore Swag. Sweet!

Now I'm sort of in a quandry. I still have a bunch of WIPs that I really should finish. Mom's blanket jumps right to the front of that list since it was supposed to be her 80th birthday present...this past September. All it needs is the rest of the seaming to be done, and then the burying of the million and a half ends. I am never, ever using my little 4-inch square Weave It loom to make a blanket again.

Since the blanket isn't portable, I suppose I'll go back to my cabled aran vest for my train knitting. And, of course, there's the Sand Dollar pullover that I really need to finish seaming. Oh, and if I get tired of working the needles, I can always pick up the vacation scrapbook and finally do the last 6 pages. I feel like I'm so close to the end on all these projects, but the siren song of the new is always beckoning me away. (I'm looking at you, Tess Microfiber.) What to do, what to do....

2010-03-19T23:00:00.002-04:00

Almost There

I'm so close to finishing BGM's blanket that I can taste it! After dance class tonight (did I mention I bellydance?), I sat in Starbucks with a couple of friends over tea and just powered through the second-to-last colored stripe. Now I have about a row and a half of white to go, then four rows of my final color and a finishing three-row stripe of white and I'll be done, done, done.

To tell the truth, I can hardly wait.

It's not that I necessarily have project that I'm dying to get back to knitting on. I'm still working on my cabled aran vest from the Paton's Cables booklet, but even though it's lots of fun, it's something that I'm fine with picking up and putting down; it's not a siren song but more of a steady drumbeat kind of knit. No, I think I just want to finish some things, and this is about as close as I am to finishing anything right about now.

I did manage to pull out my photo album from ::ahem:: last August and get a couple of more pages squared away. I'm trying something new and experimenting with scrapbooking. Honestly, it's not really my thing. I love the finished product, but I'm just not visual enough to make everything hang together as nicely as people who really get into it do. The vacation book is coming out nicely enough, but it's a shitton of work and I just want it to be done with. I was hoping to get it all finished over this week's spring break, but that was just not meant to be. Still, I've gotten a bit more done, and more importantly, I've taken the supplies out of the back closet where they were hibernating, so at least they're out in view and therefore more likely to be worked on. Once I finish the blanket, I think I'm going to concentrate on getting this book done.

Then, of course, I need to finally seam up my Sand Dollar pullover. It's only been more than a year since I finished the knitting up. Why, oh why, aren't all sweaters constructed in the round??

If I can get these three projects out of the way by the end of the month...well, let's face it, if I manage that, I will also have managed to squeeze an extra week into the available 31 days of March, so we'll just see how that goes. But at least I have goals.

Right now, I'm off to work on one of them.

2010-03-14T21:51:00.004-04:00

Getting Phat!

I can only wonder what my foremothers would think of the fiber "sellout phenomenon." I'm sure there's a more official name for it, though I have no idea what it is. I'm talking about the way certain sellers (like Wollmeise) or certain product lines from certain sellers (like The Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga!) barely have time to hit the virtual shelves before being snatched up by eager buyers, many of whom don't even bother checking the colors that they get in the excitement of getting something, anything at all.

It kind of reminds me of my first trip to Rhinebeck, when I saw the line snaking from the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth past at least half a dozen other sellers, practically to the exit of the showroom. I asked one woman whose arms were filled with skeins of Socks that Rock yarn what was happening. I honestly thought the yarn must have been free to generate such a line. No, she replied, we all just love STR. No special show discounts, just the chance to see colors in person instead of online. People walked away with bags full of the stuff, paid in full.

I went through a period when I bought yarn at least in part for the phenomenon factor. Much as I adore Ravelry, I find it all too easy to hear about the latest and greatest yarns there -- the fiber must-haves that I then suddenly decide I must have, too. I've stalked Wollmeise at 3am, bought colors of yarns that I didn't even like because I knew they had good "trade value," and generally built my stash the way some people build their stock portfolios.

Then, I stopped.

I think I sort of burned out on keeping up with the Joneses. I had a metric shitton of yarn but relatively few FOs; yarn stalking does take time away from actually using said yarn, yanno. I was also worried about DH's job situation and decided that cutting back in general was a good idea. So, I quit cold turkey.

I stopped hanging out on the Ravelry swap boards, which made a huge difference. I don't think I bought yarn for over half a year, maybe longer. I actually didn't mind. I didn't feel like I was missing out, like I was denying myself anything. When events conspired to keep me away from Rhinebeck for the first time in 3 or 4 years, I was down for a bit, but ultimately I was glad not to have spent the money I was sure to have dropped had I gone.

Oh, I've bought yarn and fiber since then. Some special pretties at excellent prices mostly, stuff I love that also happened to show up on sale or on a particularly good Rav destash at a time when I felt I couldn't pass them up. I've done a bit of trading, too, to get yarn I want for specific projects. And I treated myself at the start of the year to my very first spinning fiber club, from Crown Mountain Farms. But, in general I just passed on the phenom yarns. Just a few days ago, in fact, I had 3 skeins of Bugga! in my cart at The Loopy Ewe -- I'd caught a note on Rav about an update just moments after it happened -- but I closed the window without buying because I couldn't see spending nearly $90 on three skeins of yarn that were okay, but nothing spectacular. Trade value or no, I just didn't love the yarns enough to want them that much, so I didn't buy.

But tonight, I finally succumbed to a phenom. I bought a Phat Fiber box.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure if it will be worth it. I've been intrigued for awhile, and I've even tried scoring one before but with no luck. I was always the kid who loved the surprise packages from the mail-order catalogs, after all; it's only natural that a surprise box of fiber would appeal to me. I picked a Fluff box figuring that I could do more with a bunch of samples of spinning fiber than I could do with short sample lengths of yarn. And I do have high hopes. If nothing else, it will be something different, out of the ordinary. I'm calling it a little birthday present to myself.

And if I wind up loving it, all my ancestors can watch from the great beyond in bewilderment as I hover over the computer next month, competing with thousands of other fiberistas from around the globe for the privilege of spending my money. Who would have ever guessed?

2010-03-11T00:59:00.007-05:00

The Borrowers

When I was a kid, I remember reading a book about these teeny, tiny people called the Borrowers. They lived in people's houses and took things. They weren't mean; they weren't even stealing. They were borrowing. Whenever people went looking for their stuff in the place where they'd left it but it wasn't there, it meant that the Borrowers had taken it.

I was reminded of this last night, as DH and I frantically ripped apart the entire house looking for this:

No, not the Stitch doll. The Baby Surprise Jacket. The one I spent two weeks knitting for DH's colleague, whose baby boy is due in less than a month. I'd finished the jacket, sewn on the (functional) snaps and (decorative) buttons, draped it around Stitch for a photo shoot...and promptly lost the thing. I swore that I'd folded it up and put it back in my project bag, but when I pulled the bag out to wrap the jacket, it was empty. I searched all my project bags, my sock yarn dresser (yes, I have an entire dresser full of nothing but sock yarn; perhaps I have a problem), the little hanging shoe racks behind the hall closet door...but, nothing. At least, no jacket.

DH and I continued to search together. I may have implied that the jacket got lost after DH commented, upon my showing him the end result of all my hard labor, that now I could "wrap it up nice and pretty, m'kay?" Clearly at that moment, DH, usually a sensitive and intelligent man, was not at his best. Understanding soul that I am, I chose not to wrap the jacket up inside his anus, as I had very briefly considered doing. Instead, I simply lost it. The jacket, that is.

When the jacket finally turned up, it was in the least likely of places: inside my younger daughter's dresser. Now, my younger daughter is 2. She can't even reach her dresser, much less care about putting clothes into it (pulling everything out, however, is a different story entirely). I didn't put the jacket in there. DH didn't put the jacket in there. Cue the creepy music: the Borrowers must have done it.

But, all's well that ends well, right? DH gave the pressie to his friend at work today, and it was received with all the joy and appreciation that I could have hoped for. Meanwhile, I'm now free to go back to work on DDM's ripple blankie.

Now if only I can find where I put that crochet hook....

2010-03-08T23:09:00.004-05:00

I {HEART} CROCHET

I came to the fiber arts through crochet. My mother taught me when I was so young that I don't even have a clear memory of being taught. I do remember spending hours making crochet chains, trying to see how long I could get them before I grew too bored to go on. As I got older, I moved on to thread crochet. I made doilies and fillet crochet picture-squares before realizing that I didn't like them enough to display them, which (in my mind) made the making rather pointless.

Mom had taught me to knit as well, but when I picked it up again as an adult it quickly supplanted crochet as my fiber art of choice. Crochet seemed so hopelessly old-fashioned, so 70s acrylic, all granny-square kitsch with none of the smooth sophistication and flair of knitting. I put my hooks aside.

But recently, my older DD has been asking for a blanket. She dearly loves all my handmade gifts, and since I realize that this will not last forever, I want to capitalize on it while I still can. If the girl wants a blanket, then a blanket she will get.

I decided to pick a crochet pattern because, like it or not, crochet does work up faster than knitting. I looked up free crochet afghan patterns on Ravelry and let her choose the one she liked best; she picked the Easy Ripple Afghan. We then went to Michael's and I let her pick her colors of Cotton-Ease, whichever she wanted. She chose "rainbow," which meant we went home with seven more-or-less primary colors plus white. I cast on two days ago. Here's what I have so far:

Unbefrickinlieveable, isn't it? Two days of easy double crochet and I've got a foot of blanket-width fabric to show for it. The rhythm of the pattern is soothing, and it feels good to wield a crochet hook again. DDM (formerly Baby M, though with her 5th birthday fast approaching she's hardly a baby any more) has already said she loves how the blanket looks, and at this rate it will be done in time for her birthday in just a few weeks. While I love the look of the knitted afghan I've been toiling over for the past few years (on size 4 needles, with the end nowhere in sight), there's really nothing like a crocheted blanket for a fast, satisfying project that produces BIG results in little time. Yay, crochet!

2010-03-05T21:13:00.004-05:00

The Pioneer Life

I used to have this little fantasy. In it, my family and I were pioneers circa the mid-1800s. We would live in a cozy log cabin that my husband, "Pa," had built with his own two hands out of nothing but materials from the land around us. While he was out trapping or hunting or fishing to put fresh game on the table, I -- with the help of my daughters -- would knit and sew and preserve the bounty of the garden we would plant ourselves using nothing but the most basic of hand tools. It wouldn't be an easy life, to be sure, but it would be oh so rewarding in its honesty and simplicity.

Then, last week, I got to live my dream.

The power went out at around 10pm on Thursday. We really shouldn't have been surprised; over 2 feet of snow had fallen, and trees were bound to be coming down all over. But, in over 10 years of living in our house, we'd never been without power for more than a day and a half. We headed to bed, secure in the knowledge that the lights would be back on the following afternoon. Evening at worst. In the meanwhile, I would indulge in my Little House on the Prairie daydreams.

I got up on Friday morning, raring to start a fire in our wood stove. Of course, we hadn't used the stove since my older daughter had been born nearly five years earlier, which meant the only wood we had was a termite-ridden pile that was currently buried under nearly a yard of snow. Undeterred, I brought in a few soggy logs and set them up at the back of the stove, behind the pile of crumpled newspaper and junk mail that I'd scrounged up in lieu of actual kindling. My inner pioneer just shook her head sadly.

Fifteen sooty, smoky, fire-less minutes later, I finally remembered the lone Duraflame log I had tucked away in the downstairs pantry. At last, success! A fire roared in the stove, and I hastily piled wood as close as I felt I could without setting the house ablaze in an attempt to dry it off. Night fell with no power in sight, and we all realized we were in it for the long haul.

Saturday morning, I headed out to find that not only had all the generators in a 20 mile radius been purchased the morning before (and, really, a generator? who needed a generator? we were pioneers!), but so had all the Coleman lanterns, camping stoves and firewood. I stocked up on Duraflames, bought a three-pack of battery-powered headlamps and headed for home. When I got there, I found that in addition to having no heat, no way to cook food and no telephone, we now also had no water. I began to wonder why people referred to the past as the "good old days."

By Sunday, we sent the girls to stay with my in-laws for the duration. DH and I melted snow to flush the toilets and heated it to bathe. Do you have any idea how long it takes to heat a big pot of water on a wood stove? I could have licked myself clean, cat-style, faster.

Monday, I woke up to find dishes, including the coffee pot and oatmeal pan, in the sink. Not usually a problem, except when you need to boil water to wash those pots and pans before you can actually cook breakfast. So, while DH slept, I fed the fire (started this time from the prior night's embers -- Pioneer Me was so proud!) and spent 2 hours collecting, melting and heating snow, all so I could wash the freakin dishes in order to dirty them again immediately. When Pioneer Me pointed out that this is why the dishes should never sit in the sink, unwashed, overnight, I wanted to slap her.

