Yarnhog

Guess What This Is?

2012-01-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

FO: Mom Blankie

2012-01-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

Yes! It's actual knitting content!

I finished Mom Blankie today. It wasn't the ten days I so hopefully planned on Christmas Day, but I did finish it in just about a month.

The details:

Pattern: Zig Zag sock yarn pram baby blanket by Debbie Orr (free pattern here). Obviously, I used thicker yarn and bigger needles to get a sofa sized blanket.

Yarn: Noro Kochoran

Needles: Size 10 Knit Picks Options circs

Size: Before blocking (as in these pics), it was 48" x 60". After blocking, it is 52" x 64".

Mods: None, other than the size, and the fact that I used self-striping yarn instead of sock yarn scraps. Very easy and relaxing pattern, perfect for tv knitting! And now, perfect for tv watching, too. :)

Gimmee an "Awwww!"

2012-01-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

Peanut is up to four eggs...and she's all tuckered out. :)

Can You Stand Another Peanut Post?

2012-01-19T14:06:00.001-08:00

I went to the birdy store for some toys for Peanut today, and while I did not come home with the adorable Cockatoo I'm seeing on the side, I did come home with this awesome play stand for my tiny bird. (It's hard to get a picture in front of a sunny window.)

Peanut willingly stepped up on the stand, before she realized this meant she would not be on my shoulder, my chest, my finger, or any other part of her favorite perch. Which is the point, from my perspective. This gives her a place to hang out in the same room with the rest of the family, without actually having to be ON a member of the family. It is also mostly out of Kozmo's range. He could certainly knock it over if he wanted to, but at least he can't grab her on his way past, and I won't leave them together unattended.

This is how Peanut reacts when Koz gets too close. I call this her Eagle Pose. She spreads her wings as wide as they will go to make herself look as big as possible, and then she hisses like a little dragon! It's incredibly cute, and it really gets the point across. Koz does an abrupt about-face and leaves the room every time she does it. They say it's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the size of the fight in the dog. I guess that applies to birds, too!

And Then There Were Two

2012-01-17T13:14:00.001-08:00

Yes, my Peanut is a fertile little birdie.

I expected this today, so I've been putting her in her cage every hour or so to see if she would lay in the "nest." She didn't, but she did lay this one in the cage instead of on Younger Son, so I'm calling it an improvement. She doesn't seem to buy into the whole "nest" idea; she actually took the other egg out of the nest and left it in a corner of the cage...but not the same corner as where she laid this one. She seems a little confused about how this whole "roosting" thing works.

I put both eggs back in the nest and brought Peanut back downstairs (she won't start incubating until she's done laying).

She enjoys sitting on my shoulder or chest and chattering to me or preening herself, but she really loves my computer keyboard. She climbs onto it and sticks her head under my typing fingers to get petted. It's super cute, but inconvenient...and getting bird poop out from between the keys is kind of a pain. So I relocated her to a different spot on the computer:

She loves it. She is sitting there, enjoying the warmth, chirping away, and preening herself as I type.

We did have a near-disaster yesterday. I was bringing her downstairs on my shoulder when she abruptly decided she wanted to fly. She fluttered down the stairs and into the family room, where she landed ON Kozmo, who was sleeping on the floor! He reacted as one would expect an 85 pound dog to react when rudely awakened by the two ounce usurper of his master's affection. Fortunately, I got to Koz before he got a grip on Peanut. He was mightily offended by being dragged away by his tail (the first thing I could reach), but far more offended when Older Son swatted him on the nose! No one in this family has ever so much as scolded him, so the nose swat was a grave offense. I pointed out to Older Son that Koz didn't do anything wrong (he was just being a dog), and OS made every effort to make up with Koz, but it may take a while.

Peanut was unharmed, except for the loss of a tail feather and some dog drool on her back. She was completely unfazed by the incident and remains convinced of her own superiority.

Not Male!

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Only I would buy a male bird that turns out to be pregnant.

Apparently I can expect Peanut to lay between one and seven more eggs in the next week or two. They may or may not be fertile, since I don't know whether she mated while she was living with the other cockatiels.

Is there any way this could be the KG's fault?

New Baby!

2012-01-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

We have a new baby in the house! This is Peanut. He is a male (we think) cockatiel. He is a hand-raised baby, so he's very tame and friendly. He's about eight months old, so not really a baby anymore. More of an adolescent. And judging from his immediate and slightly obsessive interest in me, I think his little birdie hormones are in full swing.

He is technically Younger Son's bird (as you can see from the "perch" in the pictures). For the past several weeks, I have been considering getting a larger bird to keep me company during the day (since the dogs do nothing but sleep). I've been to every bird shop in town, talked to every rescue, and visited about a hundred different birds. Then I took Younger Son with me to my favorite bird shop and we came home with this little guy for him. It turns out, though, that the bird doesn't care who he was purchased for. He would like nothing better than to spend his whole day climbing on me and getting kisses. I had no idea birds could be so cuddly and affectionate. Or so smart! And the bigger birds have nothing on this little guy for personality and interactiveness.

I think I have my new bird.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

The thermometer in my car yesterday at lunchtime.

Happy Knitting

2011-12-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

ETA: I've tried to fix the pictures. Could someone please let me know whether they are now visible? Thanks!

I mentioned in my last post that my house had been torn up for 45 days. As it turns out, 45 days is the outside limit of my tolerance for having my house torn up. On day 46, I evidently become a raving lunatic who frightens husbands and small children and causes contractors to back slowly away while laughing nervously.

However, I apparently also become extremely energetic and efficient. My house is entirely put back together, with a new bathroom, new walls, new paint, and new living room furniture. It is beautiful. I am happy. All is well with my world.

My husband deserves (he insists) full credit for talking me off the ledge. He also deserves full credit for moving enormously heavy pieces of furniture all over the house and lighting a fire under contractors who clearly did not understand the importance of getting the damned project done already.

And now I am deeply engrossed in happy knitting. I got this (at my request, and to the accompaniment of much eye-rolling) for Christmas:

This is a full bag of Noro Kochoran, one of my all-time favorite yarns. I really wanted this to make a soft, fluffy sofa throw. I cast on Christmas morning and have been happily and obsessively knitting ever since.

Note the colors. There is nothing about these colors that would appeal to a male--ever--and that is the point.

Every afghan I have made has been confiscated by someone in my family. And while I am thrilled that they love my afghans, I am also cold. I want my own blankie, and this is it. It's like the hot pink flip flops I bought when my black and brown ones kept disappearing. I couldn't keep a pair of flip flops for more than a few weeks. I've had the pink ones for three years. So this is the knitted equivalent of hot pink flip flops.

The pattern is here, and it is free. I used the Kochoran instead of sock yarn scraps, obviously, and size 10 needles. My goal is to knit one ball of yarn per day, giving me a finished 48"x 60" throw in ten days. So far, I am on track. I don't normally set knitting goals, but this is an exception: I want my blankie, darn it!

Knitting For Sanity

2011-12-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

The chaos in my house continues unabated. This is day 45 (by my count) of the Great Flood of 2011. (Note: the name is ironic. For the amount of inconvenience it has caused, the bathroom leak really deserves a more dramatic name.)

Once again--as for most of the past month and a half--there are noisy things happening in my house. Today it is a plumber and a drywaller. I had thought the drywalling ordeal was over last week, at least downstairs, after the four days the drywaller spent putting my ceiling and walls back up, texturing everything, and painting the living room and dining room. Then yesterday the plumber came to put in a new bathtub, and that's where things started going sideways. He spent most of the day trying to get the drain to install correctly. When that didn't work, he said he would need to cut a hole in the freshly repaired ceiling to access the drain. So he showed up this morning with the drywaller, cut a hole in the ceiling...and couldn't make the drain work. After a couple more hours, he went out to buy a different drain. In the meantime, the drywaller is twiddling his thumbs, waiting to close up the ceiling. From the sounds in the next room, that is not happening anytime soon.

The drywaller also needs to put up drywall and paint the bathroom, but of course, he can't do that until the tub is in and the new pipes and faucets installed. Again, not happening anytime soon. Since the tile guy is supposed to be here Monday, the drywaller wants to come back tomorrow (Saturday) to finish the walls. There goes my weekend.

Worse yet, I haven't been able to get a tree or decorate for Christmas, or, heck, see the damned floor, and I'm getting really, really antsy about it. Every time I think we're making progress, another monkey wrench gets tossed into the mix. I detest chaos and clutter under any conditions, and being trapped in a house full of it for an extended period is making me more than a little crazy. I am so not cut out for remodeling.

So I've been playing with yarn. A lot. I wove a shawl out of Noro Silk Garden Sock, finished Snowbird, and cast on Tinder. But at the moment, I need the sort of comfort that can only come from gorgeous, squishy yarn and enormous amounts of plain knitting. I cast on this:

This is Malabrigo in Stonechat, and I have a lot of it. I bought it in a destash months ago, planning to make a sofa throw. The time has come. This will be a log cabin pattern, only super large scale. Each log is 12 inches wide, and the final throw will be a single giant block. All garter, size 8 needles. It doesn't get any more comforting than that.

Knitting, take me away! (Bonus points if you can name the reference.)

How Knitters Say "Happy Holidays!"

2011-11-27T13:08:00.001-08:00

This is not a new idea. Like a thousand other knitters, I got the idea from the wreaths Starbucks had in their stores a couple of years ago. I finally got around to making one for my front door.

My mom liked mine so much, she asked me to make her one, which (being the good daughter that I am), I did this morning.

This may be the easiest project you'll ever do with yarn. Get yourself an 18" wire wreath form ($2.99 at Michaels) and a bunch of styrofoam balls in different sized. I used 12 3" balls, 6 2.5" inch, 12 2", and 12 1.5". This is the most expensive part of the project, since styrofoam is evidently far more costly than I ever imagined. Michaels has the best prices I could find, and if you print out some online coupons, you can get them more reasonably. Grab some leftover yarn in whatever colors you want (or pick up some cheap acrylic while you're at Michaels), and whatever other ornaments you want (I bought a bag of mixed miniature glitter balls at Michaels for $4.99).

Wrap yarn around the styrofoam balls until you can't see any styrofoam and tuck the end a few strands to hold it in place. When all the balls are wrapped, heat up your hot glue gun and get to work! It took me about an hour and a half to wrap the yarn, and another hour to put it all together.

If you have to buy everything, including yarn, glue gun, and glue sticks, this project will run you $40-50. If you already have a glue gun and yarn, and you use coupons for the styrofoam, you can get it down to about $20, which is pretty reasonable. You don't have to use Christmas colors, of course. You could make one in blue and white for Hanukkah, or pastels for spring, or autumn colors for fall, or whatever you want for any time of year.

I suspect my door may be graced with yarn ball wreaths year round from here on out.

Does eBay Know Something I Don't?

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

I went on eBay yesterday to look for weaving shuttles. I put in my search, and up popped "Items Recommended for You":

Do you think they're trying to tell me something?

Epiphany

2011-11-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

I now know why people weave.

I wove this yesterday:

This is a 9" wide scarf, 8 feet long. And it took me--a brand new weaver--one day.

That includes the warping, the weaving, and the braiding of the fringe.

I used an ugly yarn I was never going to knit, but I think I like how it looks woven. Close up, you can see all the different colors, but from a bit of a distance, it just looks like tweed.

I haven't "wet finished" it yet, mostly because I'm not sure exactly how. From what I understand, wet finishing is the weaving equivalent of wet blocking, except it's more vigorous. The goal is to "full" the fabric to get the fibers to lock together and blend into a unified fabric--so essentially a mild felting. It seems the usual way to do this is to throw it in the washing machine, but I think I'll try it by hand first. After all, it may not be beautiful, but it is my first project, and I'd rather not ruin it right off the bat.

I would totally warp for a new project right now, but my entire stash is currently bagged up and sealed in boxes, so it will have to wait until my house gets put back together. Or until I lose patience and rip into the boxes. Any guesses which will come first?

Funny...

2011-11-14T13:16:00.001-08:00

...that doesn't look like a floor loom.

The chaos in my house continues, and I'm going to blame that.

This is an Ashford rigid heddle loom (24"). I bought it today from a local fiber friend who teaches spinning and weaving. She gave me a free, 2-hour private lesson, and taught me about floor looms at the same time.

Ignore the ugly yarn. It was the result of an ill-advised online purchase several years ago. I'm using it for my first weaving project because it was in the "get rid of" box, which is the only part of my stash I can currently access, due to the ongoing decontamination of my yarn room. Looking at this yarn makes my head hurt and makes me feel like I might have a seizure if I look at it too long. Interestingly, it is much less offensive in its woven state that either in the ball or knitted, which makes me wonder if some of my uglier stash yarn might have a new life as weaving yarn.

The rehab of Sabina the Floor Loom continues, with major effort concentrating on rust removal. I've almost got her in useable condition, but until I get my knitting room back, I have nowhere to set her up...and I guess I'm even less patient than I thought.

Overkill

2011-11-12T12:27:00.001-08:00

On any other day, the current state of my dining room...

my living room...

and my brand new, impromptu "clean room"...

...would probably be making me crazy. There are are scary loud noises coming from various parts of my house, I have my first cold in five and a half years (thanks to going out to breakfast with my best friend and her infectious preschooler), I lost my glasses somewhere between taking this picture in the living room and transferring the pictures to my computer in the family room, and it's pouring down rain while my kid is at a parade competition with his very expensive and water-sensitive musical instrument. Despite all this, I can't stop giggling. It could be the cold medicine, but I think it's this:

Posted in my living room...and in Spanish, just to be sure everyone who lives in my house understands!

Whew!

2011-11-11T09:54:00.001-08:00

According to the conversation we just had with our insurance adjuster, our claim IS covered! Huge relief here. I've been very worried for the past week, as an ever-increasing number of workers have paraded through my house, shaking their heads discouragingly and cutting up more and more of my house in the process.

Yesterday a team of mold remediation guys showed up. Very distressing. There was no mold a week ago. Now there is. In my imagination, there is a great, fuzzy, black monster gradually working its way through my walls, eating everything in sight.

The restoration guys are on their way right now to "pack out" the areas that need repair. (Areas that include the fully-loaded china cabinet in my dining room and a 700 pound wall unit in my living room--also fully loaded--as well as most of my knitting room). Tomorrow the mold guys are supposed to start "demolition." And then I have to get the plumber back to replace the plumbing in the bathroom that caused the problem. And all of that has to happen before the restoration guys can start repairing the damage.

Do you think I can get away with a Thanksgiving barbeque on the back patio with paper plates? Because I think that's about all I'm going to be able to manage.

Um...Now What?

2011-11-08T12:10:00.001-08:00

My house remains a minor disaster area. In addition to the industrial de-humidifiers running night and day, we now have soggy drywall and broken tile adding to the ambiance, and a steady drip into a bucket that was not all that alarming until the restoration guys who came by last night advised us to shut off the water to the house to prevent the pipe from bursting while we were sleeping. We decided this was good advice and did as they said. The insurance company still hasn't told us whether they're paying for the damage, but at this point, it's almost moot. They will cover whatever damage is done in finding the problem, even if they later don't approve the claim, which means they have to pay to put everything back together. In this case, that means they essentially have to repair everything anyway.

And I have found a new way to distract myself from the chaos. I picked this up last night (craigslist, $120):

It is marked "Sabina folding loom," made by Loom Craft Studios, Wilmington, Ohio. It came folded up--nice, as it is only about 18 inches deep when folded, meaning it can be stored against a wall without taking up much room. With the aid of some photos printed off Ravelry and the help of my engineer-husband, I got it unfolded this morning.

From the little information I could find online, these were made between 1939 and 1949. They came in at least three different sizes. Mine appears to have a 33" weaving width, judging from what I think are the reeds.