The power came back on again late Tuesday. DH and I celebrated by taking hot showers, eating takeout Chinese and staying up past 9pm. Pioneer life had been pretty exhausting, and quite frankly, I was delighted to be done with it.

I have a new fantasy now. In it, my family and I live in a cozy A-frame with heat, hot water and light, all available at the touch of a button.

Oh, wait a sec...that's my reality.

At least, until the power goes out again.

2010-03-05T00:09:00.004-05:00

A Fresh New Look

Over on Ravelry, someone commented that she'd checked out my blog and wondered what had happened with my life after I stopped blogging. She mentioned that I should pick up the blog again, and I'd been thinking the same thing myself. So, here I am.

I've cleared away much of the old crap that I had in the sidebars, header, etc. Feels like a fresh start is in order.

I stopped blogging because life got busy and dropping out of the blogosphere was easy. But more than that...I think towards the end of 2007, right before Baby Z was born, I wound up developing a somewhat uneasy relationship with my blog. There was so much strife leading up to Baby Z's birth, and I put some of that strife down in the blog. And then I just wanted to forget all about it. It was too hard, too painful. I'd cried my way through every ob-gyn appointment from 20 weeks onward, and I really, really wanted to leave that behind. And so, I left the blog behind as well.

Things are very different now. Baby Z is no longer a baby, she's a full-fledged toddler. She is an absolute joy, so full of life and so very healthy and wonderful, despite her disability. She walks...no, she runs most of the time, keeping up with her big sis who will (unbelievably!) turn 5 in just a few short weeks. She talks nearly nonstop. She managed to dodge so many of the typical SB (spina bifida) bullets that I'm still in shock. My gratitude to the vagaries of the universe knows no bounds.

I'm ready to write again, although I don't know how frequently or about what. Bear with me. I'll do my best.

2007-10-13T21:49:00.000-04:00

Free Pattern: It's All You Baby Doll

Materials:
approx. 2 oz sportweight yarn in your choice of color for doll's clothing
approx. 1 oz sportweight yarn in your choice of color for doll's face
embroidery floss in your choice of colors for doll's hair, eyes, nose and mouth
ribbon
lace trim (female doll only)
polyfill (for stuffing)

Gauge:
Unimportant. Pick a needle size that gives you a fabric you like. It should be tight enough that you can stuff the doll without the stuffing leaking through.

Determine the number of stitches per inch your gauge is giving you in stockinette and cast on in clothing color (using dpns, two circular needles or one long circular needle) enough stitches to make a tube approximately 3-4 inches in circumference, unstretched. Join, being careful not to twist, and knit until tube measures approx. 6 inches in length. Change to face color and knit for an additional 3 inches. Do not bind off. Break yarn leaving a 12-inch tail. Using a tapestry needle, run yarn through all live stitches and draw tightly closed. Tack tightly down (any small bump will eventually be covered with doll hair).

Stuff tube with polyfill and sew bottom of doll closed with matching yarn as for top. Stitch on doll's hair and features with embroidery floss as shown in photo. Using a small amount of matching yarn, run a vertical line of stitches approx. 1 inch long about 1/4 inch from either side of the doll's body near where the body joins the head to indicate arms (see photo). Thread ribbon around doll's neck and tie in a bow. For a girl doll, sew lace edging over top of head for a bonnet.

2007-10-13T21:40:00.000-04:00

Un-Raveled

Well, I'm finally picking my head up after my total immersion into the knitterly crack equivalent that is Ravelry. I have to say, if nothing else, participation in Ravelry has inspired FOs galore, if only to have completed projects to add to my project page.

This is Baby Z's Coming Home Outfit: a Mason-Dixon Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono, a pair of Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Longhies, and a Heart Hat, also by Elizabeth Zimmermann. All are done in Knit Pick's Swish, a lovely, soft, but splitty superwash merino.

I've also started an Elizabeth Zimmermann Wishbone Sweater (Knitter's Almanac, December) for DH; no photo as of yet.

And I've collected a whole bunch of patterns for later knitting -- my Ravelry queue.

AND...only 12 more days and counting till Baby Z makes her appearance....

2007-09-21T07:37:00.000-04:00

Holy. Crap.

Well, my Ravelry invite arrived the day after I last posted, so at last I know what all the buzz is about. For any of the umpteen-thousand folks still waiting for an invite, know that it's fun but not knitterly-life-changing (thank goodness...enough changes going on here already). It's kind of like squirl on steroids. You can use Ravelry to record your entire stash, all your knitting needles and crochet hooks, your knitting/crochet books...basically, all the minutae of your knitting and/or crocheting world. You can also record your knits themselves: the ones you've finished, the WIPs and your to-dos, complete with photos, links to patterns and/or sources, notes on modifications, errata, yarn and needles used...the list goes on. And then there are the forums, blog links, LYS listings and other features to keep you connected to your sisters-and-brothers-in-wool. It's very impressive, actually, and this is only its beta form.

But....

This is why I really love Ravelry. Somewhere in its labyrinthine depths, I came across the following link, and photo (there are even more at the link itself), titled "The World's Biggest Stash."

Could you just pass out? Seriously, I'm still catching my breath. When I first saw this, I thought, that can't possibly be someone's stash. It's a yarn store that's been mislabeled.

Then I caught a glimpse of the upturned ride-on kiddy car in the lower-right corner and the giant blue plastic teddy-bear-looking-thing on a table beyond it thought, hmmm...unusual decor for a yarn shop.

Then I meditated on the general disarray in the photo, and after much denial and mind-boggling finally forced myself to tear my eyes off the photos and read the accompanying text which explains that yes, this is an actual private yarn stash.

Holy. Crap. Who wouldn't love a website that can link you over to yarn pron like that?

I think I'm going to be spending a lot more time at Ravelry.

2007-09-18T21:17:00.000-04:00

Ravelry

Well, I'm number 162 on the list, so it looks like I won't have to wait much longer to find out what the fuss is all about.... :)

2007-09-14T07:06:00.000-04:00

Hello, Work? I'd like my life back thankyouverymuch.

Well, the semester has finally gotten up and running, which means I can now begin once again to devote actual time to things like "family" and "eating" instead of working like a crazy woman and sleeping in fits and starts in between.

Fortunately (and this only falls into the "fortunately" category because I'm a knitter), I have a lengthy commute, which means pretty much one thing (when I'm not nodding off on the 1 train, that is): knitting continues even when the rest of life does not.

First finished: a Mason-Dixon Knitting baby kimono in Knitpicks Swish superwash. I picked the colors -- indigo and lemongrass heathers -- thinking I would use them separately to make two separate kimonos, but I liked the quirky combo so much I wound up with this:

Entranced by the unexpected cuteness of the kimono, and quite likely high on the superwash fumes, I cast on for a project I never in a gazillion years believed I'd actually attempt: a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Longhies.

For those of you without a copy of Knitter's Almanac, run right out and buy one. It's small and costs under ten bucks but will probably be one of the best knitting buys you ever make. Go on. I'll wait.

.
.
.

There, now that you have your copy, open it to February, the month of knitted baby items. Pause for a moment to ogle the vintage-style baby jacket and take a glance at the instructions for the double-knitted baby blanket, the very same that I used when making Zoe's burgundy blankie. Now, check out the longhies.

They're basically knitted long underwear for kids. Later on in the Almanac, there's even a pattern for a full-sized adult version. For years, I remember thinking to myself, "Knit long underwear?? Who would ever do such a thing?"

Well, folks, here's who. And here's how they look:

Is that not the cutest thing? And not the ginormous pain in the ass I expected it to be. In fact, it's been knitting up quite quickly and easily, right down to the funky little color pattern of my own design at the knees. At first, I'd hoped to make the kimono and longhies a coming-home set for little Zoe, but oops....

While the kimono is probably sized just right for 0-3 months with a little bit of room to grow, the longhies look more like they're sized for a one-year-old. Baby M was big, but Zoe would have to be the size of a baby giraffe to need legs that long at birth. I'm sure I could just stuff her into them anyway -- who looks at how the coming-home outfits anyway when the adorable baby inside is the focus of all attention? -- but I think I may just knit up another set in 3/4 or even 1/2 size to bring her home in. Yes, she'll outgrow them practically overnight, but that's what I'll have the larger ones waiting around for. Let it never be said that I don't have a plan, even if it's only the result of an earlier plan going hopelessly awry.

When I realized I'd be just a few yards short of what I needed to complete my color pattern (which was intended to thriftily use up the leftover indigo from the kimono), I ran right out and bought another nearly-20 skeins of Swish in a variety of gorgeous heathered hues (no sense in paying shipping on one stinkin' skein when Knitpicks will pick up the postage on a $45 order). So in addition to another pair of longhies, I'm also planning on knitting a Fair Isle sweater for Baby M, matching Heart Hats for both sisters (see EZ's Knitting Workshop for that one) and maybe even a Baby Surprise Jacket depending upon how many leftovers I have.

Now all I need is an even longer commute to get it all finished.

2007-09-01T23:06:00.000-04:00

Fun Fiber Stuff

It's funny how sometimes things just seem to work out. Like, I've been thinking a lot lately about how much crap I've managed to accumulate over the past near-decade in this house, and how I should really, really purge a whole lot of it, especially as we're looking to turn the under-used rooms in the house into actual living space and not just glorified junk closets.

Well, lo and behold, what should I spot on a fiber swap list but someone looking for a fabric cutter for rug hooking. Now, several years back I bought the gear to hook my own rugs -- not the ticky-tacky latch hook rugs that everyone was doing back in the 70s when disco ruled and shag was everywhere, but traditional hooked rugs made from strips of wool pulled through a backing like monk's cloth. I love hooked rugs, think they're just gorgeous, and had a blast playing with hooks and wool at our county fair every year at the booth set up by the local rug hookers' guild. BUT...when it came right down to it, it just wasn't for me. Don't know why, really, but I found my other fiber passions just took right over and bitch-slapped poor rug hooking into a corner. So, not only did I have a fabric cutter sitting right on my workbench (which worried me since Baby M had the occasional tendency to toddle over to it and twirl the pretty handle, which spun the cutting wheel and which, theoretically in my mind at least, could slice her finger should she decide to stick one in the moving parts -- not entirely likely, perhaps, but you're talking to the woman who, as a young child, managed to reel her finger into the moving gears of a stationary exercise bicycle), but I also had a nice rug hooking frame, assorted hooks, a book or two and several boxes of nicely prepared wool fabric all ready to be cut up and made into rugs.

Not too hopefully (because I've never been much of the salesperson -- more of the "donate it to a secondhand store" type) I emailed telling this person what I had and offering it for sale at a decent bit off the new prices. I also said if she bought both the frame and the cutter, I'd throw in the other bits and bobs for free.

Wonder of wonders, I sold the lot! And for more than enough money to finish paying off my Journey Wheel, which I'll collect in Rhinebeck next month. Woo-hoo! So instead of having lots of items that I'll never use spread all around the house, instead I'll have one really cool item that I'll definitely use. A good deal all around.

Also...remember the dragon spindle I had custom-designed by the Goldings a couple of months back? Well, they asked if it would be okay for them to post the design on their website and offer it for sale to others. Of course, I said yes...and I just received a letter from they saying that since it went up on the site, they've had orders for it, so they refunded me the $30 design fee that I paid plus they sent me a $10 gift cert good on any Golding fiber tool. Neat, huh? The coolest part, though, is that other people liked the design I helped create. I must say, I'm pretty proud.

I'm also pretty proud of Baby Zoe's little kimono, which I just finished up tonight. No photos yet, but it looks gorgeous -- will take pictures and post soon. Next up: a pair of EZ baby leggings to go along with it.

2007-08-28T18:05:00.000-04:00

And the Awesomest Mom Ever award goes to....

ME! For keeping my sanity when a) Baby M has gotten up every freakin' night for nearly a week now -- and gotten me up in the process -- for everything from needing to go to the bathroom to wanting to hold hands after a bad dream to simply begging/pleading/crying/wildly gesticulating to come into the "big bed" with Daddy and me, and b) Baby Z-to-be has decided to shift position and dig some sort of sharp, pointy body part into my... kidney?? gall bladder?? causing me shooting pains that left me doubled over on the subway and so scary-sick looking that I was actually sent home from work yesterday by my worried colleagues. Remind me again why I have children....

Remind me, too, why I knit for them. This has got to be the slowest-going baby kimono I've ever knitted. I like the yarn, the pattern is a breeze, but why isn't it finished already??

There's also no good way to photograph this thing in progress.