That would be these, I believe. If I'm wrong, someone please tell me. As you can see, there are three of them, and unless I am more confused than I think I am, these go into the beater bar to...uh...pack the weft together (I'm sure there's a technical term for that) as you weave. They are rusty, but don't appear rough or pitted, so I think I can clean them up and use them.

I think these are treadles (this is the back of the loom), and there are six of them, but two are missing the chains that attach them to the things they lift up and down. I think those are the heddles? (Can you tell I know nothing at all about weaving? I ordered a book but it won't be here for a couple of days.)

I mean these things:

The ones with the cords attached on the right side of picture. They lift up when I push on the treadles. What I don't understand (well, among many other things) is why there are only four of them when there are six of the treadles. Anyone know?

The loom appears to be complete, and seems to be in pretty good shape. There isn't anything broken and the wood is solid cherry and appears sound. The hardware is a bit rusty, but still functional.

There is a broken peg on whatever this thing is, but it looks easy enough to replace; it's basically just a dowel with a rounded end.

I'm a little concerned about this part. It came with the loom, but I don't know what it is or where it goes. It is the same length as the reeds, so I suspect it has something to do with them, but it is not obvious to me what it is for.

I'm not at all sure what I am going to do with this. It needs cleaning, which I'm sure I can handle. Beyond that, I'm pretty lost. I've tried to find a manual, but without success. I'm hoping the "Learning to Weave" book I bought will give me enough information that I can figure out how to use it. I do know some weavers in the area, so I have a back up plan in place, and an offer from one of them to come help me warp it the first time. She says that's a full-day operation.

Maybe I should have started with a lap loom.

What Do You Mean "If"?!

2011-11-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

So after the little conversation with the Monday plumber (who, incidentally, was here to fix the brand new water heater, not here for the raining ceiling--and yes, that's another story), we put in a call to the insurance company about the shower leak. They sent out a restoration expert the very next day to assess the situation. There were three of them, actually, and they spent a long time poking at walls and moving furniture and scribbling cryptic notes. They were remarkably uncommunicative during this process. It reminded me of the doctor who pokes and prods and mutters, "Hmmm...that's interesting" during the exam. Not reassuring.

And then the Head Guy--I assume he was the Head Guy, since he did the talking while the other two stood in the background looking grave--announced we need to tear out half our walls, ceilings, and flooring. As he went into great detail describing the parts of my house that are now melting into puddles around us and the potential for life-threatening mold and the possibility of asbestos, all I could think, in my cynical fashion, was "yeah, yeah...that's how you make your money, isn't it?"--until he got to the part where he said, "...and that room upstairs with all the...the, um...you know, where you do your...the room with all the yarn?" and I did the human equivalent of what my dogs do when I say the word "dinner." What about the room with all the yarn?!

It's wet, is what. Not the yarn, thank the KG--and yeah, I asked, twice--but the wall. And the floor. My knitting room shares a wall with the kids' bathroom--the same wall the shower is against. And that wall is, according to the Head Guy, "unsalvageable." As is the IKEA Expedit unit that stores the yarn. Again, according to the Head Guy. This prompted me to ask again about the yarn, and I think he finally caught on that the yarn, for some inexplicable reason, is Important. That maybe it is so Important to the crazy lady of the house that it could be used as a bargaining chip to get me on board with the whole, "we have to tear down half your house" idea. Because he immediately began reassuring me that only one corner of the yarn storage is wet, and he personally removed the yarn from the wet section and put it across the room. And, if the insurance company approves the claim, his guys will very carefully box the yarn, exactly as it is in the bookcase right now, by color, and label it, and make sure it goes back where it belongs.

Oh. Okay, then. Carry on. That will be just...Wait. If. IF? IF the insurance company approves the claim? What do you mean IF?!

And so I learned that, despite the thousands of dollars I have paid the insurance company every year for many years to protect my house--and my credit rating--in the event of fire, earthquake, accident, or other disaster, I am not guaranteed that they will ever pay me should one of these things happen. No. This is determined on a case by case basis by...the insurance company.

Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong? I mean, the insurance company is in the business of taking money, not giving it, right? So what possible incentive could they have to pay out money when they have the option of saying, "Nah. That's not a covered loss. Sorry."?

So I am quietly freaking out to the sound of the ginormous de-humidifiers the restoration guys installed on both levels of my house (the knitting room got its very own) while we await the insurance company's decision.

&*%$!

Water Woes

2011-10-31T14:31:00.001-07:00

So after an entire afternoon spent replacing faucets and scraping out old caulk and spreading new caulk and hunting down every possible leak, as soon as Younger Son turned on the water in the kids' shower, the ceiling began to rain again. I know this, because I was standing directly under that part of the ceiling with a towel, and when it began to drip, I jumped up on a conveniently-placed chair and put my finger over the drip. Actually, I put my finger right into the drip, since my finger did not stop when it reached the ceiling, but instead kept right on going and poked straight through the plaster. Sigh. At least I had moved the now-restored table out from under the leaky spot prior to allowing Younger Son to test the shower. Score one for me; evidently, I can be taught.

So it's official. The leak is not Something We Can Handle Ourselves. It is, in fact, Something We Need to Call Our Homeowners' Insurance About. And that makes me really, really twitchy. When it comes to home repair, there's not much we can't handle ourselves. On the rare occasion that we need to call in a professional, it has never yet required a call to homeowners' insurance. But the plumber, who came today, used words like "wall buckling" and "restoration expert" and "demolition" and "insurance claim" and "deductible" and all that has me just a little freaked out. I'm pretty attached to my house, and the knowledge that someone is going to be cutting holes in walls and messing with pipes is not making me happy. On the other hand, the fact that the plumber immediately mentioned "homeowners' insurance" makes me happy that we do have such insurance, even though I don't know how much the deductible is, because it sounds like whatever it is, the cost of the repairs is going to be more.

Of course, the fact that my house is going to get cut up, and likely stay that way for several weeks, and it's undoubtedly going to cost a lot of money, and be messy and inconvenient, is not the worst part. No, the worst part is that, until that shower is fixed, I will be sharing my shower with two adolescent males. Bleah.

Reset

2011-10-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

I decided my life needed a reset. I think I've been mostly successful. I got the water on before the kids got home from school. The stop payment order beat the check to the bank, so I didn't get double charged for the water bill. The KH's trial is over. We replaced the faucets in the kids' shower, caulked every possible crevice, and threatened the kids with death if they splash water on the floor again. (Has anyone read the Yarn Harlot's new book? I almost choked to death laughing about the water balloon fight. Sounds like something that would happen at my house.)

The wedding book survived the flood mostly unscathed--just a little water damage to the cover and the edges of a few pages, which my husband assures me "adds character." The ceiling, walls, trim, and carpet have dried out, and the damage it mostly not noticeable.

As for the antique table, it was trashed. Really, truly trashed. The KH wanted to just throw it out. He's never been a fan of the table. It's incredibly heavy and has sharp metal caps on the feet that always seem to land on his toes when we're moving it. It has also long had a really ugly finish. To be fair, I don't think it was always that ugly, but it was finished with a high gloss varnish that yellowed over the decades, turning it a sort of shiny yellow-green-brown. To make matters worse, the legs started pulling away from the base many years ago and have defied all efforts to repair them, making it lopsided enough that putting a glass of red wine on it is an adventure.

Despite all this, I didn't want to toss it. Aside from the sentimental value--it was my mother's formal table when I was growing up, and before that, it belonged to an old lady who had inherited it from a relative and had it for decades herself, so it's really old, and I have a weakness for old things--when the leaves are removed and the ends are dropped down, it's the perfect size and shape for under the living room window. In that spot, it's also only a few feet from the end of our regular dining table, which is extremely useful when we have to seat more than eight for dinner. The old table is exactly the same height and width as our regular table, so we just pull it out and set it up end to end with our dining table to make one really long table and toss a tablecloth over the whole thing. With all the leaves in and the tables combined, we can seat 18 people for Thanksgiving, all at the same table.

Also, I love a good project, and I hate throwing out anything that might still be useful. So for the past three days, I've been crawling around on the floor of the garage, revamping the old table. I pulled the legs apart, shaved down the swollen wood pegs, poured in about a quart of glue, and pounded the legs back together with a rubber mallet and clamped it all in place. After it dried, the legs seemed to be totally solid.

Then I stripped the whole thing--not my favorite activity--with chemical stripper and large quantities of steel wool and mineral spirits. I was shocked to discover that the wood under that scary finish is a beautiful red mahogany. I sanded down the water damaged sections as best I could and stained the whole thing with oil based stain. I haven't used oil based stain in many years, because it's a pain, and I wouldn't have used it this time, except that I accidentally grabbed the wrong can off the shelf at Home Depot and didn't realize it until I opened the can. But I'll tell you what: it makes for a gorgeous result. I topped it with a couple coats of oil based polyurethane, and...Wow. The thing is beautiful.

Seeing how pretty is was after its little refurb sparked my curiosity about its origins. A little internet research revealed that it's a Duncan Phyfe style table. Duncan Phyfe was a furniture maker who worked in New York in the late 18th to mid 19th centuries. There are tons and tons of Duncan Phyfe reproductions, but not many confirmed originals from his workshop, since he rarely signed his work.

It is very difficult to tell whether a piece is an original. Some of the indicators are a very old finish (like this, on one of the leaves I haven't refinished):

Beautiful mahogany wood:

Reeded legs with brass claw or paw feet:

Urn shaped pedestals:

And very old, heavy, brass hardware:

Original Duncan Phyfe tables with the original finish fetch upwards of $30,000.

Now, I'm sure this isn't an original and it doesn't matter at all that I let it get water damaged and then refinished it. But dudes, if I'm wrong...I don't want to know.

Irony. I Love It.

2011-10-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

I posted on Rav yesterday about my bad day. That satisfied my need to whine, so I really wasn't going to bring it up here. New developments have forced my hand, though, and I do love a good bit of irony, so here goes:

Yesterday sucked. My kids woke up really cranky and pissed and moaned all the way out the door. The KH is in the middle of a complex trial and is a crazy person, so he can be excused for yelling at the kids while they were whining at me, but it didn't make for a pleasant morning. I finally got them all where they needed to be and started cleaning the house…and I got a call from Younger Son, from the nurse’s office, “I have a stomach ache, can you pick me up?” Meaning, of course, “I don’t want to be here today, can you pick me up?”

After stalling him for half an hour, I finally went and got him (I think my chances for winning the Mother of the Year award went out the window when I announced to the school secretary: "My kid claims he's sick. I'm here to pick him up"), brought him home, and fed him. Discovered Koz had peed on the side of the sofa (he has a marking issue--we’re dealing with it). Threw the sofa slipcover in the wash. Younger Son’s stomach ache magically went away, so (to his dismay) I took him back to school. Ran out of gas on the way. Managed to roll to the gas station and fill up. $65 later, got home and found the washing machine was done, but the slipcover still looked dirty. Turned on the water to wash my hands…nothing.

Called the water department to report a pressure issue. “It's not a pressure issue. We haven’t received your payment, so your water has been disconnected.” WTF?! I mailed the check! “We don’t have it in the system. You have to pay at the payment agency.” Where is that? "There isn’t one near you. You’ll have to drive downtown (45 minutes away) and pay in person." Discovered the water department recently went online. Spent 45 minutes trying to get signed up. Developed a severe case of Tourette's. Finally managed to pay online, called them back with a confirmation number: “Thank you very much; your water will be back on within 24 hours.” 24 HOURS?! Excuse me, but I have kids coming home in FOUR hours! Kids who are going to want dinner, and working toilets!

Called the bank to stop payment on the missing check. That will be $27. In addition to the late fee, the disconnect fee, and the reconnect fee from the water department. Oh, yeah. And the water bill payment. And I still don’t have water. Or clean laundry. And how much do you want to bet the check makes it into the water department's system and gets paid during the 24 hour period before the stop check request goes through? (Hint: there is not enough money in the account to cover both the online payment and the check. It was a really big water bill.)

Got a call from the pharmacy. My doctor only authorized 30 days of my prescription, instead of the 90 I usually get. They have tried to contact her twice, but she won’t respond. Do I still want the prescription? How much is it? Twice as much as the 90 day prescription. Aaargh!

So today, I was looking forward to a better day. You know, one without a meteorite hitting the house. Instead, I got water raining down from the living room ceiling. The boys' bathroom is directly above the living room. Directly above the antique dining room table my mother gave me. The table upon which is displayed the hand-made, leather-bound book my husband wrote and gave to me as a wedding present 15 years ago. The ceiling, walls, trim, carpet, table, and book are all severely water damaged.

Drought to flood. Do you think the KG has a brother? The Water God? Because clearly I pissed somebody off.

Spinning Molly

2011-10-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

If you've been around this blog for a while, you may remember Molly. For the past few years, I've had a bag of her brushed undercoat hanging in a pillowcase in my knitting room closet. Over the weekend, I decided it had been in the closet long enough and began blending it with some combed merino to spin.

I originally intended to use my new blending hackle, but after a morning of utter frustration, I discovered what more experienced fiber artists already know: a hackle is intended to comb out the shorter fibers (here, the dog hair), leaving only the longer fibers behind to become roving. So a hackle is not the right tool if you want to blend shorter and longer fibers. Duh.

Eventually I switched to my hand cards, and things progressed rapidly from that point.

These are my poufy little rolags of fiber, all ready to be spun.

They look and feel like little golden clouds.

And they spin up pretty easily. I am trying to spin fairly thick singles so I end up with a bulky two-ply to use for a sofa blanket. Evidently, I suck at spinning thicker singles. I haven't seen such lumpy, bumpy yarn since my first attempts at spinning.

I'm not sweating it, though. It's going to be an afghan, so however the yarn turns out, it will work. I'll just let the end result dictate the pattern I choose.

And here is the first skein, all washed and pretty. As you can see, it's a fuzzy, thick and thin yarn. What you can't see is that it is incredibly soft. It feels like angora, only denser. Dog hair is supposed to be about eight times warmer than wool, so I imagine it will make for a very warm blanket!

It's a Dog's Life

2011-10-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

I guess Koz likes his new home.

And Again

2011-10-20T12:17:00.001-07:00

While surfing through my Rav queue yesterday, I came upon this--Tinder, by Jared Flood. I immediately had to have yarn this exact color for this project. I had this in the stash:

It is Bartlettyarns fisherman 2-ply in a color that was supposed to be "Rust" but is really salmon pink. Not a bad color, but not the greatest color in the world for me. I decided I could overdye this with orange and brown and get something close to the color I wanted.

I recently bought some dye in "Burnt Orange." It turns out, however, that when I pulled the container off the shelf, I did not read the label. The container was incorrectly shelved, so I had actually bought..."Salmon." Overdyeing salmon with salmon didn't seem all that productive to me.

Not to be deterred, I decided I could come up with my own burnt orange based on the dyes I already had. Not a bad idea, really, since I have red, yellow, and brown. So don't ask me why I decided that red and brown together would turn salmon pink yarn into orange yarn. I have no idea. In my defense, it was late in the day and I was distracted. But rest assured, red and brown do not make orange, no matter how much one may want them to.

Instead, they make this:

It is a truly beautiful deep cranberry--which is, as usual, not what I was trying to achieve, but still lovely, and it will be excellent for Tinder, if that's what I decide to use it for. I had seven skeins of yarn, which is way more than I need, so I left one the original color, with the vague idea that it would make pretty trim for the cranberry.

Maybe facing for the collar? Edging for the cuffs and bottom? Not sure, but I like the colors together, so perhaps I'll work something out.

Just What I Needed

2011-10-15T10:52:00.001-07:00

I finished Ariann Again a while ago. I have rarely knitted a project that failed to please me as much as that one. And there was nothing really wrong with it. I didn't like the yarn, it's true, but it knitted up nicely, and the end result is attractive and fits. It's a measure of my displeasure with the thing that I still haven't bothered to sew on the four buttons that are sitting next to it in my knitting room. By the home stretch, I was so heartily sick of knitting it that I marathoned through just to get it done so I could cast on something in a nice, woolly yarn.