Unfolded it looks completely unrecognizable as an article of clothing, at least one that would fit a human being.

Folded but on the circular needle it still looks...let's just say weird and leave it at that.

I also think that in widening the sleeves so the cuffs will accommodate a wrist larger than Barbie's I inadvertently caused the v-neck to come up so far that poor Baby Z might as well be wearing a turtleneck instead of a wraparound kimono. But I'm feeling just a little sick at the thought of ripping all that work back, so I think I'll just call it a design element and leave it at that. Plus babies need warm necks, right? Yeah, that's it...I'm only looking out for the welfare of my little girl.

It's the least that the official Awesomest Mom Ever can do.

2007-08-23T07:54:00.000-04:00

Finishing Stuff....

Well, my vacation is nearly over. It's amazing how fast three weeks just speeds by. Monday I go back to work -- to intake testing, actually -- and then it's just two more weeks before the new semester starts, another week more before I begin teaching, and then...well, then it's just five or six weeks till Baby Zoe makes her appearance. Yikes! That's fast!

I haven't yet gotten things ready for Little Z's arrival. Baby M's outgrown clothing still sits in ziplock baggies and disorganized piles in her closet, which itself needs a good cleaning out an reorganizing. Not to mention that I have to figure out how to make space in her dresser for her little sister's stuff even as her own stuff is getting more and more voluminous. At least we have a couple of contractors coming over in the next two weeks to give us estimates on dividing the large, little-used upstairs space into two bedrooms and a bath for the kids.

And at least I've been knitting! I finished Zoe's blanket a few days ago, right down to the duplicate stitching of her name (and thanks to those who provided me with the name of the technique -- it was driving me crazy trying to think of it).

At first I thought I'd duplicate stitch a giant "Z" right in the center of the blanket but on further thought decided that might look a little too Zorro-ish for my taste. I like how her name turned out, but I was incredibly disappointed to find that a) the lovely soft alpaca that I was knitting with had some splits and joins in the skein -- I know I was working with Knitpicks yarn, which is decidedly budget-priced, but c'mon, folks, let's try to keep the skeins in one piece, shall we? and b) the joins sucked, to the point that as I was duplicate stitching Zoe's name, one join completely disintegrated and I lost several stitches of my basic knit fabric before catching the break and halting the damage. Aargh! Now, this wasn't like dropping a stitch and picking it back up -- the yarn itself had broken right in the middle of a stitch, right where I had been working with my tapestry needle, so of course both yarn ends took off in different directions, pulling out of their stitches and running (downward farther than upward) without leaving a clear indication of where they came from and how they should go back together. Not to mention that I had to join the freakin' ends somehow, so even if I could have figured out how to pick up the stitches seamlessly, I wouldn't have had enough yarn left after tying the ends together to do so.

I solved the problem by cursing loudly (didn't solve much, but sure made me feel better) then tying the errant ends together tightly and duplicate stitching over them. It's not a perfect fix, but no one but me will ever notice.

I've also started an MDK baby kimono in Swish Superwash, a deep heathered purple colorway. It's knitting up really nicely -- far nicer than the dishcloth cotton I've used with this pattern in the past. Once I have two or three of the kimonos in a couple of colors all knitted up, I think I'll be done with knitting for baby for the time being and may move on to doing something fancy, like a pretty lace shawl for myself. Just the thing to beat the postpartum blues.... :)

2007-08-09T14:42:00.000-04:00

Here at Chez No A/C, Baby M and I have been valiantly trying to beat the sweltering heat all week. Monday we hit the local swimming pool; Tuesday it was a trip to the mall (a place I loathe but at least it was cool) followed by a $1 movie (gotta love second-run theaters); yesterday we camped out at DH's parents' house. But today? Today I had to get the freezer fixed.

Remember this? The Iceberg that Ate the Freezer? Well, thawing it didn't help. Oh, it got rid of the immediate problem of melted ice-water flooding the kitchen (and maybe, just maybe, if it had made the house even one degree cooler, I would have sucked up the water damage just to help beat the heat), but no sooner was the freezer nicely ice-free than it started icing itself up all over again, first a thin trickle down the back wall of the freezer, then an suspiciously iceberg-shaped layer coating the bottom shelf. Action needed to be taken.

And so. Baby M and I have been chained to the sweltering house all day waiting for the freezer repair person. While I was at it, I figured I might as well get that load of mulch that I'd been waiting on all summer finally delivered. Of course, the freezer has long been fixed, but the mulch is yet to show. I've already bribed Baby M with a trip to the air-conditioned library (taken before our 5 freakin' hour wait-time window for deliveries and repairs began), a candy bar and half a sippy box of organic chocolate milk. I did manage to get her down for a nap nearly an hour ago, amid much wailing and many cries of, "Mommy, HELP! Gigi CRYING!" (Just in case I hadn't figured that out myself, you see.) So, what have I been doing with a blessedly quiet if heat-hazed hour to myself and no sign of mulch in sight?

Why, I've been knitting, of course. Knitting, and photographing knitting.

First up: Baby Zoe's in-progress baby blanket.

Luscious 100% alpaca, Knitpicks Decadence. I bought six skeins awhile back for a project I had in mind. Can I remember what the project was? Of course not. And so I did the smart, not to mention frugal, thing: when I decided to make Zoe a blanket, I shopped my stash and decided to use the Decadence. Yes, it would be a pain in the butt to handwash a baby blanket. But, honestly, how many times have I washed Baby M's baby blankets? 'Nuff said. Plus I lovelovelove alpaca, and I knew that the pattern -- EZ's double-knitted baby blanket from Knitter's Almanac -- would be even softer, squooshier and more deliciously huggable in alpaca than in plain ol' wool.

Of course, the blanket was looking a little plain, what with the simple stitch pattern and no colorwork. So, I decided to add some color by stitching a great, big "Z" on the front side of the blanket. There's a name for this technique, I know, where you stitch embroidery-style directly over each knit stitch so it looks like you did fancy intarsia or Fair Isle work when you really didn't, but damn if I can't remember it now. Nor can I be bothered to look it up. Suffice it to say, I of course went straight to the Knitpicks site and picked out a lovely rose color skein of Decadence to make the Z with. And since it wouldn't do to pay for shipping for one lousy skein of yarn, and since Knitpicks is kind enough to provide free shipping with a $45 purchase, I just had to pick up a few more things.

Like some Swish Superwash in Indigo Heather and Lemongrass Heather, both to make MDK baby kimonos for Baby Zoe. Poor thing will be born in November, after all. We'd better have some cold-weather knits on hand to keep her warm.

And two skeins of Knitpicks Shimmer (alpaca/silk blend...yum!) in turquoise to knit this, from my latest fave knitting book, Victorian Lace Today:

Isn't it gorgeous? A lacey, spiderweb-type shawl, something open and interesting enough to work well with the muted tones of the subtly variegated turquoise yarn.

And four more skeins of Shimmer in Stained Glass to make this:

This shawl is done in something called a Trinity Stitch, which I think will look amazing with the vibrant purples and pinks of the Stained Glass colorway.

And just 'cause I can't pass up an "oops" sale, a couple of skeins of Essential Special in Peacock. Now that I may actually have a sock nearly finished on my sock machine (we'll overlook the fact that it's sat there in its nearly-finished state for over a month while I work up the nerve to take it off and find out if it is indeed a sock or yet another giant, tube-shaped tangle of wooly misery), I might as well start picking up some pretty-pretty sock yarn as well.

But the first thing for me to do is finish that baby blanket. That, and figure out what else to do to get away from this blasted heat.

2007-08-04T22:59:00.000-04:00

Just yesterday I was reading Crazy Aunt Purl's blog post about the zen of deep cleaning and thinking, "Wow...why don't I do that?"

Well. Be careful what you wish for is all I can say.

This morning I woke up to DH saying plaintively from the kitchen, "Oh, no." DH, as it turns out, had discovered a big honkin' puddle of water in front of the fridge, the very same fridge that busted a water line not once but twice and flooded the out-of-sight area behind the cabinets so badly that it collapsed the ceiling in the garage. A puddle in front of the fridge is very bad news in our house.

DH soon realized that a busted water line wasn't to blame this time. It was this:

And this:

The Iceberg that Ate the Freezer (not to mention the frozen corn...clearly, it's been way too long since I've checked up on the frozen corn).

How did we get to this sorry state of affairs, you might ask? How could our freezer possibly get so choked with ice that it finally began to melt around the edges in the furnace-like heat we've been having lately and ooze out all over the floor?

I must admit, I think it was my fault. If I were to be totally honest, I'd admit that it's definitely my fault.

I have a thing about stockpiling food. It's in my family's blood. Even as a little kid I remember Mom and Dad keeping one corner of the credenza in our teeny tiny apartment reserved for the "emergency food." This mainly consisted of a bag of uncooked rice and several cans of potted meat, the kind with the devil holding a pitchfork on the paper wrapper. I think my mom used to rotate the food every once in awhile, swapping out the old bag of rice for a new one and using up the former "emergency bag" over the course of several dinners. Dad was the only one who ate the potted meat. I don't know what kind of emergency they thought they were planning for, but apparently boiled rice and meat spread were going to see us through it.

In light of that, it makes perfect sense that I keep lots of food on hand. (OK, maybe it doesn't exactly make sense, unless by "makes sense" you mean "still sounds crazy"). When DH and I moved into our house and bought the Icy the Fridge, I originally picked it out because it looked like the biggest one they had. Before we signed on the dotted line, though, I asked the salesman if they had an even bigger one.

"Ma'am," he said, clearly trying to be polite to the crazy woman, "this fridge holds enough food for nine people. Exactly how many people are living in your house?"

"Just the two of us," I replied calmly. We then bought the fridge...and the largest chest freezer the store had in stock. Never let it be said that I would run out of food in my lifetime...or anyone else's.

Eight years later, Icy and the chest freezer have been joined by a second fridge in the garage (given to us by DH's brother when he bought a new one) and a pantry full of food. Not to mention the kitchen cabinets, also full of food. None of which would be bad, except....

Well, let's just say I'm not nearly as good as Mom at rotating the food around. Our freezers in particular tend to resemble archaeological digs, with the oldest stuff at the bottom or the back and the newer stuff piled on top or in front. If I were a good rotator, I would probably have paid more attention last year when I noticed that I could no longer pull out the bottom freezer drawer in the kitchen fridge. I might have said to myself, "Self, it's time to pull the bags of corn up front and use them. But, what's this? They're frozen solid to the back of the fridge? Hmmm...maybe, Self, you should look into this."

Instead, when I noticed that I could no longer pull the bottom drawer out of the freezer, I simply let it alone and placed the newer food in front of whatever was in the back (see "frozen corn," above). Maybe I heard a few crickets chirping quietly in the back of my mind. All I know is when I mentioned to DH as he sopped up the mess in front of the fridge that maybe, just maybe I'd noticed the bottom drawer had been a tad encased in ice for, oh, the past year or so, he simply stopped and stared at me incredulously. I think it was all he could do not to ask how I could have been so incredibly stupid. I sort of wonder myself. How have I not managed to seriously hurt myself these past four decades?

So, that was our day: chipping great hunks of ice out of the freezer, melting ice sheets with the hair dryer, using up copious amounts of towels (at least they were cloth -- no trees were killed as a result of my stupidity) and occasionally resorting to the wet/dry vac to get rid of the watery evidence of my extreme lack of good judgment and sense. I did at least manage to give the freezer a good deep-cleaning, washing all the shelves to within an inch of their lives, scrubbing the inside of the door handle, throwing out the frozen squash puree from three or four summers ago when the garden produced way more pattypans than one family should have to deal with.

The freezer has now been deep-cleaned. Funny, though, I just don't feel the zen of it.

2007-07-31T23:31:00.000-04:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written. I knew it was a long time, but nearly a month? Loooong.

It's been an up-and-down month, with doctors giving sometimes conflicting information, my hopes going up one day, crashing down the next, DH doing his best to be the stable rock I hang onto when it all gets to be too much. Nothing else to do but wait and see how Zoe is once she's born.

Did I mention we picked a name? Zoe Francis. Zoe because we like it and because we like the meaning: Life. Francis for my dad, even though he never went by that name and always used Frank instead. We had an ultrasound a few days ago and saw Zoe kicking her legs, flexing her feet...DH even thinks he saw her curling her toes, though I have no idea how he could have possibly seen that on the grainy black-and-white sono screen. Still, it's good news. And I feel her kicking now, annoyed by the pressure of the edge of the laptop on my abdomen, right above her legs. Kick-kick means nerves that work, nerves that are getting messages from the brain to the body, all the way down the legs and to the feet. I have to stop myself from deliberately poking Zoe, hoping she'll kick back. Just three more months to go.