This. This is Snowbird, worked in Marr Haven sport weight in light grey (more of a heathered beige). As I mentioned before, it's not really a sport weight yarn. I'm getting a perfect worsted weight gauge with it. It's very lanolin-y and smells like clean sheep. There is virtually no vegetable matter in this yarn. It does not feel soft while knitting (probably because there is a fair amount of spinning oil in the coned yarn), but it becomes wonderfully soft and squishy after washing. This yarn is the perfect antidote to the commercial acrylic blend I used for Ariann Again, and I think I am slowly recovering.

Another Birthday Present

2011-10-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Now, before you all get all upset about my husband giving me a kitchen appliance for my birthday, he didn't. He actually gave me a gorgeous pair of Frye boots I had been drooling over for some time, but didn't buy because they were stupid-crazy expensive. As it turned out, once they arrived and I tried them on, I didn't like them nearly as much, so I sent them back and ordered this instead, with his blessing. (Yes, it's bright red. Is there a theme here?)

I've always wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer. My mom had one while I was growing up (still in use, and it's 35 years old), and I used it for all sorts of things. But I have a very small kitchen and everything in it has to pull its weight and then some. This mixer has to stay on the counter--it weighs a ton and won't fit in a cabinet. So for many years I've made do with a series of cheap hand mixers.

For the most part, it's been okay. But I like to bake sourdough, and the endless kneading is sort of getting to me. So I've been thinking about a stand mixer for a while. The real tipping point, though, is Younger Son and his love of baking. He's always loved to cook and bake. Even as a preschooler, he would always beg to help in the kitchen. I would sit him on the counter and let him pour in ingredients, or put him on a counter stool and let him make eggs or stir soup.

He's 11 now, and quite competent in the kitchen. He has been our grill master for the past few years, and our cookie maker for a while now. Lately, he has been expanding his repertoire dramatically, which is great. Except that he's not really big enough yet to handle some of the heavy duty mixing on his own, and a hand mixer doesn't work for cookie batter or bread dough. Which means, of course, that I hear, "Mom! Can you give me a hand, here?" a lot more often than I really want to. I figured we'd both really appreciate a heavy duty mixer, for many reasons.

I ordered it from Amazon for an excellent price and it arrived Tuesday evening. Younger Son was thrilled. He immediately called dibs and baked banana bread (a little brown--totally my fault; I sent him to shower and failed to pay attention to the oven):

Then he gave me orders to buy ingredients for a pumpkin cake while he was at school the next day. He's been asking for a bundt pan for some time (how many 11-year-old boys know what a bundt pan is?!), so I got him one as a surprise.

He baked this after school:

Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Delicious!

Have I mentioned I'm on Atkins? Low carb? No flour or sugar? Yeah. This is torture.

A Different Sort of Dye Job

2011-10-10T08:01:00.001-07:00

This is my spinning wheel.

It came unfinished. When I bought it four years ago, I spent a long time standing in front of the wood stain display, debating between China Red and Antique Maple. I love red. Really love it. But I wimped out and went with the more traditional maple.

I've regretted it ever since. Unfortunately, I used paste wax over the stain, so I didn't know how I could ever refinish it.

On Saturday, I went to a local fiber festival and hung out with my wheel in the spinners' circle. There were lots of different wheels, and they were all lovely. But my little Ashford Traveler just looked a little...drab. I thought again how much I wished I had stained it red when I had the chance.

Since Seashells was also there spinning, and since I know she is a woodworker, I asked her if she knew a way to remove paste wax for refinishing. She suggested denatured alcohol or mineral spirits, which is just what I needed to know.

The alcohol didn't work very well, but the mineral spirits was just the ticket--took the wax right off. So I got out the red stain and got to work.

I'd like to say it went off without a hitch. I don't know if any of you remember the paint incident from when I was painting the ceiling of my knitting room, but suffice it to say, we had a repeat, only this time with a full can of red wood stain on the green wool rug in my knitting room. Yes, I was refinishing the wheel in my knitting room. All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I blame the Knitting Goddess. I was trying to stain the bottom of the wheel, it tipped over on the worktable onto a rag soaked in mineral spirits, and I exclaimed, "Well, that's the worst thing that could have happened!" as I grabbed for the wheel. Then my elbow hit the stain can, knocking it onto the carpet, and I heard the Knitting Goddess giggle, "Uh-uh! This is the worst thing that could happen!" And she was right. Three gallons of water and two hours with a carpet shampooer later, it didn't seem like such a good idea, there is still a pink splotch on the green rug, and my back may never recover.

But look!

A beautiful, glossy red.

Just what I wanted, and no one could ever call it drab! I never named my spinning wheel, but now I'm afraid I have no choice. It's just so obvious. Can't you guess?

Rosebud, of course!

Yarn Play, Part 4

2011-10-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

Are you getting tired of this yet?

I'm not. In fact, I'm having a great time pulling yarns from the "sell" pile and dyeing them to get new yarn for my stash!

This is the latest candidate:

What, you think that's kind of pretty? So did I, which is why I bought it. Then I knitted a swatch:

It almost makes my eyes bleed. It's not even clown barf. It's what clown barf would look like the morning after an all-night bender. I'm pretty good at coming up with good uses for questionable colorways, but this one? Yuck.

The yarn, however, is merino bulky from handpaintedyarn.com, which is, I believe, the same as Malabrigo Merino Bulky. Well worth saving, in other words.

I didn't think there was any color that would cover this virulent combination, so I went with good old dark brown. I was hoping it would just cover everything. It didn't. I even added more dye to the dye bath as it was dyeing. Twice. In fact, I ended up using the entire jar of brown dye. No dice. There really is no color that will cover this. (Anyone else remember the country song "John Deere Green"? That's what I hear in my head when I look at this yarn.) Here is what I got:

It's not bad, but definitely not what I was going for--it's kind of a toned-down version of the original. I may try to overdye it again with more brown, once my new order arrives. My husband likes it the way it is, though. Maybe it will become something for him.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-10-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

Friday was my birthday, and it was lovely. I turned 32 again. (I have to choose my age carefully, since I don't want my kids to outgrow me.) My family and some friends came for dinner, which the KH cooked. It was delicious! Filet mignon roast, yum. And Younger Son, who is eleven and a big fan of baking, made me my favorite carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, which was outstanding. As usual, my overly-generous hubby gifted me with some lovely things. My favorite was something I've wanted for a long time. He's tried twice to make me one, but without the proper tools, it just wasn't happening. I am now the proud--and excited!--owner of this:

It's a blending hackle! I have some...okay, a lot...yeah, yeah, TONS...of undyed fibers in my knitting room, including merino, pygora, alpaca, angora, silk, tencel, and, of course three different breeds of dog hair, which I acquired in the hopes of coming up with some beautiful, unique fiber blends to spin and knit. First on my list, for years now, has been the bag of super-soft Molly fur in my knitting closet. Miss Molly crossed over the Rainbow Bridge almost three and a half years ago. I tried a few years back to spin her fur by itself, but it wouldn't hold together. I have long wanted to blend her lovely golden fur with some soft white merino to make yarn for an heirloom sofa throw for the family to enjoy. Now that I have my very own hackle, I'm ready to give it a try.

My dear brother-in-law consulted the KH for a gift idea and gave me a gift certificate to Knit Picks, which I think is going to be used for a tensioned lazy kate for plying. I have an Ashford Traveler, which has a built-in lazy kate. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well with my Woolie Winder bobbins, which have gears the Ashford bobbins don't have. I've thought about getting a tensioned lazy kate for a while to simplify plying, and with a gift certificate and a big spinning project in mind, now might just be the time. Anyone have experience using Woolie Winder bobbins on a lazy kate?

Yarn Play, Part 3

2011-09-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

Although the last round went to the KG and her supreme sense of irony, I still count the dyeing experience as a success: I was able to obtain the color I wanted and to duplicate it on subsequent batches. Since I have lots of yarn--a surprising amount of which is in colors I don't really like--and not a lot of money to spend on yarn, I returned to the stash for another lot to send to the dyepot.

It didn't take long to settle on this:

This is a lovely merino/silk blend in a dk weight. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the colors are in the skein, I have learned through hard experience that I don't at all like the way variegated yarns look knit up. In fact, the sweaters I've knitted from variegated yarns have mostly found their way to the dyepot after the fact.

To add to the problem with this yarn, the skeins don't match. Two are pretty similar, but the other two are totally different. I don't alternate skeins. It makes me crazy, and I don't need any more crazy in my life.

The vastly different colors limited my choice of possible colors for overdyeing this yarn. Almost any color I picked would result in some areas of brown because of the color combinations. So I knew I needed to choose a color that would work with some brownish variegation. And because I wanted to mostly cover the existing colors, I wanted something dark and saturated. I settled on dark plum. I love the color, it looks good on me, and I had the dyes to accomplish it. I knew going in that I would not end up with a solid color, but more of a tonal yarn, because of the underlying variegation. That's okay with me; I like tonal yarns, heathery yarns, tweed yarns...just not strongly variegated yarns. I was hoping for a variety of shades of plummy colors.

Since I knew I was going to dye all this yarn as a single batch, I didn't need to be quite as careful about measuring the dyes. I don't need to duplicate the color later. I decided to start with Vermillion (I use Jacquard acid dyes), which is already a dark red, and add some Sapphire Blue to give it a purple tone. For no reason other than that it seemed about right, I mixed four parts Vermillion with one part Blue. This made a really pretty berry color, but I wanted something darker. I added one part Jet Black, and the result looked pretty good, so I went with that.

Here is the yarn drying (because I like to look at yarn drying):

And here it is all dry:

It came out mostly as I had hoped. There are some small areas that didn't really overdye, so there are spots of yellow and green and orange among the purples, but I think I can work with those. I'll either cut the yarn when I get to them, or leave them in. They're small enough sections that they may create an almost tweed effect against the more solid purple. I won't know until I knit it up.

In any case, I like it much better than the original colorway, so I'm counting this one as a win.

But shhh...the KG is listening!

The KG Bites Back

2011-09-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

So I took my beautiful, freshly-dyed, blue-green wool up to my knitting room to put it away. I organize my yarn by color. Guess what I found?

An entire afghan's worth of gorgeous blue-green Beaverslide wool. Does the color look familiar?

How about now? The one in the front is one of the skeins I dyed. The one in back is Beaverslide.

How about a closeup? Beaverslide on the left, mine on the right.

Yep. I now have enough beautiful, blue-green, aran weight wool to knit a house cozy.

And the KG wins again.

Yarn Play, Part II

2011-09-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last dyepot adventure, so yesterday, as I was squishing all that lovely, natural wool between my fingers, I decided it was time for another one. I want to keep that beautiful Marr Haven yarn undyed, but I have other undyed yarns in the stash in shades that don't excite me.

Like this yarn. I picked this up in a Rav destash a couple of years ago (I stalk the destash board): fifteen 1oo gram balls for little more than postage. It's an undyed, lanolin-rich basic wool. Not the softest yarn I've ever felt--not like merino, anyway--but certainly several orders of magnitude softer than Bartlett Yarns or Briggs & Little, both of which I've tried really hard to like. I'm not a fan of scratchy wools. Anything rougher than, say Cascade Eco Wool is just too rough for my tender hide. This wool feels like a lanolin-y version of Eco Wool. About the same gauge, too, so quite a useful yarn. Just...bland.

I've pulled it out several times to swatch and always put it back. I'm not a beige kind of person, and this is a really, really flat beige. No heathering, no variegation, no depth. Just...beige. Which made it perfect for the dye pot. I've been wanting to try dyeing some darker toned wool, because it provides such a rich base for the color. And lately I've been a somewhat interested--okay, obsessed--with acquiring some heathery, blue-green wool. Something like this, or this, or this.

Since I had a color in mind, I didn't follow my usual leap-before-you-look approach to dyeing, and instead decided to dye up a practice skein or two first. I skeined up the first ball with my trusty niddy-noddy and got to work.

I put the yarn in some warm water to soak while I prepared the dye bath.

Since I wanted a blue-green, I knew I'd need to mix yellow and blue. For my first attempt, I decided to shoot for the "1 teaspoon of dye powder to 100 grams of yarn" recommendation I found on the Knit Picks website.

Mindful of the need to duplicate the results for subsequent skeins, I even measured the amount of each color. I did not, however, consider in advance exactly how to achieve the color balance I wanted. I figured, the yellow is lighter, so naturally I need more of it than of the blue. I mixed three parts yellow to one part blue, mixed like crazy, poured in a glug of vinegar, and dumped in the wet yarn.

Almost immediately, my beige yarn turned dark green. Really dark, dark green. Not blue green. Not heathered. Really dark, solid green. The kind of green Robin Hood would envy. But it wasn't like I could stop mid-dye, so I let it play out. And I got a hank of forest green yarn.

Since I realized early on that my first attempt was going to be too dark and too green, I skeined up another ball, put it in to soak, and thought about the problem a little. I decided, since blue-green is a mix of blue and green, and green is a mix of yellow and blue, I should really have three parts blue to one part yellow. Not very scientific, but hey. It's supposed to be fun, right? Math is not fun for me, so I don't do it.

I mixed up a new dye bath, using the new formula and half as much dye total. The color of the dye bath was much closer to blue-green this time. But again, within moments of putting the yarn in the dye bath, I realized it was much too concentrated for what I had in mind. The yarn immediately became a dark, solid teal. Beautiful, but not what I wanted.

So I went for attempt number three. But since I am not the most patient person in the world, I didn't do another test skein. I concluded that the shade would be perfect if I just used the same amount of dye but three times as much yarn. I'm good at talking myself into things like that. I mixed up another dye bath using the same amounts of yellow and blue, but more water and vinegar, and tossed in four more skeins. I know, I said three, but I wanted to dye twelve total, and that would have been four more lots, and by now it was getting kind of close to when I needed to start dinner, so I cheated and put in four.

This was a mistake. The yarn came out a little too light--kind of washed out looking. Now, I'm sure a professional dyer would, at this point (assuming they were careless or lazy or clueless enough to have gotten into this situation in the first place), have done something totally professional to fix this situation. I, however, added "a little" more of each dye powder in the same ratio as before, poured in a bit more vinegar, and tossed the yarn back in.

Worked perfectly.

The yarn turned out exactly the soft, watery, blue-green color I had in mind. "Ah, hah!" you're thinking, "but how in the world will you duplicate those results with the rest of the yarn?" Well, I'll tell you how: for the subsequent dye baths, I measured the same amounts as I originally put in for each color, then put in "a little more" again, and tossed in the yarn. I figured, "a little more" is probably going to mean almost the same thing to me each time, and the yarn is going to absorb all the color whether I dye it once or twice, so.... And you know what?

Worked perfectly.

Sometimes my own recklessness in the face of the Knitting Goddess's wrath makes me a little breathless.

Here is some of that lovely yarn drying on hangers in the backyard:

And here is how it looks today:

Which is exactly what I wanted.

I love it when I'm successful in spite of myself.

Yarn Play

2011-09-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

My second Ariann is coming along swimmingly. The body and sleeves are done and attached and I'm working my way up the yoke. Alas, I am not in love with the yarn. I used some Berocco Vintage Wool I had in the stash, which is a wool/acrylic blend. I bought it from a Rav destash, even though I'm not an acrylic fan, because the color was lovely, it was super cheap, and the reviews were quite good. Unfortunately, I do not agree with the majority of the reviewers. It feels like acrylic to me, and not in a good way. It's got that plastic-y feel and it's unpleasantly splitty. I think it will still make a nice finished sweater, but I'm not loving the knitting of it.