I've been working on a blanket for Zoe. It's alpaca, Knitpicks Decadence in a deep wine-red color, made from the February baby blanket pattern in EZ's Knitter's Almanac -- double knitting, which takes twice as long but results in a blanket twice as thick and soft, bordered all around in garter stitch. Simple and beautiful. I'll have to take a photo to post.

And one more thing, a special treat for myself, something I started working on before I found out all this about Zoe, something that just arrived in the mail the day before yesterday and that stunned me with its beauty and craftsmanship.

It's a Golding custom spindle, and the slightly out of focus photo doesn't even begin to do it justice. It's a Chinese dragon, a design I worked on with Tom Golding over several weeks, tweaking it until it was just right, picking out the perfect vintage carved silver ring for the outer edge, choosing the wood -- dark walnut -- and the paint colors, everything, and still it came out so much more beautiful than I imagined. You can't really see in the photo, but the dragon is covered in tiny painted scales, he has little flaming golden eyebrows and a shot of fire coming out of his mouth. Even the claws have been individually carved out of the wood, one by one.

Chinese dragons bring good luck. My spindle couldn't have come at a better time.

2007-07-09T21:09:00.000-04:00

Checking In, Checking Out

It is so hot...too hot to move, too hot to think. These are the days -- and nights -- when I want to throw my eco-friendly, too-cheap-to-have-AC reservations to the wind and freeze the hell outta this house until we're all nice and comfy and completely unaware that it's an absolute blast furnace outside. Right now, it's a blast furnace inside, and it's nearly nine at night.

Baby M is too hot to sleep. She's whiny and fussy and calling for me endlessly. Trouble is, when I sit with her, she really never gets to sleep -- just stays up, holding my hand, looking around, basically waiting to see what's going to happen next...which is never anything except my eventually leaving the room so she can get to sleep, whereupon she wails as though her little heart were breaking. Hearing her cry like this on top of the heat is just about making me crazy.

DH is outside, and believe it or not, he's working at his smithy, which means he's heating metal rods to red-hot and banging them into different shapes.

The man has truly lost his mind.

2007-07-06T22:05:00.001-04:00

No Guarantees

There's only so much that medical science can tell us. Today we met for the first time with the pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr A, who read the MRI. He was the most hopeful-sounding of the doctors yet. He said this doesn't look like a typical case of spina bifida at all to him, not the kind with brain damage and all the other horrific possibilities we were first confronted with last week. He thinks instead this may be a case of a tethered spinal cord, which basically means that during formation some part of the spinal cord didn't fully detach from the surrounding skin. This condition can cause problems as the child grows, but it can be corrected surgically after birth. There's a range of potentialities: in the best case, the child could wind up with no lasting aftereffects at all; in the not-so-best-case, the child could wind up with some degree of paralysis and/or loss of bowel/bladder control. The doctor said they won't know more until our baby is actually born, but he thinks the main worries are the physical problems -- he feels that her chances of having brain damage are very slim.

And so, we wait and hope. I totally broke down in the doctor's office today, not out of sadness but because he'd confirmed the hopes I'd been holding onto these past few days. Poor guy; I don't think he could quite understand why I was crying like a baby but telling him I wasn't sad, I was happy.

I was also pretty stunned to hear him say, as we were discussing going forward with the pregnancy, that some couples wanted him to guarantee that their child would be 100% fine and healthy, and if he couldn't do that (which of course he can't in any case), they would terminate the pregnancy. DH had actually suggested that maybe the reason our first doctor had been so callous and matter-of-fact about wanting to do that with us without even getting a second opinion was because most of his patients opted to do that as soon as they heard there was a problem. I thought DH was just being cynical, but after hearing Dr A today, maybe he was right after all. I'm certainly the last person to judge someone else -- I know how agonized I was when I thought our baby would be so profoundly damaged that she would have no quality of life at all -- but it just seems sad that people would need a guarantee of a perfect baby in order to want one at all. I mean, nothing in life is guaranteed, right? Everything can look perfect but not be, just like everything can look hopeless at first glance but not be.

In any event, we've made our decision, and as DH says there's no looking back. We'll have our daughter at Columbia-Presbyterian where she can have an MRI within a day or two after she's born to find out the extent of her injury and the best way to treat it. The facilities aren't as nice as the ones near us -- shared rooms instead of private, more patients therefore (I'm sure) less personalized attention from the staff -- but the doctors are so much more knowledgeable and competent in dealing with high-risk pregnancies than our local doctors are that it will be worth it.

Now all we can do is wait and see what the tests show after our little girl is born.

And of course, we can now jump headfirst into all the fun stuff we should have been doing since last week, like picking out a beautiful name for Baby M's little sister.

2007-07-04T08:19:00.001-04:00

Waiting

Had the MRI yesterday. I am consistently impressed with how good the staff at Columbia-Presbyterian is. The procedure itself -- my first MRI -- wasn't bad at all. After getting a foot-long needle in the abdomen for the amnio, I suppose no other test will be quite as bad, ever.

And now, we wait. I'm strangely calm. What worries me now is that I've gotten too hopeful, hung on too tightly to the positive comments the doctors have made. No chromosomal abnormalities, no indication of anything wrong in the brain, no unusual chemical markers in my prior blood tests that would indicate an open lesion...how can I help but picture a best-case scenario, one where my little girl has no lasting effects from whatever this thing on her back is?

We'll know more on Friday.

2007-07-02T22:15:00.000-04:00

One Small Step

I can't say thank you enough to everyone who was kind enough to comment on my last post. Thank you for your words, your wishes, your thoughts and prayers.

DH and I are hanging in. Today we got the preliminary results back from the amnio, and they show no chromosomal abnormalities -- so that's one bright spot at least.

Tomorrow I go for a fetal MRI; Friday it's a meeting with the pediatric neurosurgeon and hopefully the complete results of the amnio plus the MRI. All we can do is hope for more good news.

It's strange; I can feel my little girl kicking away inside me as though nothing in the world were wrong. It's so hard to believe that she really, really might not be all right.

2007-07-01T20:38:00.001-04:00

An Appeal

It's been a rollercoaster of a week. Wednesday we went in for our 20-week ultrasound all ready to find out whether it's a boy or a girl. What the doctors told us instead was that our baby -- a girl, incidentally -- has spina bifida.

Spina bifida is a neural tube defect. It occurs when the spine doesn't close properly over the spinal cord. This results in all sorts of damage, anything from major paralysis and brain damage to, well, maybe no damage at all. It all depends upon just about a million factors, such as how low on the spine the problem is, whether the spinal cord itself is involved, whether it's exposed to the amniotic fluid.... You get the drift.

So, Wednesday sucked hard. It didn't help that the doctor who did the diagnosis suffered, in DH's words, from a serious case of hubris. This doctor, who shall remain nameless, basically said, "You can go for a second opinion if you want, but any other doctor will agree with me." He then told us we had a week to arrange to terminate the pregnancy.

Needless to say, we went for a second opinion. We were supremely lucky to get referred to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. The staff there is top-notch, everyone from the doctors to the "customer care coordinator" to the person who does all the fiddly insurance stuff. Kind, caring and totally, one-hundred-and-ten-percent professional all the way.

They squeezed us in for an ultrasound on Friday morning, and that doctor -- who suffered from no hubris at all -- said it could be one of two things: spina bifida (which he tended to think was probably the case) or something called a sacral-coccygeal teratoma -- basically, a benign tumor that carries its own potential problems, such as the potential to grow large enough to suck too many nutrients from the fetus and cause damage in utero. At least this doctor, Dr. R, gave us specifics: the mass is 1.9cm and located in the sacral area of the spine, vertebra S1 or below. This is far more than Dr Hubris even bothered to write up in his report, which was so vague that a friend of ours who (luckily!) just happens to be a well-respected pediatric neurologist, and who we showed that first report to as soon as we heard the news, basically said she couldn't tell us anything at all from it.

So, here's where we stand. Wednesday we pretty much heard a death sentence for our little girl. Thursday after consulting both our friend the pediatric neurologist and a pediatric neurologist recommended by Baby M's pediatrician, we heard some of the potential things that could be wrong with a baby with spina bifida. Awful, awful, awful. Crying, heartsick, awful days. Friday we took the second ultrasound plus an amnio, something I'd avoided because of the risk of miscarriage it poses, but now a necessity to make sure there's no chromosomal abnormality that may be the cause of (or simply another problem to go along with) the visible mass. And we gained back some hope. Maybe it isn't as black as it sounded at first. Tuesday I'm scheduled for a fetal MRI, which is probably the best chance we have of finding out if this is definitely spina bifida, and if so, how serious it may be. In our advantage are the facts that it seems relatively low on the spine, there's no indication of anything wrong in the baby's cerebellum, and so far at least, it looks like whatever's inside that mass isn't in contact with the amniotic fluid (doctors know there's a connection between contact with the amniotic fluid and damage to the nerves in the spinal cord, they just don't know why). Dr R basically said we could have a baby with problems...or we could have a baby who gets operated on at birth and shows no aftereffects at all. And much as all these tests can tell us, what they can't do is guarantee anything at all. It's all a guess, albeit a more informed one.

Spina bifida is a one-in-a-thousand thing and doctors don't even really understand what causes it, although they suspect some combination of genetic predisposition plus environmental factors. It just goes to show you can do everything right -- take the prenatal vitamins, not drink, smoke, do drugs -- and still something completely unexpected and horrible can happen.

So, here's my appeal. Please put in a good word for us, for our little girl, with the higher power of your choice. If you're not a higher-power type, please just send us some good thoughts and wishes. We're hoping to hear good news, or at least the best news possible under the circumstances, in the next few days. Please keep your fingers crossed that we do.

2007-06-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Today's the Day

In just under two hours, DH, Baby M and I should find out if Little Sibling is a boy or a girl. Woo-hoo!

You know, I'm not one to open presents before Christmas or turn to the last page in a book to read the ending ahead of time or anything, but I just cannot wait for this, no matter how many people talk about the fun of "being surprised" and all. With Baby M it was more of an adjustment issue. I was sort of freaked out about becoming a parent anyway, so having the fewest amount of surprises in store seemed like the best way to go at the time. Now, I'm just plain excited. I want to pick a name and picture a little person instead of a featureless "it" inside me.

And, of course, I want to start knitting.

2007-06-23T23:51:00.000-04:00

I'm a What, Now?

You Are An INFJ

The Protector

You live your life with integrity, originality, vision, and creativity.
Independent and stubborn, you rarely stray from your vision - no matter what it is.
You are an excellent listener, with almost infinite patience.
You have complex, deep feelings, and you take great care to express them.

In love, you truly see relationships as an opportunity to connect and grow.
You enjoy relationships as long as they are improving and changing. You can't stand stagnation.

At work, you stay motivated and happy... as long as you are working toward a dream you support.
You would make a great photographer, alternative medicine guru, or teacher.

How you see yourself: Hardworking, ethical, and helpful

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Manipulative, weak, and unstable

What's Your Personality Type?

2007-06-22T21:56:00.000-04:00

The Sock Machine Comes Through

So, months and months after getting my antique circular sock machine up and running, I've finally done something more than drop stitches, make "practice" tubes and glance guiltily at the machine as it sits gathering dust in a corner of my bedroom. I've actually made...well, not a sock, it's not that exciting...but a bath puff!

That's right, an actual finished something (even if it isn't an actual sock) from my csm, and I cannot tell you the absolute rush I got watching my little ol' machine crank out two feet of stockinette stitch tube in just a few minutes. I think it took me longer to do the finishing work than it did to knit the whole darn thing. Now all I can think about is figuring out how to make honest-to-goodness socks on the csm. Next project, here I come!

2007-06-19T22:36:00.000-04:00

Annie Modesitt Needs Our Help

I feel like someone should be walking around with a wicker basket, a la "It's a Wonderful Life," collecting dollar bills and busting open the jukebox to help out someone in need -- in this case, Annie Modesitt, the uber-talented knitwear designer whose husband was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Annie is selling her Red Carpet Convertible pattern -- a stunning pattern for a super-sexy gown that can be anything from a floor-length formal to a hip-length corset -- as a way of raising money to help cover the expenses associated with her husband's illness. The pattern costs a minimum of $4.50; you can (but aren't obligated to) add any amount on top of that as an additional donation.

And believe it or not, the link to the .pdf is right there on Annie's blog, where anybody could just download it and not even make a donation. Free for the taking. Knitters are absolutely amazing to me -- that Annie would put the pattern up and trust knitters to donate anyway, and that knitters would (and do) donate...it just makes me feel good about people.

So take a minute and head over to Annie's blog and make a donation. Then, make yourself one helluva dress.