As a result, I've been craving a nice, wooly yarn. Yes, I have many in the stash, but that didn't stop me from fantasizing about this yarn. I've wanted to try Marr Haven for a couple of years, but I've never bought any. Knitting with the Vintage Wool pushed me over the edge. I decided I the Marr Haven would be perfect for Snowbird, which has been in my queue for a while--and I already own the pattern. It calls for a yarn with a gauge of 20 stitches and 28 rows to four inches. Marr Haven comes in worsted and sport weights, but after spending some time perusing Rav, it appeared to me that the worsted weight was probably more like a bulky, and that the sport weight was likely more like a light worsted. I decided I'd go out on a limb and ordered a cone of the sport weight, which supposedly has 1750 yards.

The cone showed up this morning, and it is as lovely as I had hoped. It is a soft, woolly yarn, with that sweet, sheepy smell and noticeable lanolin. It reminds me very much of Beaverslide 100% merino, which I have used in a bulky weight. This is a zero-itch-factor wool, which makes it perfect for me. I got the light grey shade, which is really a light, heathered beige. The photo is pretty accurate.

Of course, I had to swatch it right away. I used a size six needle, and got an unwashed gauge of 20 stitches by 28 rows, exactly as the pattern calls for. I washed my swatch with warm water and a bit of dishsoap and patted it out. The gauge is unchanged, but the swatch fluffed up and the stitches filled in nicely. The end result is soft, blurry, and perfect. I can't imagine trying to knit this yarn to a sport gauge--to me, it's a perfect worsted weight.

Just goes to show: playing with yarn is a good thing!

What's a Knitter to Do...

2011-09-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

...after two solid days of trolling Ravelry and looking through old knitting magazines and polling the blog and still not finding a cardigan pattern that jumps out and grabs her interest?

If you're this knitter, you become utterly disgusted with knitting, knitters, yarn, patterns, the internet, and life in general. Then you open your closet and look at previous sweaters for inspiration.

And if you're this knitter, you remember that sweater you knitted four years ago and loved knitting so much you promised yourself you'd do it again. And you realize it is one of the most frequently-worn sweaters in your wardrobe, and you would really, really like another one. And then you toss the stash, find some yarn, and cast that sucker on without a backward glance.

This is Ariann (from Chic Knits), which I knitted back in 2007. I had some issues with the knitting of it, exacerbated by the yarn (100% raw silk, which is a b*tch to knit), and the fact that I knitted most of it in the car on the way to and from Lake Tahoe, with two young boys and two large dogs mixing it up in the back seat the whole way. It initially did not turn out well, but after a rework a few months later, it became a favorite in my spring/summer rotation. Super easy to toss on when I'm trying to disguise the fact that I am wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt for the third straight day. I blogged it here (much better pictures).

I always wanted a second version in wool to wear in the cooler seasons. There is no way the Berroco Peruvia I've been dying to cast on was going to work, so I bit the bullet and set it aside. But I did find just the right amount of a nice, dark brown worsted weight wool in the stash, and quickly cast on the first sleeve.

I dearly love the stitch pattern for this sweater. It's quite simple and easily memorized and I can knit it almost as fast as stockinette, even while watching tv, but it's much more interesting to work.

I can hear several of you exclaiming, "But it's lace! Yarnhog hates knitting lace! Lace is the bane of her knitting existence! How is this possible?" My friends, I have no idea. Ariann seems to be the one exception to the Lace Curse. I don't know why it doesn't cause me to break out in boils and spew pea soup while my head spins 360 degrees, but it doesn't. Let's just keep this quiet, shall we? I'd rather the Knitting Goddess not get wind of it.

The second sleeve is on the needles now, and then I'll get to work on the body. One of the great things about this pattern is that, while it is bottom up rather than my preferred top-down, the body is knitted in one piece, the sleeves are then attached to the body, and the yoke is worked all in one piece from there, meaning there are only two tiny seams to sew under the arms when it's done. Love that!

I'm still on the lookout for my Perfect Cardigan for this year, and the opportunity to use my Peruvia, but for the time being Ariann is taking the edge off.

Frogfest 2011

2011-09-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

When the first nip of fall hits the air, I know it's time to reassess my WIPs and UFOs and come to some decisions. Anything that was started, but not finished, during the year goes before the court and gets a verdict--finish or frog. Only one project escaped the frog pond this year, and I'm still on the fence about it. It has been a pain since day one, and if I decide to finish it, there will be a hideous amount of seaming in my future. Ordinarily, I would just frog, but since I held the yarn double stranded, ripping will be a bit more complicated, as I need to separate the two strands as I go. This is more effort than I wanted to expend this morning, and led to my decision to give it a temporary reprieve while I further consider its future.

Eve's Ribs was not so fortunate. I still love the design, and the yarn, but I was not enjoying the knitting of it. The pattern was not intuitive for me, and was too much work to be fun.

Vera didn't pass muster, either. It was a test knit for a Rav designer, and I'm pleased to report I was able to provide useful feedback on the pattern even though I did not finish it. The yarn was to blame in this case: I used hand dyed yarn, and when I changed skeins halfway through the body, discovered the colors did not match at all. This is not something I can live with, so Vera went on the shelf. She is now no more.

Carter was another test knit. Again, not finished, but I gave good feedback. This is also the pattern that made me realize I don't like test knitting. Too much pressure to finish when you realize you just don't like the design.

But the project that kicked off the whole shebang was this one. Ill-conceived from the start, I'm not at all surprised it ended up here. The best part is, I now have enough yarn for a sweater I've been considering for a while, but didn't have yarn to knit.

In addition to several sweaters' worth of yarn, I also reclaimed three sets of circular needle tips, five interchangeable cables, three row counters, and innumerable stitch markers. It's like getting a huge package from your favorite yarn shop for free!

That Time of Year

2011-09-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Every year at about this time, I start to feel the itch. I try to resist. I know it will only lead to disappointment and heartbreak. I know the goal is unattainable. Nonetheless, every year I give in and spend weeks thumbing through knitting magazines, trolling Ravelry, scanning blogs, searching for it.

Most knitters have sought it. A few have thought they found it. None has ever captured it. Still, we pursue it.

I'm referring, of course, to The Perfect Cardigan.

This year I am further along than most years. I have found The Perfect Yarn. For the moment, I mean. The REAL Perfect Yarn is even less attainable than The Perfect Cardigan. But I am nothing if not fickle, and my idea of The Perfect Yarn changes with the wind. At the moment, it is some Berroco Peruvia in Chipotle that I just hadtohaverightnow. I found some on cones on eBay for practically nothing. Less than $20 for a sweater. (And another $11 for shipping, unfortunately. Still, less than $30 for the equivalent of seven skeins. Not too shabby.)

But having The Perfect Yarn has not made coming up with The Perfect Cardigan any easier this year than any other year. If you were to look at my Rav queue, you might notice that it has grown considerably in the past few days. I've found a few contenders, such as this, and this, and this (which, yes, I have already knitted once)...but none of them is IT.

The process is complicated by the fact that I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for. Maybe a shawl collar, maybe a hoodie. Maybe with buttons, maybe open. Maybe with cables, maybe not. See what I mean? What I need is the knitting equivalent of a Sorting Hat to tell me what I really want to knit. Lacking that, I thought I would ask the blog--because that worked out so well for the collar of Francis Again.

What is your current favorite cardigan? (Extra points if it uses aran or worsted weight yarn.)

And the Winner Is...

2011-09-14T10:15:00.001-07:00

...little rolled collar! Wait. That's a cowl. Well, yeah. See, even though the vote was clearly on the side of the little rolled hem, I decided, I'm the knitter, I'm the wearer, so I'm going to make what I want!

And I love it. :)

Not that it wouldn't have looked great with the little rolled collar--it would have been adorable. But I planned it as a cowl and I really wanted a cowl, so...

Right now it is blocking on Bertha (my typical blocking method, because it gives the fabric a realistic stretch). It seems to have grown about 3 inches in length, which is what I had planned, so it should fit perfectly, but I'll have to wait until it is dry to be sure. (That's why there are still yarn ends hanging loose. Experience has taught me it is much easier to pick out the bind off if you haven't already woven in the ends prior to blocking. Once I'm sure the length is right, I'll weave in the ends.)

Modeled shots to follow.

Escape From Sleeve Island

2011-09-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

In all the years I've been knitting sweaters--and I've knitted a lot of sweaters--I've only found one way off Sleeve Island, and that's full speed ahead.

The first sleeve of Francis Again took me three weeks to finish. Now, I'll admit I was distracted by other things, like Mosaic Madness, but still, three weeks is an unreasonable length of time for a single sleeve. So yesterday, when I finally bound off the first sleeve, I immediately cast on the second and decided to knit until it was done.

As you can see, it's done! (I know the sleeves look really short--it's deliberate. This yarn is going to grow like a teenager in the summertime when it hits water, so I knitted everything short in anticipation of wet blocking.)

I've been looking forward to casting on the lovely, large cowl neck, but when I tried this on, my husband took one look and insisted I not put on a collar at all, or if I had to have one, just a minimal little rolling edge collar. Now, I really want the cowl, but he made me agree to ask the blog for its opinion first.

So what say you, Blog?

Large, floppy cowl?

Or little, rolled edge?

We await your decision.

Proof of Knitting

2011-09-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

I told you I had indeed been knitting, and here is the proof:

This is my latest version of Francis Revisited. It's a simple, top down, raglan, cowl neck. Mine does not actually follow the pattern; just the idea. My Flame D'Amore was also based on this pattern, and it's one of my favorite and most-worn sweaters.

I've had this great Cascade Eco Alpaca Duo in my stash for quite a while. I got it in a Rav destash for a great price and I've been wanting to use it for a long time. It's 100% alpaca and extremely soft and warm--probably the softest yarn I've ever felt. Since alpaca stretches and drapes like crazy, and since I knew this yarn would likely stripe, I wanted a very simple pattern in plain stockinette that would look good even if it stretched out. Francis seemed to fit the bill.

This version is truer to the original than my first, including the moss stitch hem. It's a bit floppy, but I suspect it will be fine after washing, when the rest of the sweater grows to match.

And I'm going to give this one a larger cowl than my first as well, since I've found my favorite sweaters these days have cowl necks. I have always avoided them, because my mother hates them, but I bought a few last year to wear with suits and quickly realized they suit my lanky shape really well.

This sweater has progressed rather slowly, as I've been distracted by other things, including Mosaic Madness:

As you can see, I'm up to 12 of 20 octagons. I have yet to start the connecting squares, both because they look boring and because I don't understand the pattern for them. How is it possible not to understand the directions for a four-inch square? I don't know, either, but I still don't understand them.

Well, that was fun...

2011-09-09T09:45:00.001-07:00

I don't know whether those of you outside of southern California heard, but we had a huge power outage here yesterday--pretty much all of southern California, western Arizona, and northern Mexico abruptly went dark yesterday afternoon. Nothing like a complete loss of power to make you realize how dependent you are on electricity. No internet, no tv, no radio, no phone. No gas, either, since the pumps rely on electricity. No air conditioning, no refrigerator, no microwave...I could go on all day. The traffic signals all went out--right before rush hour--which was a nightmare. And my washer and dryer stopped mid-cycle. I suppose it would be paranoid of me to think the whole thing was just a cosmic smackdown directed at me because I was gloating about getting my dryer fixed an hour earlier and was celebrating by doing laundry.

Wouldn't it?

Mosaic Update

2011-09-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble getting the colors to come out right, but you get the idea. Nothing like some bulky crochet for instant gratification!

Multiplying Mosaics

2011-09-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

So. Much. Fun!

I love watching the different patterns emerge. I'm mostly following the pattern, except when I don't feel like it. As you can see, I'm up to six octagons. I think I've almost figured out how to do them now. Crochet is not really my forte, so some of these are a little...off. I'm sure it won't matter once they're all sewn together--or at least, that's my theory. If prior experience is any indicator, I won't have long to worry about it until it is confiscated by one of my family members and spirited away.

I am knitting, too. I have the body and most of one sleeve done on my current top-down raglan. But since it is plain stockinette, and beige to boot, it's not all that exciting to look at. And since it's heavy alpaca, I'm not willing to risk heat stroke to model an in-progress shot for you. I shouldn't complain; while the rest of the country has been melting all summer, it's been mid-70s and perfect here all season. This is only day 2 of our heat wave, and it's supposed to taper off later today. What can I say? I'm a weather wimp. I am counting on the heat to dry my laundry, though, since the dryer is still dead and the repair guy isn't coming until tomorrow. I'm hoping he can fix it on the spot. Send good appliance juju!

Murphy's Law?

2011-09-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

I don't think law school covered the particular section of Murphy's Law that reads: "If you put all the sofa slipcovers in the wash, and it's pouring ass down rain outside, the dryer will die."

FYI.

Canis...?

2011-09-03T14:17:00.001-07:00

Kozmo

Arctic Wolf

What do you think?

Mosaic Madness

2011-09-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

Victory at last! I have recovered the missing camera cable, but not without a lot of drama. I thought I had a solution that would allow me to circumvent the whole cable thing. Sophanne very gently pointed out to me what should have been obvious, which is that there is an SD card in the camera, and I should be able to transfer the images from the card to my computer with the use of a card reader. "Ah ha!" thought I. "I can do better than that! I have a built in card reader in my laptop!" And I eagerly popped the card out of the camera and attempted to fit it in the card reader on the laptop.

Alas, I was foiled. It seems the card in the camera is an XD card, and the slot in the computer is an SD card, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

"Not to worry," I thought. "I have a separate card reader. I know I do because I remember lending it to Older Son a few months back." Um. Yeah. Is anyone other than me surprised that it was not where it was supposed to be?

Not one to give up that easily, I thought, "Well, if the card doesn't fit the slot, perhaps I can find a cable that fits the camera." And I hied myself off to seek out every single flippin' mini- micro- midget- usb cable in the house. You know what I found out? They're all different, but not one of them fits my camera.

In the meantime, however, I found the missing card reader!

So I happily sat down and attempted to plug in the camera card. Guess what? It didn't fit.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I would have done something truly awful to the male members of the household (I had a whole slew of wonderful ideas), but just then, in waltzed the KH and tossed me the missing camera cable!

When asked, he eventually allowed it was "on the floor"--and that's all I could get out of him.

But I have my camera cable back, and so I have photo capability once more! Which means I can share with you my latest obsession, The Moorish Mosaic Afghan. This is not a pattern that would have caught my eye, except that I happened to see this version, and it was love at first sight.

I immediately downloaded the pattern and tossed the stash for yarn in the same colors. I have enough suitable yarn in four of the six colors I need, and of course, immediately ordered the other two colors from WEBS. They have not yet arrived, so you will notice a certain repetitiveness in the colors of my first mosaics:

And yes, if it had escaped your notice before, I am sure you now realize that I have crossed over to the dark side once again. This is crochet, not knitting. Or, as I like to think of it, a whole new craft to screw up. That one on the left? That is the third one I made. Somehow it took twice as long as the other two put together. It took three whole episodes of The Tudors to get through, because I think I ripped out a total of about 70 rounds to get this 14 round octagon. (By the way, The Tudors? Awesome. Definitely rated R, so no kids around while you're watching. If you're an Amazon Prime member, it's free to stream in HD!) Come to think of it, The Tudors may have had something to do with the ripping, now that I think about it.

The pattern calls for sport weight yarn (I think), and I am using worsted-ish weights, so my octagons are quite a bit bigger than the originals--about 12 inches across, pre-blocking. The pattern calls for 30 octagons, plus a bunch of squares and triangles that connect them. I suspect that will make a much bigger, heavier throw than I really want, so I may stop at 20 octagons. This will make for a somewhat different look in the end, but I think it will still work.