Now if only I could buy the body to go along with it.

2007-06-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

Butterfly Bog Jacket

The good news is that Baby M's bog jacket is finished! Months after I finished the lion's share of the work, leaving only the piddly little detail stuff to complete, I dug the jacket out of my work bag and just did it. I love how it looks. I love the frilly crocheted "butterfly wings" I added to the ends of the sleeves when I decided I didn't like how they looked plain. I love how the funky buttons add an unexpected splash of bold fuschia to the more earth-toned jacked itself. I love just about every darn thing about this jacket, in fact.

Which brings me to the not-so-good news: I think all those times my mother wished I would have a daughter just like me (and never because I'd done something good, mind you) have finally taken effect.

Baby M absolutely, positively refuses to wear her jacket. She won't even try it on.

DH tried to get me to see reason. "It's summer. It's hot out. Of course she doesn't want to wear a heavy wool jacket." But I know better.

When I was a kid, my mom sewed most of my clothes herself. I had cute little handmade pinafores, which she even took the time to get me to draw on in crayon and then iron the drawings in permanently -- a real mother/daughter project if ever there was one. I had handmade pants, handmade tops, even -- I kid you not -- a hand-crocheted bikini.

Mom made my clothes for many reasons. She was a trained seamstress. She loved playing dress-up with her sole little girl (when she was pregnant with me, she prayed for a girl because the clothes were so much cuter than for boys). Coming from a sewing family, she already had a large supply of fabric in the house. I'm sure it was cheaper to make my clothes (considering she only used fabric she already had) than to buy them new in the stores. But, underneath all of that, I'm sure she also made my clothes as a tangible expression of her love. What more loving thing is there than to clothe your child in a garment of your own making?

It was the zebra pants that did it.

I must have been in the fourth grade. I had worn the cute pinafores and crocheted bikini, but I had also worn the weird, 70's-era bell-bottoms made from gold flowered fabric that must have started its life as some sort of bizarre upholstery. The clothes that fit perfectly and never wore out but always stood out wherever I was and whatever I did. No one else in school wore clothes like I did. No. One. And when one day my mother produced a white pair of pants with great, big zebras printed all over them, I finally blurted out, "Can't I just wear jeans like everybody else?"

And that was how I got my first pair of jeans. And, I'm sure, broke my mother's heart, although I don't remember her showing any upset when I rebelled against the black-and-white bizarro-pants she'd made in all good faith and with all the good intentions in the world.

And now at age two -- two! -- my daughter is making my mother's fondest wish come true. She's refusing to wear the clothing I lovingly made for her with my own two hands.

She didn't even wait for the zebra pants.

2007-06-15T15:57:00.000-04:00

You Know You're a Fiber Freak When....

The most use your hand mixer sees in a year is for making twisted cord.

2007-06-13T22:10:00.000-04:00

Back on Track

Hooray! I finally did the piddly finishing on my Bubbly curtain -- weaving in the ends, blocking, making the hanging cord -- and now it's finishedfinishedfinished! Not five minutes ago did I hang it in my kitchen window, and boy am I pleased.

It looks like I've got my knitting mojo back. I've finally finished the sleeves on Baby M's bog jacket and now I just need to sew on the buttons and tack down the collar ends and that will be done, too. I've even been working on my blanket-of-a-thousand-ends. Soon I'm going to pick out some yummy yarn for Little Sibling and start on a MDK baby kimono. I'm all smiles -- so excited to be inspired again!

2007-06-05T21:13:00.000-04:00

Back to Work

Well, my wonderful little week off is over -- it was back to work today, and back to aggravation from my immediate supervisor. *sigh* Oh, well. I've been aggravated about it all evening, and I just have to let it go now.

Instead I think I'll post a photo of my sweet little Baby M, looking adorable at "poolside" in her summer sun hat and slightly too-big bathing suit. This is how we spent much of my week off -- me reading "Jane Eyre" by the wading pool, her scooping sand in the sandbox and wandering around the garden barefoot. I can't wait for summer classes to be over so we can do some more of that!

2007-06-04T09:10:00.001-04:00

New Toy

My charkha finally arrived! Just in time for Mother's Day, I might add, and I simply love it.

Here's how it looks after a freshly-applied coat of Wood Beams:

And here you can see the itty-bitty skein of 70% cotton/30% silk singles I spun up as my very first test project:

It's a little tricky to figure out at first. If you don't get it started just right, all the twist runs right up into your main fiber and you wind up with a thick, slubby mess. But when it does work...boy, it's just incredible. Right now I'm doing some more practice with 100% cotton roving my friend L gave me; once I feel like I can reliably make something that's actually worth keeping, I'll get to work on some of the more luxurious short fibers I've been hoarding for the past couple of years. There's a bag of buffalo fluff in my stash just begging to be spun up!

2007-05-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

White Men in Business Suits Are Redeemed (Sort of)

That's right, folks, Baby M is going to be a big sister! At just a month over 2, she doesn't quite get what that means yet. We've tried to explain it to her, but most of the conversations go something like this:

Proud Mom & Dad: Guess what? You're going to be a big sister!
Baby M: *vague look of boredom*
PM&D: Are you excited?
Baby M: Chocolate Easter bunny!
PM&D: I know, honey, you want a chocolate Easter bunny. But what do you think about being a big sister?
Baby M: CHOCOLATEEASTERBUNNYCHOCOLATEEASTERBUNNY!

As you can tell, we still have chocolate Easter bunnies left over from April. And Baby M wants 'em. Bad.

Anyhoo. We figure she'll catch on in time, and since she's shown no tendencies to set fires or torture small animals, we figure she's a safe bet for being at least a halfway decent big sister.

For my part, I'm doing my part this time around towards meeting my previous record 65 pound weight gain with Baby M. Not that that's my goal, mind you, but it is what it is. When my mother was pregnant with me, she gained 20 pounds, and I weighed nearly 8 pounds at birth. Why are her genes not helping me here?

No bump photos yet. But a strange thing is happening. This time around, I'm getting bump-y in summer; with Baby M, that part happened in fall, so I was wearing big sweaters and bulky coats that covered me up till spring, when I was at last so ginormous that it would have been plain even to space aliens who had never seen a human being before that I was either pregnant or had swallowed a Volkswagon. This time around, I had to go out and buy preggie T-shirts and preggie capris and I'm just about past the 4 month mark and it's clear I'm PREGNANT. Clear enough that the other day a white guy in a business suit actually offered me his seat on the subway. Who says New Yorkers aren't nice people?

Now, you may wonder why I specify that this was a white guy in a business suit. Well, it's because during my last pregnancy, white guys in business suits were the one-and-only group of people never to offer me a seat on the subway. Not. Once. Lots of women gave me their seats. Ditto guys in paint-splattered overalls and work boots who looked like they needed to sit down a whole lot worse than even I did. I was given seats by all sorts of folks, but never, ever a white guy in a business suit. Even more than that...when I was what felt like 15 months pregnant and feeling large enough to occupy an entire subway car all by myself, a middle-aged Wall Street type -- pinstripe suit, wingtips, the works -- actually shoved me out of the way just so he could grab the last seat on the subway, the one I was heading directly for when he bogarted it out from under me. I planted myself directly in front of him and shoved my belly as far into his personal space as I could without toppling into his lap, but he resolutely thumb-poked his Blackberry and refused to so much as glance away until I was safely ensconced in another seat.
Which I had to wait for, thankyouverymuch.

But now, with my bump barely bump-y, by my standards at least, some very nice white guy in a business suit actually offered me his seat on the subway. Moreover, he's the very first person to offer me a seat this pregnancy. How sweet is that?

So, thank you, nameless white guy with the maroon shirt unbuttoned at the collar and charcoal-grey jacket. You've redeemed all the other white guys in business suits who were too selfish or snobby or just plain assholic to do the right -- or at least the kind -- thing.

But I'm still watching out for guys in pinstripes and wingtips.

2007-05-22T21:37:00.000-04:00

Explanation

Many thanks for all the well-wishes! No, I haven't thrown myself under a bus for lack of inspiration, though Baby M's bog jacket sits languishing *this close* to completion (I've even been carrying around the two stinkin' buttons I need to sew on in my purse of all places for the past month, kicking myself every time I reach for the car keys that I've been such a slug) and I've done nary a stitch of knitting since before my birthday.

But there's a reason.

Check out the ticker and you'll see what it is.

2007-03-24T22:04:00.000-04:00

Uninspired

That's exactly how I've felt these past couple of weeks...uninspired. But I did force myself to sit down tonight and weave up the other sleeve and front of Baby M's birthday bog jacket. I even crocheted the border. Now all I have to do is finish the cuffs, get some cool closures for the front and sew in my little "Made With Love By Mommy" tag and it'll be all finished.

Photos to come.

Meanwhile, send a little inspiration my way. I can certainly use it.

2007-03-14T18:58:00.000-04:00

Operator Error

I'm on vacation this week, so you'd think I would be blissfully enjoying my time with Baby M, knitting, blogging and just generally recharging the ol' mental/emotional/spiritual batteries...right?

So, what have I actually been doing?

Stressing about work. I wrote a big, long post about it which I decided to only save as a draft (call me paranoid, but people have been fired for blogging about their jobs) as a way of getting it all out of my head and then hopefully being able to forget about it for the next seven days.

Except my boss contacted me and wants to talk tomorrow morning. So *pffffft* goes my peace of mind and my playing/knitting/blogging plans. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well...that's not completely true. I did have a blast taking Baby M to her very first movie-theater movie yesterday afternoon. We are lucky enough to have a theater near us that shows second-run films for $2 a person, $1 on Tuesdays. I figured that if Baby M were frightened or bored or just couldn't sit still for that long, it wouldn't break my heart to lose the two dollars and walk out. But she LOVED it! We went to see Happy Feet, the penguin movie, and boy was it cute. Lots of singing, dancing and other onscreen excitement -- plus a kid-sized box of popcorn and cup of iced tea went a long way towards holding her interest. She even made us sit through to the very end of the credits because they showed the various penguins tap-dancing to the music as the credits rolled. I only wish DH had been there instead of at work -- and I'm sure he feels the same way!

So, at least I've been trying to enjoy my time off with Baby M. I haven't gotten much knitting done, and sadly, I haven't been able to get my spiffy new-to-me Auto Knitter circular sock machine to work yet. At least I figured out what the problem is. It looks like during shipping, the yarn carrier (the piece that holds the yarn in the right spot for the needles to grab and knit) got pushed out of alignment, so now the yarn isn't in the right place for it to be knit. And I just can't seem to figure out how to adjust it. At least I finally got my act together and posted a question about it to a sock knitting list, so maybe before I go back to work I'll at least be able to knit, if not an honest-to-goodness sock, then at least a lame little newbie tube.

My spiffy Auto Knitter, ready and waiting for me to stop being such a dumb-ass and figure out how to work it.

2007-03-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

Seriously, What's With Twinkle?

So, I swear I was all set to blog about my ultra-cool antique sock-knitting machine (which I still haven't figured out how to work yet) and share gripes about Kaffe Fasset and his designs from hades, but then...

Then, I discovered Twinkle (aka Wenlan Chia) and her book of Big City Knits. The patterns are gorgeous, stunning, to-die-for...and sized to fit women with bust sizes up to 34".

That's right: up to 34".

The last time I had a size 34 bust, I was in elementary school. As for the small sizes...well, I'm sure some woman out there has a 25" bust, and it's very nice that there's an entire book of patterns designed specifically for her, but c'mon, Twinkle...how about the rest of us?

I'm a Big City Girl. I like funky, chunky knitted designs. I can wear the hell outta a cabled sweater-dress, size great-big-bust and all. Just who exactly are you designing for?

So, there's my rant. Move over, Kaffe...you've met your match in Twinkle.

2007-03-06T21:01:00.000-05:00

Good God, It's March

And I now have an honest-to-goodness circular sock knitting machine!

I also have a raging headache, an ongoing -- and stress-inducing -- work negotiation, and a (rather unreasonable, I suspect) dislike for every knitting pattern ever designed by Kaffe Fasset.

More on at least some of those later....

2007-02-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

Snow Day

Today, DH and I stayed home from work. What was supposed to be a "light dusting" of snow came down hard enough in the middle of the night to blanket roads and close schools by morning, and we just didn't want to risk the hour's drive down to my in-laws' house to drop off Baby M. And so, DH worked from home and I cancelled my class (which I'll have to make up later in the semester) and we all stayed safely home for the day.

The upside is, I got a fair amount of stuff done. I wrote up a paper that's due this Saturday (and which I couldn't quite figure out when I'd have the time to do) and even emailed it to my professor for feedback. I took care of a bunch of work stuff (most of which came as a result of my not being able to make it in to work today, so I'm not necessarily ahead of the game on that one, but oh well). And...

DH and I got to make a snowman with Baby M.

Not any old snowman, mind you. Baby M's first snowman. Ever.

How cool is that?

It looks like Baby M is helpfully adding an almond into Mr. Snowman's crooked grin. In reality, she's swiping almonds for her own nefarious purposes. She gets that from her father.

I must say, however, I think it was much cooler for DH and me than for her. She absolutely loves snowmen, and whenever she sees me sitting at the computer, she toddles over and demands, "Snowman picture!" Whereby I google for the jillionth time some low-budget government-sponsored website that has a line drawing of a snowman with a small assortment of items that can be dragged and dropped onto his body. The clincher: he can have arms made of candy canes. That gets Baby M's attention every time.

Sadly, we had no giant candy canes for our snowman's arms. But we did have walnuts for eyes, a Brazil nut for a nose, and a small handful of almonds for a mouth. Baby M's plastic sand rake served as an arm (she refused to part with her plastic shovel to give the snowman a matching appendage), and the very first scarf I ever knit still sits wrapped around our snowman's neck.

I don't think I'd built a snowman since college (and I'm not sure if I'd ever built one before that), so I had a great time. And Baby M was so pooped afterwards that after taking a nice, hot bath to warm her up, she fell sound asleep in my arms and I got to make a nice, big pot of homemade soup for dinner. Now I'm just waiting for DH to sign off from work and for Baby M to wake up from her nap so we can all think about having dinner.

God, I love snow days.

2007-02-24T10:20:00.000-05:00

New Project, New Problem

Now that I've finished off three Top-Down Timothy Caps (2 for DH and one for his grandfather) and am stuck on my fitted bog jacket because I've had to order -- and wait for -- more wool, I've decided to start a new project: a Woolly Thoughts "Best of Both Whirls" afghan.

The cool part is that this is what the afghan will look like when it's finished:

The not-so-cool part is that this is what it looks like now:

That's right: one square, 44 ends to weave in. Multiply that by the 24 squares needed and that's a soul-sucking one thousand and fifty-six ends to weave in.

Help.

2007-02-20T21:38:00.000-05:00

Gong Hay Fat Choi and More

Happy Year of the Golden Fire Pig, everyone!

The Golden Fire Pig in its native land...er, Las Vegas.

What does that mean exactly? Well, for DH, Baby M and me it meant a New Year's Eve stuffing ourselves at the in-laws' house. For the world in general it seems to mean prosperity and fertility, as the family made perfectly clear during dinner by asking, loudly and repeatedly, when we were going to provide Baby M with a sibling. What? Doesn't Elmo count?

But enough about Chinese New Year. I promised some details about Valentine's -- excuse me, Valentime's -- Day presents. (Thank you, AP, for the gentle reminder! *g*)

So...my gift to DH was definitely unromantic, but I must say it was exactly what he wanted:

Behold the belt sander! Now DH can actually sharpen the knives he worked so hard to forge at his last blacksmithing workshop. Nothing says "I love you" like a power tool that can peel flesh from bone like a boiled chicken. DH will be using safety equipment with this one.

But the big "ta-da" is reserved for DH's gift to me:

Behold the book charkha! But not just any book charkha; this, ladies and gents, is a Bosworth book charkha, from the uber-talented Jonathan Bosworth over at Journey Wheel. This is the same charkha that L kindly brought over not once but twice to let me play with. The same charkha that actually allowed me to turn cotton into yarn and not just into frustrating little piles of cotton fluff. It's an absolute marvel of engineering and a delight to spin with. Not only that, but it fits right on my lap so I can use it just about anywhere. Spinning on the couch...? In the car...? On the beach at Waikiki...? (A gal can dream, right??)

Anyway, I was (and still am) delighted. DH's order went in for the March group (Jonathan makes things in batches), so that means I'll have my charkha by May (just in time for Mother's Day). All in all, DH couldn't have been more thoughtful. Who needs the "traditional" gifts of chocolate and jewelry when you can have cool fiber tools?

And last but not least, Elmo made his appearance in Baby M's world. He actually tried to rush things by spontaneously talking while still wrapped up and awating DH's return home from work before being given to Baby M. All of a sudden, that distinct Elmo voice piped up and said, "Hi, Baby M! Let's play!" (Didn't I say earlier that there was something creepily Chucky-ish about this thing?) Baby M's head popped up from her coloring book and, looking slightly perplexed, she asked, "Elmo?" Er...whoops. I scooped up the box and hid it in the bedroom closet until it was time for her to unwrap it.

Let me tell you, it was love at first sight. Elmo sings the alphabet song, tells a story about how he and Baby M go to visit a bear, reminds Baby M of her favorite people (Mommy, Daddy) and foods (edamame, yogurt) and even claims to have the very same favorites. Baby M has been dragging Elmo around the house by one foot for the past four days and shows no signs of lessening in her affections. Honestly, it's some of the best money I've ever spent.

Now all we have to do is write up birthday invitations because...*drumroll, please*...my little girl is about to turn TWO. Egads! Where did the time go? Baby M really, really isn't a baby any more. *sniff*

Maybe DH and I will have to take advantage of this Year of the Golden Fire Pig fertility thing after all....

2007-02-16T07:34:00.000-05:00

What a Yarn Wants

The other day, my friend L commented, very insightfully, that wool really wants to be yarn. Introduce the slightest amount of twist, she noted, and it holds itself together like a champ and begs for more. Unlike, say, cotton, which according to L's logic wants to be just about anything but yarn (as I discovered after half an hour's utter frustration at the wheel with some otherwise-lovely cotton roving).

I'm not sure where wool/silk blends stand on the spectrum, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's just a bit more cotton-like in its desires than regular wool. I know this because I spent an ultimately happy couple of hours last night spinning up one of my SP9 pal's earliest gifts to me: a luscious 4 oz braid of Spunky Eclectic merino/silk blend in the "Vineyard" colorway.

It took some playing, I must admit. I had to tweak my Louet's ratio vs uptake for awhile until I reached a happy medium where I could introduce enough twist before the fiber got sucked from my fingers onto the bobbin. But this fiber is a true pleasure to spin. Just look at those colors! I was feeling grey and gloomy and longing for something colorful and vibrant and spring-like to spin, and I don't think I could have asked for a better choice than this. Once I have it all spun up (I've probably spun about an ounce by now), I think I'm going to Navajo-ply it, and then...well, I don't have any plans for the yarn after that, but I'm sure it will make a perfect "pet skein" until it tells me what it wants to be.

And speaking of what wants to be....

As far as I can tell, Crystal Palace cotton chenille yarn wants to be anything but a Mason-Dixon Warshcloth. First, I frogged -- a soul-crushing three times. When I finally got up the gumption to cast on again, I knitted all the way to the second-to-last row when....

That's right, the yarn snapped. Snapped! Of all the nerve. And don't ask me how this could possibly be, but the end disappeared. Completely and totally, as if it never existed to begin with. And so...I can't really finish off the center of the cloth since there's a rogue end somewhere in there just waiting to work its way out. And I absolutely refuse to frog it yet again and reuse the yarn. Clearly, this yarn just Does. Not. Like. Me.

Not that I'm taking it personally or anything. *ahem*

And even though Crystal Palace chenille may not like me, DH and Baby M certainly do. More on their most generous Valentine's Day gift to me -- and all our gifts to one another -- next.

2007-02-14T14:31:00.000-05:00

Elmo Knows Baby M's Name

At least, he will once DH gets finished programming him.

Yes, that's right, I caved to the Elmo-fest that is toddler pop-culture. When I was a kid (insert cantankerous voiceover here), Valentine's Day meant chocolates. Every year, I got a box for Mom and Dad, they got a box for me, and Dad got a box for Mom. And a card.

But ever since the way-back-when Valentine's Day when I burst into tears at DH's (then Dear Boyfriend) gift of chocolate truffles in a crystal box -- given just as I was terribly depressed about and obsessing over how I'd gained weight -- he's sort of steered clear of chocolates as a gift. And since he doesn't really eat chocolates much himself...well, any box I bought for him would be a de facto box for me. Baby M, who would love nothing more than a whole box of chocolates for herself, is at 22 months still far too young to be given one.

And so...DH is getting something decidedly not made of chocolate, the details of which I won't post on the off chance that he may read this before I manage to give him is present (more on that in a sec). I'm not getting something made of chocolate, either (though I've long given up crying over gifted chocolate truffles...in fact, if there's anyone reading this who happens to be crying over gifted truffles at the moment and wants someone to take the nasty things off your hands, consider me your woman). And after a short discussion about what non-chocolate delight might please Baby M, DH and I settled on an Elmo doll. (The girl excitedly shrieks, "Elmo PJs!!" at bedtime...you think she'll go crazy over a doll? Yeah. Maybe just a bit.)

So yesterday, before the godawful sleet started to fall, I hightailed myself to midtown and checked out the Elmo offerings at Toys R Us. (If, by the way, you've never seen the midtown Toys R Us, you Really. Must. Go. There's a freakin' ferris wheel inside, fergawdsake.)

Did they have Elmos! They had Chicken Dance Elmo, Hokey-Pokey Elmo, Elmos that hummed and sucked their thumbs and did everything except jump right up and high-five a child. And each and every one of them felt like hugging a sock full of batteries. Yuck!

Then I saw this Elmo:

Not only does he do super-cool things like say your child's name (and, it seems, about a hundred other things that you can personalize, like your child's birthday, friends' names, and more), he's nice and soft and plush and not at all like a Terminator skeleton under a saggy muppet skin. I tend to object to toys that "do too much" on the theory that they leave less room for the imagination (I'm a huge fan of wooden blocks and giant empty cardboard boxes and the like), but even I have to admit, this looks pretty freakin' sweet. You can even program the little bugger right in the box, so your darling child can unwrap his or her present and have start talking right off the bat. Is that not the coolest thing? (OK, it also smacks disturbingly of Chucky, but I'm willing to let that go.) Now, all DH has to do is program the darn thing. Which means all we have to do is manage to get home tonight.

Because...it's freakin' sleeting here, people! What is this? We've been having the warmest winter on record and global warming be damned, I've really been enjoying it. Now all of a sudden, we're expected to cope with actual winter? Snow? Sleet? Surely, you jest. We didn't even go home last night. For the second time in just about as many weeks, the whole clan stayed with DH's parents, this time so we wouldn't have to drive on the skating rink that has become our highway system.

On a side note, DH and I did make a foray to Macy's last night in search of work clothes to wear today. When we saw the humongous crowds, we asked, in all innocence, "Why are there so many people here on a Tuesday night?" The salesperson looked at us like we had three heads apiece and said, "It's the night before Valentime's Day." (Is this a particularly New York thing, to say Valentime's Day instead of Valentine's Day?) DH and I laughed and I said, "Oh, we're such an old married couple, we didn't even realize." To which the salesclerk replied, smiling, "Well, I guess if you've been doin' it all year 'round, you don't need to be doin' it on Valentime's Day."

And if the weather doesn't let us make it home for the second night in a row, he'll have been not only clever, but absolutely, positively correct.

2007-02-10T22:59:00.000-05:00

Top-Down Timothy Cap Pattern

Excitement! Today I caught a post from a woman asking for submissions of short patterns for her knitting guild's newsletter. I sent in my pattern for the Top-Down Timothy Cap and she said they're going to publish it! I know it's not nearly the big deal of other people getting their patterns published in Knitty, etc, but this will be my very first pattern published anywhere, so I'm just tickled.

Here's the pattern itself, just in case anyone would like to try their hand at it. The usual caveats apply: Feel free to print out the pattern for your personal use, but don't make these hats to sell or otherwise profit off the pattern. If anyone does make one of these, please let me know -- I'd love to see it!

Top-Down Timothy Cap

By Linda Ciano

Size: One size fits most adults

Gauge: 6 stitches/inch in K2P3 ribbing, slightly stretched

Note: This cap is worked with yarn held doubled throughout in the “magic loop” method of using one long circular needle to make a circular item with a smaller circumference than that of the needle itself. A useful tutorial for this method is available at http://www.purlwise.com/2003/12/the_handy_magic.html.

Materials:

2 skeins Knitpicks Andean Treasure 100% baby alpaca (50 g/110 yds)
32” size 8 circular needle

Abbreviations:

KFB = knit into the front and the back of the same stitch
PFB = purl into the front and the back of the same stitch
PFKB = purl into the front and knit into the back of the same stitch
KFPB = knit into the front and purl into the back of the same stitch

Pattern:

With yarn doubled, cast on 8 stitches using figure-8 cast on. Place marker at beginning of round.