Now, if I could just get those yellow and orange yarns. I wonder if the mailman has come yet?

Missing

2011-09-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

Missing: One camera cord. Grey, wrapped in a twist tie. Perfectly cared for and maintained for more than five years. Always garaged in its own space. Lent once to a male family member sometime in May 2011. Missing ever since. If found, please return to this desperate knit blogger so she can finally post some damned photos! Thank you.

Goodbye, Sophie

2011-08-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Sophie
11/17/2004-8/22/2011

Life Wins Again

2011-08-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

In the eternal battle for control, that is. I keep laboring under the mistaken impression that I have some sort of influence over what happens to me. Things would be easier if I could just accept the randomness of chance and stop trying to get anything to work out in accordance with my plans. What is that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

Much has been happening here, little of it what I wanted/planned for/expected. The "volunteer" job I've been working full time since November (and which I had come to love) has come to an end. It is not being replaced by a paid job, for reasons over which I have no control. I am of two minds about this. I am very disappointed, because I loved the job and I was good at it, and I am sort of relieved, because with all the other stuff that's been happening, I'm not sure how it would have worked out had I not unexpectedly found myself back at home. I've spent much of the past couple of weeks scraping the accumulated filth of the past eight months off the various surfaces in my house, becoming reacquainted with my kitchen, and trying to locate the 700 pairs of missing white socks that must be around here somewhere.

Kozmo, the dog from the last post, is staying permanently (quell shock). Unfortunately, he seems to have some sort of lingering respiratory infection that we just cannot get rid of. After four courses of two different antibiotics, we're pretty sure it's not bacterial. After a chest x-ray, it doesn't seem to be anything serious, like pneumonia or lung cancer. And yet the amount of doggy snot is truly amazing. We're working on the assumption it is viral, but he's had it for at least a month, it doesn't seem to be improving, and the other dogs haven't gotten it. Weird.

Sophie (our Newfoundland) is facing a far worse health problem. She has cancer. There is a large tumor in her mouth which is growing by the day. After consulting three vets, we have determined the only treatment is to remove half her lower jaw, which might or might not cure her. After long consideration, we have opted not to do this and are planning to keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible and then let her go. We are only expecting to have a couple of weeks with her. After losing Sam suddenly in May, we are at least happy to have some warning this time.

The kids are more or less back to school, to my great relief. Between doctor visits, shopping, instrument repairs, arranging for transportation, and registration for school and all the various and sundry ancillary activities, I have been moving at a quick trot for the past couple of weeks, my ATM card is smoking, and I've run out of checks. I'd love to know how they can call it a "free" public education.

And our 15th wedding anniversary is fast approaching. We have plans for celebrating it that are supposed to take us out of town--alone--for a few days. Alas, the plans were made BEFORE we knew that the kids' schedules would create something of a perfect storm on the exact days we are planning to be gone. We are currently in negotiations to determine whether we can still manage to get away.

So there you have it. My life in a nutshell. There has been knitting, too, but since my camera cable has gone missing and every member of my family insists they have never used it, touched it, or even seen it, you will have to take my word for that.

Once More Into the Abyss

2011-07-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

How long did you think it would be before another dog came to stay?

This is Kosmo. He came today. He's a Shepherd-Husky mix (we think). Young, male, docile. He gets along fine with Sophie and Heidi, and he loves to cuddle with my boys. He ended up in a local shelter as a stray and was pulled by a rescue group after he was put on the "euthansia list". For three months, he's been boarding in kennels because the rescue could not find a foster home for him. So now he's staying with us while he waits (cough, cough) for his permanent home.

My boys keep asking me how long I'm going to pretend that we're just fostering him.

All Is Well

2011-06-29T19:11:00.001-07:00

Thank you to all those who have emailed or left messages.

All is well.

I am just super busy.

More soon!

Ouch

2011-05-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Today was sort of a perfect storm at work.

You know how you have days were stuff just goes wrong? And then there are days when people are mean to you? And sometimes you have days where you mess up? Have you ever had all those days at once?

I have.

Today.

It sucked.

I came home and realized, in telling the KH about my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, there wasn't one moment all day when I wasn't suffering.

That's a bad day.

So I had a big glass of wine and hugged my family. Family is good. They have to love you, even on the bad days. Wine is good, too. Can you tell?

I guess some days are just like that...even in Australia.

Goodbye, Sam

2011-05-02T17:06:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been visiting this blog for a while probably remember this day. It was the day Sam came to stay with us as a temporary foster dog.

Rapidly followed by this day, when he became a permanent part of our family.

And he quickly became a beloved member of the pack.

He was never the healthiest dog. He came to us with a crushed pelvis and mostly missing teeth, but he never seemed to notice. He was perfectly happy to hop around on three legs and gum his rawhides, and his tail may have wagged in a wacky circle, but he never stopped wagging it.

He was the dog everyone wanted on a sick day, or a sad day, or a sleepy day.

We always figured he'd make a great therapy dog, because just being around him made everyone feel better.

Even people who don't like dogs, liked Sam.

But the past few weeks, he'd been a little...off. And then something happened to his tongue that required surgery. We were never quite sure what it was. For a few days after that surgery, he seemed like his old perky self. And then he wasn't. He was tired. He lost weight. He wouldn't eat. And yesterday, all he wanted to do was put his head in my lap. Last night, his nose started bleeding and wouldn't stop. The KH took him to the emergency vet late last night and he confirmed our fears. Sam was bleeding internally and there was a large amount of fluid around his heart. I woke the kids and the other dogs and we all went to the vet in the middle of the night to say goodbye to one of our own. Everyone had the chance to pet him and talk to him and give him a last kiss, and through it all, Sam wagged his funny tail and seemed to smile at us all. Then I put my hand on his head and he closed his eyes, and a few seconds later, he was gone. Quietly. Peacefully. With his whole pack around. We didn't have him as long as we would have liked, but we loved him, and in the end, that's what mattered.

Goodbye, Sam. We'll always love you.

Hair Trauma Drama

2011-04-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's not that bad. I just couldn't resist a nice bit of alliteration.

I got my hair cut today. This is always a mildly distressing experience for me, but was an even more serious prospect than usual today, since I have been unable to get an appointment with my usual stylist for the past three months and had to go to someone else. She's been cutting my husband's hair for years, and she's great with a crew cut, but that's not really the look I'm going for, ya know? It's not that I don't trust her, it's just that past experience has taught me that I do not communicate well with hair stylists. Somehow, whatever I say comes across as, "Yes, please chop off as much as possible, and while you're at it, make it look like I crossed paths with a rabid dog on my way home."

So I was nervous about the whole thing, but I couldn't take one more day of pulling my hair back into a pony tail to keep it out of my face while I'm working and I didn't have a better option.

I tried to explain my usual style to her, but I guess it wasn't that easy to decipher from the grown-out mess on my head. There was a lot of snipping and combing and snipping and blow-drying and snipping some more. Quite a bit more snipping than I'm really comfortable with, to tell you the truth, and only my over-developed sense of courtesy--and the fact that the woman had a pair of razor sharp scissors to my head--kept me from screaming, "Stop with the snipping already! It's short enough! What are you DOING back there anyway?!"

And then, although I clearly asked her to dry it so the ends curled under, every time I looked up, she was drying the ends with a distinct outward flip. A lot of flip. Enough flip to skateboard off of. But, hey, at least she was done with the scissors, and flip washes out.

The end result is significantly shorter, poofier, and more...uh...helmet-like than I was going for--although that last will probably change after I wash it and do my usual sleep-on-it-wet-as-a-styling-technique routine.

I think I'm more or less okay with it, though. At least the pony tail is gone.

Progress

2011-04-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

On the knitting front, at least.

Warm and Fuzzy (Summer Solstice) is blocking! I finished it last night around midnight and left it soaking in a warm bath overnight.

As I expected (and planned for), the alpaca grew like crazy in length when it hit water. The yarn also softened up nicely and became delightfully drapey.

The end result is a wrap-like sweater that falls below the hip on me--and looks much better on me than on Bertha.

The design is fun to knit, with almost no finishing. I did add a few details that weren't in the original, like these purl stripes on the cuffs, hem, and collar.

It's almost dry now, and I did a little test try-on. It fits perfectly! I'll be taking it to work with me tomorrow, but I'll try to get modeled shots next weekend.

Now, back to that BSJ.

Humorless

2011-04-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time finding my sense of humor today. Actually, I'm having a hard time finding my sense of life-is-worth-getting-out-of-bed today. The KH described the events of the day as "ironic" and said it was a good day in that he wasn't hit by a meteorite. I think we passed ironic a ways back, and frankly, that meteorite is looking more and more appealing.

While I was at my unpaid--but you get to pay for gas and parking and all your other expenses--job, my husband was, with great relief, sending out a large bill to a client after a solid week (and weekend) of work, payment of which...well, let's just say it would be a nice idea, what with property taxes and income taxes being due this month, in addition to all the other bills, and the kids still wanting to eat and all.

And then Sam started bleeding from his mouth and the rest of the day pretty much went to hell.

The KH examined Sam's mouth and found...something bloody. So he took Sam to the vet. While sitting in the examining room, he got an email from the client--the one who now owes us a substantial amount of money. The sense of the email was, "I hate you and I'm not paying." And then the vet came in and told him Sam has a tumor. Numerous tumors, actually, but the big bloody thing in his mouth was the one that needed emergency surgery.

As in, you're not getting out of here without forking over the mortgage payment surgery. Sell your firstborn and all his toys surgery. Cough up a kidney, because that's the only way you're going to pay for this surgery.

'Cause this is a freakin' GREAT week for that.

I'm trying to be philosophical here. I really am. But the past couple of years have been a long, hard haul, and there is no end in sight. I try every day to be cheerful and optimistic and say things like, "It's going to be okay; we just have to keep going. Eventually it'll get better. It's just a matter of time." Most of the time, I even believe it. But today I'm wondering if I ought to just give it up and change my name to Job. My cheerful has gone missing and hasn't left a forwarding address. Stick a fork in me, because I'm done. Th-th-th-th-th-that's all, folks.

But I don't have time for a nervous breakdown. The kitchen needs cleaning, the laundry needs doing, the house needs vacuuming, the sick dog needs meds, the kids need help with their homework...

...and, damn, I need a drink.

Wipped

2011-04-09T15:51:00.001-07:00

I'm generally a pretty monogamous knitter. I don't like to have a lot of WIPs going at once, because I find it distracting. A sweater, maybe a bigger project, like an afghan, maybe a sock--that's about all I can handle at one time.

Which makes it tough to explain what's happening around here lately.

I have had less time for knitting the past few months, since I started working full time away from home. You would think that would cause me to cast on fewer projects than usual. Oddly, the opposite seems to be true.

This is what's been going on:

This is Red Ruffles. I've blogged about it before (you can use the search box if you're interested--I'm not). It's been around for a while, and it went on hiatus after I discovered I had totally screwed up the right front. Eventually I got around to ripping and reknitting that front, sewed it on, and knitted the first sleeve. Which I then decided looked waaaaay too wide. So now the whole mess is sitting in the WIP basket waiting for me to accept that I'm going to have to rip and reknit that sleeve.

This is...something green. I know I blogged about it, and there has to be a pattern around here somewhere, but I don't have the energy to dig it up and figure out what's supposed to be happening with it.

This is the World's Easiest Lace scarf, which I blogged about here. As you can see, nothing has happened on it since that post.

This is my very first BSJ, knitted from some brilliant purple and pink Mountain Colors Bearfoot, my favorite sock yarn. It is for the same childhood friend who received Icarus as a bridal shower gift. She is due in May, so at least I have a while longer to procrastinate on this one.

And then there's this. This is Summer Solstice by Heidi Kirrmaier. Mine is a winter version made from 100% alpaca. And before you point out that I live in San Diego and don't need a 100% alpaca sweater, you need to come spend a day where I work. I don't know what's wrong with the ventilation system in that place, but I swear I saw icicles hanging from the vents on Friday. I don't like sitting at my desk wearing my suit jacket, although it's preferable to having my nose dripping all day. So I thought I'd make a basic grey sweater to keep in my office for when the temperature drops below freezing.

The construction on this is very interesting. I eventually gave up on trying to comprehend it and just followed the pattern. It seems to be turning out right.

There's an awful lot of plain stockinette, but that's not generally a negative for me. If I'm getting a little tired of it, well, I'm almost done. The best part is, the sleeves are knitted first, so when I'm done with the body, I'm really done! Oh. Except for the collar, which also runs down both fronts. Yeah. That could take a while longer.

Somewhere around here there is also a camisole waiting for straps, some black cashmere that wants to be a turtleneck, and half a lonely sock, hoping for a little attention, but I think you get the idea.

I'm not sure what's going on, but if you don't hear from me for a while, send help. I may be buried under the ever-growing pile of WIPs.

Why I Love Kids--Reason #731

2011-04-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

They don't need a reason for balloons.

Groucho?

2011-03-28T17:04:00.001-07:00

I swear he didn't have an eyebrow when I left for work.

The kids swear they didn't do it.

I think it was Heidi.

World's Easiest Lace Scarf--A Free Pattern!

2011-02-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

I had the urge to knit a lace scarf out of some Sea Silk I had in the stash. Alas, we all know my unfortunate history with lace knitting. I wanted to actually enjoy the experience, and after a couple of hours on Ravelry, it became obvious to me that I was going to have to come up with something a whole lot easier than any of the lace scarf patterns available online.

It took just a few minutes to come up with this pattern. There are only two easy rows to memorize, and it is highly adaptable to any yarn and any needles. I used Sea Silk, which is a fingering weight, simply because that was the yarn I wanted to use. I used size 3 needles because I have a pair of Signature straights in that size, and I felt like using them. I would have preferred perhaps a size 5 needle with this yarn, but it's no big deal. I just have a bit denser lace than I would have liked.

I had a hard time coming up with decent pictures, as it is dark out and my kitchen lighting doesn't seem to be the best for this sort of thing. But I hope you get the general idea.

Without further ado, here's the pattern:

Cast on a multiple of three stitches, plus two for the edges. I used 47 stitches, which is giving me a scarf about 8" wide with my chosen yarn and needles. Your results will, of course, vary. If this matters to you, knit a swatch.

Row 1: K1, *P1, K2tog, yo*, end K1

Row 2: *K1, P2*, end K2

Knit until you're sick of it, or the scarf is long enough, whichever comes first. Cast off. Block it if you want to.

That's it. Really couldn't be easier, right?

The pattern as written creates a scarf that is entirely lace, with a single-stitch garter border. If you want more of an edge, cast on a few more stitches and work those in garter stitch. If you want a shawl, cast on more stitches; just make sure you use a multiple of three for the lace section. I think this would make a great shawl or throw in worsted, or even bulky weight, yarn.

The pattern looks great from both sides, which I think is important in a scarf.

So...anyone feel like knitting along? I only have about eight inches done, so you have plenty of time to join me!

FO: Ribby

2011-02-19T09:27:00.001-08:00

I blogged about this one here. Again, a while ago. It doesn't look a whole lot different now, but I thought it deserved an official FO post.

This is an interesting design, if I do say so myself: nothing more than basic ribbing, with a little shaping, but the horizontal ribbing in the center panel makes for a pretty dramatic design feature and adds curves where they don't really exist.

I used some Rowan cashsoft dk I had in the stash for a long time (I ordered it by mistake, thinking it was cashcotton). I debated for some time about what sort of sleeves to make for this. In the end, I decided to make it a tank top, mostly because I wanted to move on to something new and this was the fastest finish.

I did a quick single crochet finish around the armholes to give them some structure.

I've never actually worn this. I think it would be more wearable with sleeves, and some day I may get around to knitting some. In the meantime, I think it would make a good vest over a shirt, but since that's not really a wardrobe concept I've ever embraced, it mostly just sits on a shelf in my closet.