Round 1: [K1, P1] to end of round (8 stitches)

Round 2: [K1, PFB] to end of round (12 stitches)

Round 3: [KFB, P2] to end of round (16 stitches)

Round 4: [K2, P1, PFB] to end of round (20 stitches)

Round 5: [K2, PFB, P2] to end of round (24 stitches)

Round 6: [K2, P1, PFKB, KFPB, P1] to end of round (32 stitches)

Round 7: [K2, P2] to end of round

Round 8: [K2, P1, PFB] to end of round (40 stitches)

Round 9: [K2, P3] to end of round

Round 10: [K2, PFB, P2] to end of round (48 stitches)

Round 11: [K2, P4] to end of round

Round 12: [K2, P1, PFKB, KFPB, P1] to end of round (64 stitches)

Rounds 13-15: Repeat round 7

Round 16: [K2, P1, PFB] to end of round (80 stitches)

Round 17: [K2, P3] to end of round

Repeat round 17 until cap measures 8” from crown to base or desired length. Bind off loosely in pattern. Block gently if desired.

2007-02-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

Now Is the Winter of My Discontent

I am sick. Again. Someone just kill me now, please.

Actually, I'm feeling somewhat better at the moment, which is why I'm taking the opportunity to ~~kvetch~~ write. I don't know what exactly hit me, but it hit hard. Both DH and I felt so ill last night that we didn't even bother coming home after work; instead, the whole family -- Baby M and doggie included -- stayed overnight with DH's parents, and they are graciously keeping Baby M with them again today and tonight so DH and I can get some rest. I'm a little nervous as this is the first time she's ever staying overnight without me, but if there's anywhere she'll be comfortable and taken care of and loved it's there. Besides, I was in no shape to take care of her myself for much of the day, and an evening's additional rest coupled with a good night's sleep might just see me rid of this cursed cold once and for all.

BUT...I'm not here just to complain. (No, seriously, I'm not. Stop that laughing.) I'm also here to give a huge THANK YOU to my SP9 pal, who finally revealed herself this past week.

Joni M, you ROCK!

Here's what Joni sent in her reveal package:

There are two braids of spinning fiber, the one on the right being 4 oz of superwash merino from Spunky Eclectic and the one on the left being 4 oz of BFL wool top from Hello Yarn. But the bestest stuff of all came from Joni's own shop, Union Center Knits. It's kind of hard to tell by my craptastic photo, but Joni sent along an assortment of wonderful little goodies: beaded stitch markers with -- can you believe it? -- little jingle bells on the ends (too, too cute for words!), pretty paper "Handmade By..." hanging tags for packages, a felted autumn-leaf pin, a Union Center Knits button, and two -- count 'em, two -- skeins of hand-dyed (by Joni herself) Whatnot Sock Yarn. Joni, you have completely and thoroughly spoiled me these past 3 months, and I really can't thank you enough. I hope you'll check in on my blog every now and again to see what all your fibers and yarns have been spun and knitted up into. I'll be posting photos, I promise....

And finally, my very first self-designed hat: the Top-Down Timothy Cap.

Named for DH, the first (and so far, only) recipient, the Timothy Cap is pretty cool, if I do say so myself. I used the leftover alpaca from FIL's balaclava and took my design cues from Barbara Walker's book Knitting from the Top Down. It incorporates a couple of neat little features like a figure-8 cast on to prevent that annoying little hole at the hat top and wheel-like spoked increases for a streamlined, symmetrical look. It kinda reminds me of the caps that skateboarders wear (wore? do kids still skateboard? and do they wear caps? I am so out of the loop...), but it works perfectly with alpaca and forms a close-fitting, warm, comfy cap. Gratuitous Baby M comment: "Daddy hat! I like it!" (At 22 months old, the child is a genius, pure and simple. So says her completely unbiased mother.) Now I'm just waiting for some more alpaca to arrive from knitpicks so I can make one for myself, a second for DH and one for DH's grandfather as a birthday gift. And while I was using my February "free day" to order yarn for more hats, I took the opportunity to order some luscious alpaca to make myself the Cable and Lace Poncho from Just Wraps. Mmmmm...cable and lace poncho in Winterberry alpaca... *drool*....

Hmmmm...maybe I'm not quite as discontented as I thought.

2007-02-02T00:10:00.000-05:00

Bubble, Bubble, Not Much Trouble

Today I finished Bubbly -- yippee! Check 'er out:

Now I get to use my Christmas gift from DH -- a lace blocking kit from Knitpicks -- to get Bubbly all nice and in shape for hanging in the window. The only thing left to make is the twisted cord for hanging...oh, yeah -- and the second Bubbly for the other window in the bathroom!

In other news, my replacement roving (to replace the not-so-clean Cotswold curls) is on its way to me and it looks spectacular:

Are those colors not to die (dye?? -- see how clever I am?? *ahem*) for? You can't see it in this photo, but there are also some deep greens and other autumn colors in there. I'm going to use the Sheep Shed Studio method of fleeceweaving, which involves making raised "pebbles" with the roving. While I don't hope to turn out something as nice as this

on the first try, I hope I can at least come somewhat close.

Now the question is, what should I start knitting to keep myself occupied on the subway now that Bubbly is done?

2007-01-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

Insert Clever Title Here

Well, the first week of the new semester is history. I'm not terribly thrilled with how it went. Mind you, I should be ecstatic. Compared to last semester, when I wound up near tears by 5pm the first day due to lack of teachers, lack of classroom space and a surplus of students, this semester has been a piece of cake. And yet...teachers' noses are out of joint, rightly and also through no fault of my own, over having to make last-minute adjustments in teaching level (an ever-present threat at the beginning of every semester), and I'm annoyed at myself for not communicating the changes better (the poor communication part being entirely my fault, unfortunately...*sigh*). I'm also not looking forward to an upcoming labor-negotiation-type thing my colleagues and I will have to do with upper management. It's just added stress I don't need right about now. I wonder how many Pepperidge Farm cookies one person can eat before causing irreversible brain damage. I may just have to try and find out.

Anyhoo...how's life in your little corner of the world going?

Me, when I'm stressed, I eat. There's a shock, I know. But I've been trying to keep my hands busy enough that they can't get too much junk food to my mouth, and here's one of the results:

I give you Bubbly...or, rather, Bub, as this is just about exactly half a Bubbly curtain. And as I just sat up with DH until 2am as he played his video game, it's significantly longer now than in the photo; one more of the repeat sections should see it finished and ready to block and hang. Woo-hoo! Go, me!

On the other hand, here's what my weaving looks like these days:

See the nicely prepared warp, all ready for my first fleecewoven rug?

See the 7 pounds of Cotswold curls, all ready to be woven into a gorgeous tapestry of fall colors?

See the chunks of hay and chaff and other assorted crap I should really have paid more attention to before I started weaving?

Let's just say 2 hours, 3 inches of wasted warp and $17.20 in return shipping later, the Cotswold curls are winging their way back to from whence they came and I'm breaking my yarn diet in the morning to replace them with nice, clean roving. And since I'll be using my January "free day," I may well just go nuts and order yarn for both my Wooly Thoughts afghans (not, mind you, that they'll go on the needles any time soon...I just like the feeling of being able to pluck a ready-made "kit" out of the stash any time I want to, and putting pattern together with all the yarn gives me the kit effect without the often exorbitant kit price). Oh, and sock yarn. Gotta get sock yarn. Because it doesn't count, you know. (My thanks to whoever came up with that rule. I've knit exactly one sock in my entire life but I have a veritable bushel of sock yarn because it doesn't count as part of the stash...and, you know, sock yarn makes lovely shawls, among other things. Just sayin'.)

At this rate, I may need to change my Stashalong plan from "number of months, with 1 free day per month" to "number of finished items," as in "don't buy any more freakin' yarn until you actually finish up a few projects and make room for new stuff in the ol' stasheroo." Although as a woman with a large house, a tolerant husband and an independent cash flow, I've been wondering lately just why exactly I feel the need to be on a yarn diet at all.

Oh, yeah. Freezer full of yarn. That's why.

2007-01-20T23:32:00.000-05:00

First in '07

Hard as it is for me to believe, I've only now completed my first knit of 2007. I guess when you start out knitting curtains and jackets, progress is bound to be slow! So it's a good thing I dropped my other knitting to whip up a balaclava for FIL in Alpaca with a Twist sportweight. Doubled on size 9s it went super-fast and is cushy, squooshy and warm, warm, warm! Here it is, modeled obligingly by DH:

I also received my Sheep Shed Studio order, the one I placed back at the veeeery end of Decemer, about 10 minutes before I started my yarn diet (aka Stashalong). In addition to some lovely sock yarns, hand-dyes and Brown Sheep skeins, I also received six luscious pounds of Cottswold curls for rug-making. Carol at the Sheep Shed does an amazing dye job, and she sent bags full of the most beautiful fall colors, in addition to a few pounds of natural whites and greys. I couldn't wait; I got started warping up the RH tonight, and hopefully will have the warp mostly (all?) finished by the end of the weekend.

Can I mention once again how very good weaving is for stashbusting?? I burned through two spools of rug warp and still didn't make it all the way across my 32" 8 dpi heddle. I can't wait to actually get weaving on this one. The colors are so gorgeous and the fiber so unique -- so completely different from any other weaving I've done -- that I'm really looking forward to this.

Mmmmmm...fleece rugs, knitted curtains and a fitted bog jacket to get all wrapped up and cozy in. What more could a fiber-lovin' gal ask for?

2007-01-17T23:32:00.000-05:00

By Special Request

So, I was paid a very nice compliment today by my FIL. He noticed the knitted balaclava I'd given DH for Christmas and commented on how nice and warm it looked. DH mentioned that it's convenient because now he doesn't have to wear a scarf (plus he likes the funny looks people give him when he wears it on the streets of NYC! *vbg*). The upshot is that FIL now wants a balaclava just like DH has.

Currently, I don't have a "for others" project going; ever since I frogged the Mason-Dixon Warshrag for the third freakin' time I've been concentrating on my Bubbly curtain and my fitted bog jacket. So, I'm free to start his balaclava any time. I'm thinking sooner rather than later; it's been a fairly warm winter thus far, and if I wait much longer spring might just set in and the poor man would get no use out of it at all. I think I'll use the grey sportweight alpaca -- it's soft as a cloud but not very springy, which should actually work nicely for a balaclava, which a person really wouldn't want clinging to the face. Maybe tomorrow instead of lugging Bubbly on the subway with me I'll tote my smallest KIPer bag instead and get started....

2007-01-13T23:19:00.000-05:00

Successes and Setbacks

The past couple of days have been a mixed bag of things gone right and things gone very, very wrong.

On the plus side, I have some new, gorgeous skeins of yarn to enjoy. There's my second Kool-Aid dye attempt, shown below, which ended up nicer than I thought it would and which I have a feeling will knit up even nicer still. I'll have to pick a very special project for that one -- maybe something for Baby M.

And there's the skein of overplied mystery wool that I dyed green (kiwi-watermelon) and yellow (lemonade) only to discover that combination came out most bland; this gave me the opportunity to try some microwave dyeing. I laid the wet skein on some plastic wrap, sprinkled Kool-Aid powder directly where I wanted it, wrapped the skein up and microwaved it for 2 minute increments until the powder was absorbed. Another fun technique, and the resulting reds, maroons and browns really livened up that dull skein!

Finally, there's the nice grey Big Bale wool skein that I spun up on my newly-restored Country Craftsman, or CeeCee as I've taken to calling her. I don't usually name inanimate objects, but this one just seemed to cry out for a name, and CeeCee was a perfect fit. I'm working on a second skein, which is coming along more slowly if only because my singles are coming out more even and with fewer huge lumps and bumps to take up space on the bobbin. DH may just get his cap out of homespun yet.

And now for the bad news....

After completing the knitting on my Fitted Bog Jacket all the way up to the underarms -- a full 66 ridges/132 rows -- I had to frog all the way back to the waist decreases, nearly 40 ridges/80 rows! What gets me is it wasn't even a problem with my knitting. I followed my pattern precisely, my count was right...it was just that the darn thing was too wide across the bust even though it fit nicely across my hips. While there's only an inch difference between my bust and hip measurements, I forgot to take into consideration that I was making this jacket to wear over jeans with bulky waistbands. What was a comfortable yet stylish fit across the hips and waist was a dowdy, frumpy, shapeless sack across the chest. There was nothing to be done but pull back...and back...and back. I've re-done my calculations and started knitting back up again, but it was certainly disheartening. At least in the frogging I realized an unrelated error I'd made when inserting the phoney seams and can avoid it in the reknitting. So, I suppose, there's lemonade to be made out of lemons after all.