Look! Up in the Sky!

2011-02-12T13:49:00.001-08:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

Knitting content!

I blogged about this one way back here. It's been done for a while and I've been wearing it regularly. In fact, it needs washing, so I decided to get some pictures before I put it in to soak--because, you know, I'm always convinced my knitting is going to hit water and dissolve. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm still on the alert.

This is the one I've named Flame D'Amore. It's based on Francis Revisited, which is a lovely pattern all by itself, but I'm not one to follow a pattern. I worked this from some handspun merino and merino tencel which I plied together for a fingering-dk weight yarn. I knitted it at 19 stitches to four inches for a light, drapey fabric. I added plenty of waist shaping using darts both front and back.

I did this one as a top-down raglan and knitted the cowl neck on afterward. I picked up stitches and worked the sleeves top-down in the round, so there was no seaming at all. We love that!

I left the edges to roll for a light, casual finish. They rolled a bit too much initially, but after a little steam blocking, they relaxed nicely and gave just the baby-roll I was hoping for.

The fabric is surprisingly warm, considering the light weight. I've even worn it to work under a suit a couple of times. It looks great with a black suit; the reds and blacks add a nice pop of color. Since I wear black suits several times a week, I'm always on the lookout for flattering bright colors to wear with black.

Tough Week

2011-01-26T18:23:00.000-08:00

Just...tough. Every day this week, something has gone wrong at work, either personally or professionally. Most of it is not my fault, but I'm exhausted from the stress of dealing with it. I've mentioned here before that I am "volunteering" because the agency I am working for has had a hiring freeze in place for the past two years. Even in normal economic times, the only way in is to start as a student worker or the equivalent, and work for a year or so before applying for a real job. Right now, though, they aren't even hiring people for those positions. To fill the ranks, they are relying on "volunteer attorneys." Which is just what it sounds like: all the work and responsibility, none of the pay. Obviously, not many people can afford to do this. The idea is, those who stick it out will have a much better chance of getting hired when the agency does finally start hiring again. I know; it sound ridiculous. But there are reasons it makes sense for me to do this.

In my position, I am pretty much in the middle of a very extended job interview, so I constantly feel like I'm under a microscope. Whenever something happens around me that draws possible negative attention, I am hyper aware that I am constantly being assessed, and that whatever conclusions my supervisors draw may affect my ability to eventually get hired. I am much more vulnerable than someone who already has a job, because things too minor to ever get anyone fired are more than sufficient to keep me from being hired. Which makes my work life just a weeeee bit stressful.

I'm hoping to post actual knitting content this weekend, once I get a chance to get some pictures and this stress headache has subsided to a dull roar. Until then...

Still No Knitting Content

2011-01-18T09:40:00.001-08:00

I had planned to begin an FO Parade today, but that would have required actually getting FOtos. Which I didn't. We had lovely weather yesterday (if you consider 84 degrees in January "lovely"), but it was also the first day in almost three weeks that Younger Son has been well enough to go out, so I took him to the zoo instead.

You read that right. Three weeks. The poor kid got the flu (despite a flu shot), which lasted ten days, and then he developed pneumonia and dual ear infections. He was absolutely miserable. This began (naturally) on what would have been his first day back to school after the interminable winter break. The KH and I have been tag-teaming kids for over a month now. Today would have been our first kid-free day--so of course Older Son woke up with a fever and headache, and I am home with him instead of doing the bazillion other things I need to be doing.

Like getting FO pictures. &%^$!

All Tangled Up

2011-01-11T11:02:00.001-08:00

This is what I've been doing instead of knitting. My pen ran out of ink, though, so I'll have to take a break until I can get another.

What Sound Do Lemmings Make?

2011-01-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

I was catching up with some of my favorite blogs today and I came across this one of Becky's. It's about Zentangles, which I had never heard of before. Essentially, it's just a form of abstract doodling. It's meant to be very Zen and relaxing. That is quite appealing to me at the moment. Most of my brain power seems to be tied up in my work these days, and with the general stress of trying to manage both work life and family life, I don't seem to have much left over, even for knitting. So this seemed like a relaxing creative pursuit, and since I am nothing if not open to the smallest suggestion, I immediately pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started doodling.

Here is the result:

But I'm apparently not very Zen. Instead of getting into a mindless zone, I kept judging the results and trying to figure out what to do next. I don't have any particular artistic talent, so this required more effort than I expected. I don't think I've drawn anything except knitting diagrams and smiley faces since I was child.

It was fun, though. And maybe with practice I'll even learn to relax.

Poltergeist?

2011-01-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

This is the sight that greeted me when I got up in the wee hours of yesterday morning. My immediate thought was, "We have a poltergeist. Well, naturally." After all, we've had everything else: kids home on break, ant invasions, chicken moult, flu, flooding, fires, skin eruptions--heck, throw in a few locusts and it's been a regular parade of biblical plagues around here. What's a little poltergeist?

But then I looked a little closer and found this:

And I realized that the creative furniture arrangement was the result, not of a poltergeist, but of a frustrated husband. You see, this is what we call The Spot. The Spot is ground zero in the Great Canine Battle for World Supremacy, otherwise known as The Pissing Contest. For the past several months, Heidi and Sam have been locked in mortal combat over "ownership" of this patch of carpet in our dining room. We have tried everything to put an end to this contest. We have gated the area, laid towels and tarps, sprayed it with every "get the hell out of here spray" known to the internet, lain in wait to catch the culprits in the act, yelled and screamed, locked dogs in the laundry room, and confined them to our room at night to keep them out of the area. We have scrubbed and shampooed and swabbed and sopped and sprayed and sprinkled in a vain effort to rid the house of the vile odor emanating from The Spot. And we have failed. Failed utterly. Failed to keep the dogs away; failed to remove the smell. The night before last was apparently The Last Straw.

I was not awake for The Last Straw (praise all gods that be). I was trying to get a few hours of sleep after spending the day caring for a child who was doing his best impression of the little girl from The Exorcist, with a fever that never got below 102 degrees, even with Motrin. (The administration of which was a saga in itself. Suffice it to say, the child can't swallow pills, pukes up liquid meds, and will take only orange flavored chewables, which the KH discovered have been discontinued only after visiting five stores in search of them.)

Since I had to be in court at 8:00 am, I went to bed early, leaving the KH to watch Finding Nemo with Exorcist Boy. At some point after that, but before 1:00 am, which is when EB finally fell asleep, one of the dogs evidently upped the ante in The Pissing Contest by elevating it to A Pooping Contest. And this, it seems, was The Last Straw. The white stuff on the floor is salt. Two boxes of it. It's supposed to be a great desiccant (that's something that dries stuff out). In my mind, I picture a Great Lake of Pee under the carpet, so two boxes of salt seems pretty inadequate. But, hey, it can't hurt. I'm pretty sure nothing could be worse for the carpet than what's already on it. What you can't see in that picture is where the KH pulled the carpet up to look under it. He assures me it is not wet underneath a few feet away and that there is no Great Lake, but I find this oddly un-reassuring. (At some future date, I'll be happy to share with you my Rant Against Wall to Wall Carpeting, The Stupidest Thing Man Ever Invented. It's sure to be illuminating.)

After pouring the salt on The Spot, he created that fantastic modern art installation by piling most of the dining room furniture on top of the living room furniture to create what he tells me is a dog-proof barrier. But considering one of the dogs involved routinely jumps the entire sofa in a single bound to land smack dab in the middle of the KH's desk when she feels neglected, I remain unconvinced.

On the bright side, school break is over, the chickens' feathers are growing back, the yard is starting to dry out, and I have Raid, a fire extinguisher, and two more boxes of salt in reserve, so I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't have anywhere to sit and my sick kid is home for the fourth day in a row, but still. Cautious optimism. How's that for an inspiring mantra for the new year?

Rumors of My Death

2011-01-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

...have been greatly exaggerated. I'm not dead, I'm only MOSTLY dead. (Who can name the movie?)

Things have been busy around here. I was shocked to see that I posted only three times in December. Or perhaps I should be shocked that I posted at all in December. It's a matter of perspective, I suppose. But I didn't want to let any more time go by without wishing you all a Happy New Year...

...and Peace on Earth!

Merry Christmas, San Diego Style!

2010-12-24T14:57:00.000-08:00

Last week we went out on a friend's boat to enjoy San Diego's annual Boat Parade of Lights. It is a uniquely coastal holiday experience, and I thought you all might enjoy it. Happy Holidays!

Stuff I've Learned Lately

2010-12-20T15:41:00.000-08:00

1. "Christmas vacation" means something different to kids who are out of school than it does to parents who are working. (I actually already knew this; I just manage to forget it every year until I am once again forcefully reminded.)

2. The parent who works at home totally gets the short end of the stick when the kids are out of school. Fortunately, that's not me this year.

3. A 13-year-old boy has a very loose understanding of what constitutes adequate vacuuming.

4. My dogs don't like to go outside to pee when it's raining.

5. Dog pee smells really, really bad if you don't notice it for a couple of days.

6. Waiting until Christmas week to do the Christmas shopping is probably not a good idea.

7. Amazon Prime is worth the price.

8. Credit cards can actually smoke if you use them too much. (This isn't true, but certainly seems like it should be.)

9. Judges make mistakes.

10. Pointing out the judge's mistake may not lead to the result you are hoping for.

11. Even good bosses are not always right, but you don't necessarily want to point out their errors, either.

12. Not getting paid for your work does not make you any less responsible for doing a good job, numbers 9, 10, and 11 notwithstanding.

13. It is entirely possible to work full time and still run a home. All you have to do is warp the space-time continuum. (I'll let you know when I get that figured out.)

The Joy of Christmas

2010-12-05T20:05:00.001-08:00

Or, as I think of it, the month of scattered pine needles. Pine needles on the floor, pine needles stuck to your socks, pine needles in the curtains, pine needles in the dogs' fur. I know I'm not the only one who hasn't finished cleaning up the pine needles from last year's tree. It's probably a good thing, really, since if it weren't for having to move the furniture around to accommodate the tree, that corner with the oversized chair would never get vacuumed.

Every year, we get our Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving weekend. I suppose you could call it a tradition. In our case, I think it's just because the only way we can keep track of all the holidays we celebrate is by keeping to a pretty strict schedule. My mom was raised Catholic; my dad was raised Muslim; my husband was raised Jewish. When people ask how I'm raising my kids, I tell them "Tolerant." But despite my best intentions, the holidays get a little complicated. One day a few years ago, we went to a party celebrating my cousin's return from the Haj, came home and lit the Hanukkah candles, and then went to a Christmas party. My kids used to confuse Moses with Santa Claus. And I once overheard Older Son explaining to Younger Son that we light the Hanukkah candles so that Santa can see the stockings when he comes down the chimney.

This year, I totally got slammed by Hanukkah coming much earlier than usual. I keep the Menorah with the Christmas decorations and pull it out the Sunday after Thanksgiving weekend, which is our traditional Day of Decorating. This year, though, Hanukkah struck the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, four days before the Day of Decorating. I realized this on Wednesday evening, right after I got home from working all day, and after the sun had gone down. I managed to locate some leftover Hanukkah candles in the laundry room cabinet, under the hot glue gun and the old pantyhose, but the Menorah was somewhere in a box in the attic, and I wasn't about to brave that place in the dark. I melted some candles to a saucer and used that for our Menorah. What it lacked in sophistication, it made up for in...nothing. There was nothing redeeming about it. But at least we had candles.

Today was the traditional Day of Decorating. Last night, the KH and I got the tree up (I wonder how many marriages break up over that?) and hauled all the boxes of decorations out of the attic. We piled them in the living room, and this morning, I awoke to the sound of Younger Son asking plaintively if I was ready to start decorating yet? He's been asking in much the same tone for a week, so I'm getting used to it.

I wasn't ready, naturally, especially since the KH was gone for the day, leaving me to wrangle The Champions of Sibling Rivalry by myself, but a cup of coffee and some oatmeal made it seem at least possible. I opened all the ornament boxes, sorted the ornaments, and then remembered that I bought all new, dog-friendly ornaments last year. They were nowhere to be found. I completely unpacked every box. No ornaments. Finally it occurred to me that they might not have made it out of the attic. I strapped on a headlamp and went in, carefully avoiding the exposed nails, loose fiberglass insulation, and anywhere that looked like it might house spiders. After some rummaging, I found the missing box right near the entry, under the baby jail we used to contain the puppies. I reflected on how smart it was of me to pack all the ornaments I wanted in a single box near the entry to the attic last year so that I wouldn't have to haul out all the boxes again this year--while I was repacking all the boxes and dragging them back upstairs to return to the attic.

With Younger Son's help, I tackled the tree lights. I got the first strand on without too much trouble--if you understand that this means no more trouble than one would expect to have crawling around and around a spiny tree shoved up against a wall with furniture all around it and a lamp that has to be straddled cautiously with each trip around. Younger Son handed me the second strand and I began my journey again. Around and around and around. It wasn't until the end of the second strand that I realized it was the wrong one. So back I went again, around and around and around. And then back the other way for two more strands. Then we plugged them in. Since only half the bulbs were burned out, I called it good and moved on to the ornaments.

I called in the kids, who immediately began fighting over who got to hang which ornaments and who got the prime spots on the front of the tree and whose ornament was where first and who always gets the best of everything and how much better life would be if they were both only children. I cranked up the Christmas carols and pretended they were noisy elves. After about ten minutes, they both lost interest and disappeared, leaving me in relative peace, until I heard Older Son asking me if there was a faster way to thaw bacon.

Bacon? I didn't recall giving permission to cook bacon. In fact, I wasn't even aware we had bacon in the house. I am not a bacon fan. I don't like the smell, and I hate the grease that gets all over everything. I am absolutely certain that, even wacked out on morphine--which, sadly, I was not--I would never have given The Walking Disaster permission to actually cook bacon in my kitchen. And yet, it was undeniable that he was asking how to thaw bacon faster, and I suspected the question was not merely for personal interest. Also, I was wondering how he was trying to thaw bacon that it wasn't fast enough.

I headed for the kitchen to find him carrying a drippy handful of half-frozen bacon, that he had just removed from a large bowl full of water, across my freshly mopped kitchen floor. I screamed. He jumped. The greasy water splattered everywhere. I caught him before he dropped the wet bacon into the hot pan on the stove, but not before the dogs discovered the rare treat that is bacon grease on the kitchen floor and flung themselves upon it gleefully. By the time I had it sorted out, Older Son was banished to the garage, the dogs were banished to the laundry room, and I was frying wet, splattering, half thawed bacon with my feet sticking to the kitchen floor and every window in the house wide open.

Eventually I made it back to the decorating. I had almost finished the tree when the sound of frantic squawking came in through the window. I ran out to the chicken yard, thinking the gate was open and one of the dogs was harassing the chickens, only to find that one of the girls was missing, and the noise was coming from the neighbors' yard. I ran back through the house to the front yard and down to the neighbors' house. I was about to ring their doorbell when I heard screaming from the backyard, so I ran in the back gate to discover Mimi the chicken floating in the pool while Max the dog barked at her from the edge and Heidi the neighbor tried to reach her with the pool pole. Mimi was the picture of calm amid the chaos, sitting in the water like a duck, not even paddling and making no noise at all. In fact, she looked a little smug, having defeated the Great Canine Menace, who is afraid of the water. Heidi the neighbor successfully fished her out of the pool and I returned the perfectly happy, albeit sopping wet, chicken to her yard and finished the decorating.

I can hardly wait to see what the rest of the season brings. Thank God I'm working tomorrow.

Treading Like Crazy

2010-11-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

Things are going about as you would expect when one parent who has always been at home goes back to work in an office, leaving the other parent, now at home full time but also still working full time, to contend with all the various and sundry household and family chores that necessarily arise as a result of kids and pets and chickens and laundry and shopping and cooking and other chores.

That is to say, not perfectly.

So far, though, we are keeping our heads above water by treading frantically. Things are a bit messier and less organized than I would like, but I'm learning to let it slide. I don't think the dust buffaloes are actually dangerous, after all.

The four-day weekend was a help. I did a truly enormous amount of laundry, vacuumed the house, watered the plants, did the grocery shopping, and lavishly petted several seriously disgruntled dogs. We hosted Thanksgiving, which involved a whole lot more shopping and cooking and cleaning. I am proud to say that, three days later, I finally finished the last of the dishes. The boys had a sleepover here Friday night. I woke up to the Great Nerf Gun Battle of 2010, Older Son broke my favorite vase (a wedding present), and Heidi peed in three different spots, yet they all survived, so again--proud of myself. And a dear old friend of mine came to visit on Saturday and showed off her baby bump--a huge deal, since she and her husband (in their 40s and 50s, respectively) have been trying for quite a while and have been through two miscarriages in the past two years. Saturday night is Date Night, so the KH and I went out for Afghan food, sans children--who have been home for nine straight days. That was great on many levels.

I felt so inspired by all this that I put a double batch of sourdough batter out to rise last night, thinking I could bake today and have enough bread for the week. As I usually do, I warmed the oven slightly and put the dough in it to rise before I went to bed. This morning, the KH got downstairs before me and decided to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. You can see where this is going, right? My double batch of sourdough, responding to the delightful warmth of the heating oven, rose and spread and overflowed all over the oven, to the grave detriment of both the oven and the dough. I probably should have stopped while I was ahead...or at least, less behind.

Despite all the activity--or maybe because of it--I have been knitting. Here's proof:

This is a progress shot of Flame D'Amore, the top down raglan I've been working on. The yarn is handspun merino and merino-tencel plied together. It's about a dk weight, but I'm knitting at a worsted gauge, so the sweater is light and drapey.

I am basing the design on Francis Revisited, but mostly making it up as I go. I'm very happy with the way this is turning out. As you can see, it's a fitted design (Bertha and I are the same size), with a moderate cowl neck.

The edges are rolled, because I like rolled edges. I'm planning on elbow- or full length sleeves. I like the short sleeves, but I find longer sleeves are more wearable. Especially now, since my new office is just a couple degrees shy of "arctic". I'm not kidding. It's so cold that my nose runs and my fingernails turn blue. I have taken to wearing sweaters under my suit jackets and I am planning to knit a pair of fingerless gloves to wear while I'm working. I didn't start this with the idea of wearing it to work--hence the casual style--but I'm going to try it with a jacket and see if I can pull it off.

At some point I do have FOs to show you, but it's not easy to find time these days for a FOtoshoot, so I'll just leave you with the song that's running through my head, "Just keep knitting, gotta keep knitting..."

Whirlwind

2010-11-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Just stopping by to say I may not be stopping by as often for a while. I started a new job on Monday, and may I just say...wow. How do people go to an office all day, every day, and still have time to do anything else? It's been 15 years since I worked full time away from home, and if you do the math, you can see that was before I was married, before I had kids, before I had a house and a community and responsibilities. The past three days I've been taking part in an intensive training program, which has been super exciting and interesting, but also exhausting. I don't want to go into too much detail, so suffice it to say that it is a very fast-paced, formal, professional environment. Virtually everything I am doing is brand new to me. I just got my first assignment, which is awesome, high-profile (think national news), and deadly serious. I'm kind of stunned, actually. I am tremendously excited, because it's a great assignment and a huge opportunity, but I'm also scared sh*tless. And I start...tomorrow morning.

Mr. Yarnhog has been terrific. He is totally supportive and excited for me, and he has really stepped up, shuttling kids and cooking and taking on household chores, but he still has to work full time, even though he works from home. It's a huge adjustment for both of us and it's going to take a while to work it all out. So I need to go do twelve loads of laundry, shovel the house, resuscitate my garden (which hasn't been watered in a week), locate the bathrooms under the accumulated filth, do the grocery shopping, bake bread, walk the dogs, make sure the kids are still alive, and take them to the dentist. Oh, and we're having a birthday dinner for Oldest Son tonight, so I suppose I should figure out what I'm going to make and do something about a cake. Holy smokes. How do you all do this?!

It Ain't Just a River in Egypt

2010-11-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

This is the progress I've made on my happy knitting.

What's that you say? Smaller than in the last picture? Ah, but that's only because you didn't see the part where I finished the whole raglan, separated out the sleeves, and tried it on. And it was too short. Way too short. Which I knew it was going to be several inches earlier. Not suspected, not feared: knew.

How, you ask? Well, first, because I calculated my row gauge and it was apparent to me that increasing every other round would give me a raglan only five inches deep. I even calculated that increasing every third row instead would give me a raglan that was the right depth. And then I started knitting and increased every other round anyway. My rationale was: "I always increase every other round for a raglan and it always comes out right. Even though, in this case, the numbers tell me I should increase every third round instead, I am going to disregard that, because I always increase every other round and it always comes out right."

So I knitted for a while. And it was pretty clear pretty early on that I was increasing at a rate that was going to get all my increases done well before the raglan was deep enough. But I thought, "Eh," and kept knitting.

When I had only two increase rounds to go, reality began to assert itself a little more forcefully, as I realized that the only person this raglan was going to fit would be someone under three feet tall. So for the last two increases, I increased every fourth round. Because surely that would make up for the entire rest of the raglan and magically add three inches, right?

Inexplicably, it didn't. But, hey, I'm a knitter. I can make it work. I continued to knit without increasing for an inch or two, until my raglan line stared to morph into something less identifiable and even I had to admit that it didn't look quite, um, right. At that point, I decided it was probably good enough, separated out the sleeves, and tried it on.

Yeah. Nothing like a fit test for a reality check.

I momentarily considered possible work arounds involving steeking and grafting and messing with the space-time continuum, and then I finally bowed to the inevitable and ripped. Hard.

It's a good thing I like the yarn, because it looks like we're going to be spending a lot more time together than I initially planned.

How Yarnhog Got Her Groove Back

2010-11-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

Note the lack of resemblance to a black, fingering weight camisole. (Or a green angora lace shrug. But we will not speak of that.)

A week or so ago, my knitting get-up-and-go...got up and went. I've been struggling ever since. Not just with knitting, either, as you can tell from my last post. It seems that when the knitting ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Logically, then, finding my happy place with my knitting should bring back the happy to the rest of my life, right?

And this is my knitting happy.

I have a sweater's worth of this gorgeous (if I do say so myself) handspun, which has been maturing in the stash for a while. I had a design in mind for this, but my interest in the concept waned during the spinning and I never did cast on. After spending an entire morning perusing my Rav queue, and then everyone else's Rav queues, and feeling nothing more than a passing flicker of interest in any of the patterns, I decided what I really needed was yarn inspiration. A quick trip to the stash reminded me of this beautiful yarn and I was off and running.

This will be a top-down, raglan, cowl neck pullover with elbow-length sleeves, similar to Francis Revisited. It would actually BE Francis Revisited, except that I don't want to knit this yarn at the very open gauge required by the pattern, so I had to rewrite the pattern to accommodate my worsted weight handspun, and while I was at it, I made the cowl a little smaller, shortened and narrowed the sleeves, and decided on rolled edges rather than seed stitch trim. So the pattern is more of an idea than a set of instructions. I'm okay with that.

After a plain grey tank top and a plain black camisole, I'm loving this nubby, soft, variegated, red yarn. I'm also loving the fact that a round is something less than five million stitches. As soon as I cast on, I felt like I had exhaled. It felt like that moment in yoga class when you've done all the exercises and you finally get to the part where you close your eyes and relax, and you take a deep breath and feel your joints loosen and your bones sink into the mat. Just like that. And that's a good feeling.

So the rest of my life should be smoothing out any time now...right?

Stuff That's Gone Wrong Lately

2010-11-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

Lots of bloggers have regular lists, like "Ten on Tuesday" or "Random Wednesday" or the like. I like this idea, because it seems like a really easy way to whack out a blog post, even if you can't find your camera cable and your last three WIPs are in the fireplace just waiting for a match. But none of the existing lists really capture the flavor of my daily life. I need a different theme. Something along the lines of "Stuff That's Gone Wrong Lately." Consider this the pilot episode.

Stuff That's Gone Wrong Lately:

1) Heidi and Sam are engaged in a pissing contest over ownership of a patch of carpet in my dining room. Actually, I think Sam has dropped out of the contest, but Heidi doesn't seem to care. Half my dining room furniture is currently piled on top of the towels covering the spot on the carpet in a truly futile effort to keep her off of it.

2) The Lysol I am using to keep my house from smelling like a back street stairwell caused Sophie to have a seizure yesterday. (Which, incidentally, made her pee on the carpet. Ironic, that.)

3) I finally got a much-needed pedicure--and immediately afterward caught my big toe on the brake pedal of my car, snapping the nail off halfway down.

4) I'm starting a new job Monday. For which I am not getting paid. I do get to pay for parking, though, so it all balances out.

5) In anticipation of starting the new job, I decided to henna my hair to cover the increasingly prominent grey. I didn't have my glasses on while I was mixing the henna, though, and failed to notice I was using the box labeled "Red" instead of the box labeled "Auburn". There is a really big difference between "Red" and "Auburn". I don't think they're expecting Bozo the Clown, but that's who's showing up on Monday.

6) I also--inexplicably--forgot to wear gloves while applying the henna, so now my hands and nails are also a lovely shade of orange, which is bound to make shaking all those new hands a fun experience all the way around.

7) I decided I was smarter than the designer of the camisole I'm test knitting and "modified" the straps. I now have to rip back black, fingering weight yarn and then pick up several hundred dropped stitches. There's not a bright enough light in the world to make this happen without hair rending, sobbing, and an eventual descent into drunken remorse.

8) Due to a scheduling collision which resulted in fatal injuries to my plans for today, I had the chance to sleep in this morning. To make up for it, I had raging insomnia last night.

Hmmm...I could get used to this list thing. Whining is kind of fun!

Halloweeeeeeen!

2010-11-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Mr. Yarnhog!

2010-10-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

The love of my life.

This picture was taken at Civil Air Patrol Encampment this summer. He hadn't slept in a couple of days. He doesn't like this picture because he thinks he looks worn out. I love it because it shows his commitment to helping develop awesome young adults and his love for our kids.

What Was I Thinking?!

2010-10-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

I am an instant gratification sort of knitter. I like aran weight yarn. I like top-down knitting. I like no finishing. I like plain stockinette. I get the kind of rush from casting off a project that is usually reserved for heroin addicts. In short, I am a knitter of limited patience, which explains my aversion to knitting lace and socks. Or, heaven forbid, lace socks.

It does not explain why I thought it would be a good idea to test knit a lacy camisole in fingering weight yarn.

Somewhere around row seven bazillion, I realized I am essentially knitting the world's largest sock. With lace trim. Aaargh!

This is Cecily, which I've mentioned before I am test knitting for the designer, Snowden Becker.

Now, don't misunderstand: this is a lovely, lovely project. The design is just beautiful. It may, in fact, be the perfect knitted camisole.

The pattern is excellent, and the shaping is truly inspired. Check out the princess-seam waist shaping:

And the beautiful bust darts:

I have just started a third set of shaping at the top of the bust, but you can't really see it yet. And the straps are even bra-friendly without being chunky.

It's a gorgeous project. But if I have to knit any more stockinette in the round in fingering weight black yarn at 7 stitches to the inch, I may just lose it completely. Fortunately, I am almost to another set of...lace repeats. Oh, joy.

Fiber Tool FAIL

2010-10-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

I really did plan to share my newest fiber tool with you, but alas, after finishing, marking, and drilling that piece of wood I showed you in the last post, something went horribly wrong and the thing had to be scrapped. Not to worry--I have already acquired materials for a second attempt. I can tell you, though, that it is not a loom--although the number of people who guessed that makes me wonder if I ought to reconsider my no-weaving stance.

Instead, I have this to share:

This is about 1200 yards of dk weight cashmere. What makes it interesting is that it started out as about 3600 yards of lace weight cashmere. This yarn was originally a couple of women's machine knit pullovers. It was reclaimed by...someone. Not me. Then I acquired it and discovered that knitting with crinkly frogged lace weight cashmere is not part of my skill set. We all know my history with lace knitting. But it turns out it is possible to re-ply an already plied yarn to turn a lace weight 2-ply into a dk weight 6-ply. So after two days of plying and winding and washing, it is now a weight that will actually get used around here.

Now comes the real dilemma. I bought this yarn to knit a sweater for my husband. After a year of not knitting it, I bought him a machine knit black cashmere sweater. I think this gets me off the hook and I can now use this lovely, lovely yarn to knit a sweater for myself. He asserts that the yarn is his, independent of the sweater I later bought, and that any sweater that comes from it also belongs to him. We have reached an impasse. We could resolve it the same way we do all the major issues in our marriage--a game of high-stakes Yahtzee--but I thought I'd appeal to the knitters first. What say you: am I obligated to make him a sweater from this, or can I knit one for myself? And if I am obligated to knit for him, would it be adhering to the letter of the law if I knit a sweater for him that will only fit me?

Spinning My Wheels

2010-10-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

I'd love to be able to show you any of the three finished sweaters I have yet to do FO posts for, but alas, it has been pouring rain for two days here--in itself, a very good thing--so decent pictures are out of the question.

Instead, here are some crummy pictures of the yarn I finished spinning and plying yesterday. It looks somewhat better in person, although I'm not thrilled with it. It was prettier in the roving; the finished result is a bit muddy and bland looking to me.

I have two large skeins of this (eight ounces worth), in what I think is about a sport weight. It will probably end up being a camisole eventually. The very blandness of the color, which is actually a combination of silver, purple, and green, will make it a good choice as a layering piece.

I have another project in the works. It's not a knitting project, although it does have to do with yarn. Here's a sneak peek:

(The project is the piece of wood, not the teenager. He is also a work in progress.) Any guesses what it might be?

Rib-it

2010-10-07T15:30:00.001-07:00

A bigger woman than I would just admit she's been lazy and distracted, but I'm totally going to blame the weather for not blogging for the past two weeks.

After the soul-killing record heat, the temperature abruptly plunged fifty degrees overnight and the sky opened up with pouring rain for two straight days. The startling temperature change wreaked havoc on traffic, tempers, and sinuses, and there has not been a day in the past two weeks when some member of my family was not sick.

The weather also substantially interfered with my blogging, since I wasn't about to go outside in 110 degree heat to take photos, and pouring rain and fog aren't conducive to great photography, either.

Today, however, it is 70 degrees and clear--just beautiful, actually--and so I have photos to share, and advice to ask.

This is Ribby in progress:

I got to this point a couple of weeks ago and stalled out. The problem is, I can't decide whether to go sleeveless, cap sleeve, or elbow length.

You can see here that I started to make a sleeve on this side. I tried it on when I got this far and my husband immediately announced it needed to be sleeveless. (He says I have great shoulders--gotta love that man!)

This is the sleeveless side. If I don't do sleeves, I'll do some sort of edging here, either a little bit of ribbing or a crochet trim to make the straps wider and more substantial.

My goal for this is a top I can wear in a conservative, formal office environment under a jacket, but that won't be inappropriate if I take off my jacket at my desk. So whaddaya think: sleeveless, cap sleeves, or elbow length?

Just Shoot Me

2010-09-27T12:22:00.001-07:00

Weather for San Diego, CA 92129

- Add to iGoogle

110°F | °C

Current: Sunny
Wind: E at 9 mph
Humidity: 11%

Mon

106°F | 67°F

Tue

86°F | 64°F

Wed

83°F | 63°F

Thu

81°F | 62°F

Detailed forecast: The Weather Channel - Weather Underground - AccuWeather

Knitting Slut

2010-09-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am a faithful person. Devoted to my husband. My children. My friends.