Hmmm.... It seems I've been listening to too much Anne of Green Gables on the iPod. Lemonade from lemons, indeed.

2007-01-11T21:07:00.000-05:00

TAG -- You're It!

OK, so I've been tagged and now need to write up 6 weird things about myself. Personally, I prefer to think of them as "six things to love about me," or maybe "six things that make me me," but you be the judge.

I have to put my shoes, socks, pants and underwear on left foot/leg first. Arm stuff doesn't matter, but with legs and feet it's all about the left.
One of my favorite breakfast foods is uncooked oatmeal, peanut butter, honey and (cold) water all mixed up together. I discovered this combo when I was out of museli (which is, let's face it, basically raw oats and nuts) one morning but had raw oats and peanut butter on hand.
The roof of my house is covered in solar panels. (I wonder if this is a weird thing about me since I'm the one who put them there or if it's a weird thing about my house. Hmmm....)
I can write with both hands simultaneously, backwards with the right and forward with the left. It's not neat, but it's legible.
I can do that spin-flip thing with a ballpoint pen around my fingers. I learned this in 12th grade when, in an attempt to get me to stop talking in class and pay attention, my math teacher made me sit with all the Chinese kids who had just come to the country and couldn't speak English. But boy, could they flip pens!
I hate soda, coffee and beer.

And now, for the benefit of those I'm about to go off and tag...

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the 6 weird things about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

2007-01-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

And So It Begins....

Today was my first day back at work since the beginning of December, and I must say I wish I had more time at home. Funny...after a few months home on maternity leave I was bored silly and couldn't wait to get back to work; now all I can think of is how I'd like more time here with Baby M. 'Nuff said.

I did get to try out my nifty new iPod today on the subway. I discovered several things.

First, I do love audio books. I knew this already, but it was nice to find that even on a crowded, noisy subway I could still really, really enjoy hearing Anne of Green Gables read aloud. And yet, I also discovered that I'm just a bit put off by listening to my iPod in the subway. I feel like it puts a barrier between me and those around me (and it does -- how often do people just strike up conversations with those wearing earbuds?), and I'm not sure I quite like that. I mean, I've had lots of pleasant conversations on the subway and train...and while I enjoy listening to audiobooks, I also enjoy pleasant conversations. How much will I be missing by plugging in and tuning out?

I also discovered that I am not exactly handy when it comes to juggling an iPod. I thought it would be much more convenient and easy to use than a bulky CD player, but I am just not nimble enough for an iPod. I always forget which thingy to press to get it to start up or shut down (whatever happened to buttons labeled "on" and "off"?); I can never stop it at a moment's notice; I constantly careen past the track I want to play and then have to fumble back and forth till I hit upon the right one by chance. I am slowly becoming my parents; pretty soon I'll have to have Baby M program all my electronic gizmos for me the way I used to have to set the VCR for my mom and dad.

At least I got some knitting done today: a few rows of Bubbly. It's coming along slowly, but it is coming along. I think that will be my subway knitting for awhile.

My bog jacket is looking good. I'm nearly at the underarm, and the waist shaping is clearly visible. I cannot tell you how proud of myself I am! I think I'll knit on that this weekend and see if I can get to any of the colorwork before work starts in full swing next week.

And, last but certainly not least, I spoke with a woman last night about a circular sock machine. She's a restorer, the machine is an antique, and from the photos she sent, it looks to be in excellent condition. I'm almost afraid to find out how much it costs.

Strike that; I am afraid to find out how much it costs. But I will anyway. At least that's technology that I can understand.

2007-01-07T22:50:00.000-05:00

Still Going...And Going...And Going....

You'd think I'd never have another chance to spin, knit or dye again. Oh, wait a sec...work starts again next week (with a single day in the office this Wednesday, too) and I'm going to be so up to my ears that I might just not get another chance to do any creating at all, if not ever then at least for a looooong time.

So. In the spirit of grabbing opportunity when it presents itself, I did a little housekeeping and finally got my be-you-tiful spindle collection out in the open where everyone can see them (and where I can grab one on a whim and spin -- maybe if I see them more I'll use them more).

Note the predominence of Bossies and, as a distant second, Goldings. I love both types of spindle dearly and am certain to add more of both in the future. I'm still a tad scared of my Goldings since the Swan Lake incident (let's just say the "drop" in "drop spindle" should not be taken literally...ask me how I know), but no doubt with them on display I'll be too tempted to let them rest on the shelf for long. I even got caught up in finish-itis (the lesser-known and certainly more welcome cousin of start-itis) and not only finished up a little silk fiber sample but plied it with the carbonized bamboo that L gave me the other day (which, in my spinning frenzy of these past few days, I had already spindled up on one of my Bossies). Will wonders never cease?

I also crock-pot dyed another skein of Knitpicks dye-your-own merino, which sits cooling in its dye bath as I write. No photos yet because it all looks like a muddy mess in there. I'm looking forward to pulling it out tomorrow and seeing how it all turns out.

Lest you think I succumbed to sloth in only completing the above projects today, I also knitted a teensy bit on my Bubbly curtain and a teensy bit more than that on my bog jacket, the former while IV was visiting and the latter as DH was driving us all over to Barnes & Noble, where I spent a gift card (that I received from my master's program, no less -- who knew they gave gifts??) on the fantabulous Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques. I'm so tired of pattern books; I want knitting books that help me design my own things, and this one fits the bill nicely. Wanna know which cast-on works best with which bind-off? This book tells you. Wanna know the difference in stretch between a large and a small picot edging? You're covered.

I. So. Love. This. Book.

I even worked in a few more spins on my love-it-love-it-love-it Country Craftsman, also while IV was visiting. And I took down the dried Sunset Fire skein, twisted it up nicely, petted it for awhile and showed it off to DH (who is very good about acting impressed and interested even though he'd rather be smithing) before putting it away (if "on the dining room table" can be considered "away").

The did-nots: Well, I didn't skein up the plied big bale wool that I spun on the CC. There's always tomorrow for that. I didn't take down the dyed heathered fiber -- that's still hanging, dry, in the guest bathroom. Again, there's always tomorrow. I didn't dye the other grey heathered fiber, though I did buy more Kool-Aid and I'm thinking that grey will be done in shades of green (kiwi-watermelon), yellow (lemonade) and maybe light orange (mango).

Not bad. DH and I even managed to take down the last of the Christmas decorations and put them all away, haul the tree outside, vacuum up the forest of dropped needles and generally put the living room back in some semblance of order.

If only I didn't have to go back to work I could really get some stuff done!

2007-01-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

Success!

The past three days have been unbelievable from a fiber-perspective. I feel so very fiber-inspired and fiber-motivated (fiberspired? fibervated?)....

It started with my yarn dyeing-in-a-crockpot experiment. I liked that so well I went right on to crockpot-dyeing some light grey mystery fiber.

That nearly turned into a disaster as I let impatience take hold and instead of carefully unwinding the large roll of very thin roving I plopped it into the dyebath as-is...only to decide this was less than wise and then try to unwind it -- sopping wet and full of dye -- as it sat in said bath. I tried to photograph my hands but the incredible shade of Kool-Aid red simply would not show up in anywhere near all its glory on my camera. I managed to pull apart enough of the roving that everything got at least a touch of dye on it.

Tomorrow it's back to the supermarket to load up on other Kool-Aid colors to dye the other roll of grey mystery roving and then maybe blend them together. Of course, I now see the need for a drum carder. *sigh* And just when I thought I'd gotten every bit of fiber equipment I could possibly want. *wink*

Speaking of equipment...my BIG success has been finally getting my Country Craftsman spinning wheel up and running. Woo-hoo!!

This is the wheel that my friend IV gave me...the wheel she refused to take any money for because she had had such bad luck with it and had cursed the woman who had sold it to her so very much as a result that she didn't want to risk bad karma by selling it to someone else. Once I promised not to curse her if I couldn't get it to work, it was all mine. I finally got myself in gear and bought the necessary replacement parts from the last known maker of the CC (naturally the wheel is out of production), only to find that even with the parts, the wheel would barely rotate. I thought it might need oil, but again didn't get myself in gear until L paid a visit and recommended that I soak the leathers in oil overnight. Well, bless my little 3-in-1 oilcan but it worked. I soaked those leathers and oiled every other moving part on that wheel and now it spins like a charm. It seems to want to spin up bulky yarn, which is rather ironic since the bobbins are miniscule compared with the bobbins on my Louet, a wheel that only seems to want to spin up fine yarns, but that's okay by me.

I had a great time today spinning up two bobbins full on the CC and then plying them into a bulky, thick-and-thin yarn on the Louet. Tomorrow I'll have to skein and soak it, then hang it to dry...and take photos, of course. I might even wind up knitting this up into DH's skullcap (finally).

L also turned my eye toward yet another new piece of fiber equipment: a charkha. This is an Indian-style spinning wheel specifically designed for spinning very short-staple-length fibers like cotton. Gandhi used a charkha (and even made it a requirement for all members of his cabinet to spend at least half an hour a day spinning). Well, L let me try out her Bosworth Book Charkha, and boy did I like it. I mean a lot. To the point where I might have to seriously consider getting one for myself. Yet another thing to add to the (*gulp* growing) list.

Last but certainly not least, I've been knitting. That plain-Jane garter stitch sure is addictive, especially on my fitted bog jacket. Much as I think to myself that I should be switching off every once in awhile to that Bubbly curtain, I just get pulled right back into the bog. Tonight I finished off a few more ridges while watching romance blossom between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr and Mrs Smith. Nothing like a mindless action flick for cranking out some knitting. And some fiber-equipment-buying plans.

Splindarella's Top Fiber Equipment Wanna-Buys:

a charkha
a drum carder
a circular sock machine
a Golding spinning wheel (this, my fantasy "when I win the lottery" wanna buy)
a Journey Wheel

Splindarella's Employment Goals for 2007:

Find a job that pays beaucoup bucks for very little work so I have enough money to buy my fiber toys and enough time to play with them all.

2007-01-05T00:10:00.000-05:00

Inspired!

You never know where inspiration will find you. Today it was waiting for me over at Jeremy's blog in the form of a mini-tutorial on crock-pot dyeing. I've had Kool-Aid and dyeing yarn on hand for months but had just never gotten up the gumption to go ahead and try it. Then this morning I caught Jeremy's post and bam! I pulled out the crock pot and cooked me up some yarn.

I used 100 grams/880 yards of Knitpicks dye-your-own merino. Here it is soaking, pre-dye.

I wanted graduated shades of deep red through light orange, so I used Kool-Aid in (left to right/light to dark) Mango, Orange, Cherry and Tropical Punch. After soaking the yarn, I sprinkled the Kool-Aid directly on top in the order shown above.

Here's how it looked right after I added the dyes.

And here's how it looked after about 3 hours in the crockpot when all the dye had been absorbed. As you can see, the reds migrated quite a bit. When I first pulled the yarn out, I thought I would have very little orange to show for my efforts.

I shouldn't have worried! While the reds migrated across the surface of the dye pot, the oranges worked on the underside of the skein. Some came out very light (that's where the mango came into play, I believe) while others were more vibrant. Nothing was left pure white, which is exactly what I was going for; the skein moves from nearly yellow to deep red (I wish I could have gotten a shot that shows off the colors better). I think I'll call it Sunset Fire.

Currently in the crock pot: some light grey heathered wool (fiber this time, not yarn) that I'm trying to dye straight red, possibly with some variegation light to dark. I don't know how this will turn out -- if it's too much of a matted mess I may wind up felting it instead of spinning -- but boy, is this fun! Thanks, Jeremy, for being my inspiration today!

2007-01-04T01:01:00.000-05:00

Photos At Last!

So, I've finally gotten off my lazy ass and taken some photos. Here's a shot of my fitted bog jacket. It doesn't look like much just yet, but watch out -- this is going to be gorgeous when finished!

And here's my Bubbly curtain...so pretty I plan to make 2 more, one for each window in the bathroom (this one will go in the kitchen).

Not pictured: the Mason-Dixon Warshrag I had to frog three freakin' times because I'm a total dolt and clearly cannot be trusted with a simple pattern. The warshrag was going to be my "knitting for loved ones" project (which I think I'll rename "knitting for others" to also cover knitting for a cause, knitting for swap partners, etc), but to avoid any potential unpleasantness (such as having to stab myself in the eye with a dpn if I manage to screw this up yet again), it might just have to wait. Besides, Bubbly and Bog are keeping me nicely busy, even if they're not quite as portable as a chenille warshrag would be.

At least they won't land me in the hospital...the Knitting Goddess willing, that is.