Just not, apparently, to my knitting.

I cast on for Eve's Ribs, as I said I would. And I was excited, too. It's a lovely pattern and I'm doing it in a lovely yarn. But...it's lace. It's easy lace, lace in dk weight yarn, lace on big needles, but...it's lace.

I suppose it was inevitable. I suppose, given my history with lace, that I shouldn't have expected to be able to remain faithful.

It's just a little embarrassing how quickly and completely I succumbed to the charms of a new, non-lace project.

This is Ribby, for lack of a better name. I know it looks a little, um, weird, but I think it's going to work out just fine. Right now I'm planning for it to be a tank top to wear under a suit, but I may make short sleeves instead. I'll decide after I get it assembled. The pattern is nonexistent; I'm just winging it. The yarn is Rowan Cashsoft DK, which I ordered by mistake a couple of years ago, thinking it was Rowan Cashcotton. I've never used it because I'm not a huge fan of light grey generally, but it's the perfect color to wear with a black or charcoal or navy suit, all of which I own.
The thing is, cheating on Eve's Ribs seems to have opened some kind of door. Now all I can think about is all the other great patterns waiting for my attention: the cardigans, the pullovers, the jackets, the coats...

This morning I was checking out Rav and found this. It is a modification of this Rebecca pattern. I was instantly assailed by that "MUST HAVE" crazy and clicked over to Rebecca to download the pattern. While I was there, it seemed a waste to click "buy" for just one item, so I also downloaded this.

Now I am knitting away on Ribby, fantasizing about the newest patterns in my queue of ten bazillion others, considering yarn and color options, figuring out which needles I can free up.

Damn. I admit it. I'm a knitting slut.

And the Winner Is...

2010-09-11T16:05:00.001-07:00

...Eve's Ribs, by Carol Sunday!

This will be my next knit. It was not in my queue. It does not qualify as office attire. It is not the dressy black wrap I so need for going out at night in the fall and winter. In other words, it is a total lark. I can't justify it in any way, except that I have the perfect yarn (Cascade Indulgence) in the perfect quantity in my stash, and it's not earmarked for anything else, and I just feel like knitting it, darn it!

The pattern offers several sleeve variants. I like the long, flared sleeve best:

It is not an easy pattern to modify, so I'm not going to. I figure the alpaca/angora blend I'm using, combined with the lacy ribbed pattern, will probably stretch like crazy and end up fitting me just fine. It's a loose knit anyway, so fit is not so critical. For once, I'm just going to blindly follow the pattern and see what happens. That will be an adventure all by itself!

FO: NLCA

2010-09-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

And here it is: The Noro Log Cabin Afghan!

I started this back in March and fairly quickly worked up all the very addictive squares. But then it took a while to plow through all the assembling, which involved miles and miles of garter stitch and almost as much grafting.

In the end, it was totally worth the trouble. The afghan is warm and colorful and lovely to curl up with.

I used 20 balls of Noro Yuzen--which is a wool/silk blend, labeled DK weight, but really a worsted--in 10 different colorways. I made the blocks using this tutorial, which was really easy. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the blocks and kitchenered them together to create strips. Then I picked up and knitted along the edges of the the strips and kitchenered them together to create a rectangle. (I used a different yarn for this, which I pulled from the stash.)

I should have made my strips narrower, since a) they ended up wider than the "logs" and b) I ran out of yarn before I could make the border as wide as I wanted. But calculating exactly how wide they needed to be to use all my yarn without running out too soon would have required...well...math. And I try to minimize the need for math in knitting, because, as I have proved time and again, math lies. I know there are those of you who disagree that math is inherently dishonest, and maybe even those who would suggest that I--myself--might in some way bear some responsibility for the way math has repeatedly failed to conform to my knitting reality, but I reject those arguments and repeat: math lies.

So, after much consideration, I decided to use the "ah, screw it" approach to making a border and just started single crocheting around and around the edge of the afghan until I ran out of yarn. Which, naturally, happened two feet before the end of a round. At that point, I extended the "ah, screw it" approach to its natural corollary, "ah, f*&! it!", ripped back to the end of the side (not all the way back to the beginning of the round, which would have made the border the same width on all sides but also narrower on three sides), and tied it off. I figure, no one will ever notice that one side is one row narrower than the other three, and I used up all but a few feet of my yarn.

Being familiar with the ways of Noro, I soaked this baby overnight in some water with a good dose of fabric softener, and it's now drying out on the deck. Since I've also finished Morgaine (modeled pics coming soon!), I am now without project on the needles! I will be remedying that situation in short order, as soon as I decide what I feel like knitting next. I am getting ready to start a new job in a formal office environment (more about that later), so I am trying to come up with a sweater I could wear in that setting. It's the sort of place you have to wear a suit every day. I was thinking a fitted shell or sweater for under a suit, but I been able to find any patterns I think would work. I'm not averse to designing my own, but I don't really have a vision for it. Any suggestions?

Got Money?

2010-09-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

Actual conversation with my ten-year old yesterday:

Son: Mom, which one is better, Harvard or Yale?

Me: Harvard.

Son: Huh. How come?

Me: Because I went to Harvard.

Son: You DID?!

Me: Uh huh.

Son: Wow! No wonder you're so smart. I'm going to Harvard, too.

Uh oh.

I'll be accepting donations to his college fund, in case anyone's interested.

Seamless

2010-09-06T16:45:00.000-07:00

I love seamless knits.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as finishing the knitting and just...putting it on. No piecing, no fitting, no sewing. Especially no sewing.

It doesn't get you out of blocking, of course, which is why these are still not modeled shots. When I finished knitting Morgaine this afternoon, I gave her a nice bath and then hung her on Bertha to dry. (That's what constitutes blocking around here.) As I expected and planned, she has grown significantly in length, and I think she'll fit perfectly once she's dry.

I have some pretty ceramic buttons I've been saving for a while which I think will work well on this. I just need to sew them on and make a few button loops, and this one will be an FO.

Come on, Fall!

Make New Friends...

2010-09-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

...but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold!

Was anyone else a Girl Scout? Did you have to sing that song every single meeting, too? The wretched Beatles medley after John Lennon was assassinated was almost a relief.

Here is proof that the FO parade was not just an excuse to cover the fact that I haven't been knitting. I have indeed been knitting. Here is the current state of the Noro Log Cabin blanket:

Yes, that is all the squares, edged and grafted together!

And here is the yarn I have left:

Although it looks like a fair amount, my calculations indicate that there is not enough to do the matching border I intended. My calculations consist of considering that it's taken me six and a half balls so far. There are three long strips and two short strips. I have two and a half balls left, and to do a matching border would mean knitting a bit more than two long strips and two short strips. Even in my math-resistant world, this equals not enough yarn.

I am taking suggestions. This yarn is discontinued and utterly unavailable (I've looked). It is impossible to match, being a wool/cotton/nylon baby boucle in plum (I've tried). So my options are to make a smaller sort of border, like maybe an applied I-cord (god save me), or to pick an entirely different yarn for the border. I am leaning toward the narrower border, but I'd love to hear other options. I have spent too long on this to give up now, no matter how tempting it may seem at the moment.

And this is Morgaine, which is what I am calling my version of this pattern--the one I didn't order because it was only available by snail mail and I am not that patient.

Instead, I just used the photo as a guide. And I've saved about as much time as you save when you get caught speeding and spend half an hour exchanging pleasantries with the Highway Patrol. I have ripped almost as much as I have knitted. Natch. But I think I have it worked out now. I had to set it aside for a couple of days when I ripped the sleeve cap for the second time, but I'm reasonably happy with the current version of the cap and I think it will end up perfect after blocking.
This yarn is Ultra Alpaca, so it will undoubtedly grow like crazy in length when it hits water. I am counting on it, in fact, since I deliberately shortened all my measurements to accommodate this growth. (Now watch; this will end up being the only non-growing alpaca in history.)

I gave it a hood, which will benefit from a good blocking.

I also did a shirttail-esque short row hem, which is longer in the back than the front. I was thinking sort of a medieval cloak shape. The added advantage is that it covers my butt without hanging to my knees in the front.

These are my only "real" WIPs right now. "Real" WIPs are those which stand a chance of being finished in the near future, as opposed to the other sort of WIPs, which are just UFOs in denial. (We won't discuss how many of those I have floating around.)

And you know what that means, don't you? It means I will be picking a new project in the next few days! Ah, the possibilities...

FO: Spring Folly

2010-08-31T11:52:00.001-07:00

If you've been around here for a while, you may remember this project. This was my Spring Folly project of 2009. Most years, when spring rolls around, I am overcome by the urge to knit something cute and perky that I would never in a million years actually wear. Previous Spring Folly project include Sparkly and the Spring Fever Cami.

This particular Spring Folly may be the silliest of all, and I dearly loved knitting it. For the record, I have never worn these. I can't quite figure out in what context a pair of frilly, knitted bloomers would work in my wardrobe. Or anyone's, really. Maybe Madonna's.

Still, these are totally fun. If I had a little girl to knit for, I would totally size these down and make a pair for her. I think they'd be adorable on someone under the age of five.

Since I am a bit over the age of five, these live in my closet and have come out only this one time since I finished them a year and a half ago.

Pattern: Unmentionables, by Lee Wood Juvan

Size: Small

Yarn: Jaeger Roma in Fern

Needles: Size 6 KnitPicks Options circs.

This concludes our FO parade. Stay tuned for new knits in our next regularly scheduled broadcast!

FO: Enchanted Wood

2010-08-28T11:46:00.001-07:00

Just to prove that I actually have knitted a lace shawl, may I present Enchanted Wood (also know as Hell Freezes Over).

I did this as part of a Unique Sheep KAL in February. I did post blocking shots back then, but never got around to the official FO post.

The yarn is from the Unique Sheep, in what they call a "gradience" colorway, which is a series of specially dyed skeins that progress from on color to another as you move from skein to skein. I like the idea, but it works better in some colorways than others, and the progression is occasionally a little more abrupt than I would like. I suppose that's the nature of hand dyeing. (It didn't stop me from ordering another gradience colorway for their next KAL...which I dropped out of during the eternal and horrific cast on. But that's another story.)

This was also my first (and only) attempt at knitting with beads, and I loved it!

I haven't had an opportunity to wear this yet, but it does grace Bertha (the dress form) in my craft room, so I get to enjoy it every day anyway.

It remains to be seen whether I will (successfully) tackle another lace shawl, but at least I can prove I knitted one once!

FO: Lillian

2010-08-26T09:46:00.001-07:00

This is another of my blog-neglected FOs. I test knitted this for Lucy Sweetland of a black pepper last fall. It was one of the more challenging knits I've done, and if I hadn't been on a deadline, I'd never have finished it in less than a month!

Pattern: Lillian, by Lucy Sweetland.

Size: 34" for my 35" bust.

Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Classic Al. I really love this yarn. It's a 50/50 wool and alpaca blend that is soft and springy and holds its shape really well without pilling. Two of my most often-worn sweaters are made of this yarn, and they both look great after much wear. Not itchy, either, and I'm pretty sensitive.

Needles: KnitPicks Options circulars in sizes 5 and 7.

Despite the complexity, it was a fun knit. I love knitting cables, and these ones were relatively easy because the cable repeats all coincide with each other, unlike some complex patterns, where the repeats all fall on different rows (Death By Cables, I'm looking at you!).

This is a great winter sweater. I wore it all last winter with all sorts of different outfits. I particularly like the sleeve detail.

The only things I don't like about this sweater are the i-cord cast on (never, never again), and the saddle shoulder, which makes for an oddly square-ish shape. This is probably due as much to my finishing as to the nature of the saddle shoulder, but whatever the reason, I won't be repeating this design feature in the future.

August 24, 2010

2010-08-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

August 24, 1996

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart!

FO: Knitting Sunshine

2010-08-23T16:52:00.001-07:00

I've been remiss, as usual, in blogging my FOs. I had to dig through the blog archives to figure out when I started this. This is the one I named Knitting Sunshine. I knitted it back in April and I've even worn it in public, but this is its official blog debut.

Pattern: Multnomah. This is a free pattern written for one skein of sock yarn. I used 630 yards of dk weight yarn and added a few rows.

Yarn: British Mohair Kidd Silk. Absolutely LOVE this yarn! So soft and slightly fuzzy, and the most gorgeous shade of gold.

Needles: Knit Picks Options circs, size 5.

Mods: Just added a few repeats of the garter pattern to use up my yarn and adjusted the lace pattern for the edging accordingly.

Thoughts: A wonderful, warm shawl pattern. I would happily make this again and again, if I were the sort to repeat patterns. The dk weight yarn made a thick, weighty shawl, due to all the garter, and the fact that I used fairly small needles for the yarn gauge.

Strips

2010-08-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true: now I have strips for real. As opposed to the strips that existed only in my mind. But more than that, in some sort of knitting miracle, I didn't use any yarn. Well, not any real yarn, anyway. Somehow, I managed to do all the strip assembly using only overlooked partial balls of yarn that I didn't count in any of my optimistic calculations for the rest of the blanket. And this has put me right back where I thought I was before that awful moment when I pulled out squares when I should have pulled out strips: I may actually have enough ancient, discontinued yarn for the rest of the blanket! (For the record, this is the solid purple boucle yarn in the picture, not the Noro. I looked on Ravelry and found only three stashes with this yarn, and none in the color I need. Nor was there any available anywhere else online. So really, this is more of a drama than I usually choose to engage in.)

Onward, knitting soldiers!

What To Do With All Those Zucchini

2010-08-17T10:20:00.001-07:00

This made me laugh really, really hard.

Cosmic Smack Down

2010-08-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

So I was knitting along happily on my new sweater and finished the body and hood, and then I hit a snag. Not a major snag, but one that required me to take a little break. Feeling the need for a little mindless knitting, I pulled out the Noro Log Cabin blanket that's been waiting patiently for a while. If you recall--as I did--I had finished all the squares and assembled them into strips. No mean feat, that, since it required miles and miles of garter stitch and grafting. But I persevered and conquered and all that, and I distinctly recall the relief with which I put all those assembled strips away in a basket to await the final assembly, requiring more miles and miles of garter stitch and grafting. At some point, I even got the first two strips put together, with three left to go.

All this I remembered, and I pulled out the blanket with some sense that, if I couldn't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel, at least I was beginning to believe there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I knitted and knitted and knitted, with a growing concern that the ancient and discontinued yarn I was using for the assembly might run out before the blanket did. I grafted and grafted and grafted, and finally the third strip joined the first two on the blanket and it was good:

At this point I paused and assessed the yarn situation. After some thought and some calculating and a little bit of unwarranted optimism, I decided I just might have enough to finish the assembly and put on a border. Maybe.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I reached into the basket to pull out the fourth strip and found this:

Those are not strips.

Those are individual squares.

I distinctly remember strips.

This not only means I have to invest god-only-knows-how-many-more hours in assembling these b*&!^%$s into strips--it also means there is no-freakin'-way I have enough ancient, discontinued yarn to finish both the assembly and the border.

*&%!

Life Does

2010-08-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Life is just doing its thing around here. Younger Son goes back to school tomorrow, Older Son is deeply involved in Civil Air Patrol activities, Oldest Son got a new apartment, the KH got some good news that is easing a little bit of stress we've been experiencing, and I am engaged in my first job hunt in more than 15 years.

I have an almost pathological aversion to looking for work. It's not that I'm not qualified for anything, or that I dread interviews, or that I don't know how to talk to people. Quite the opposite, in fact. It just seems like such a mountain to climb, trying to communicate who you are and what you can do in a couple of pages of resume, a brief chat on the phone, or a morning sitting across a desk from a total stranger. It's usually exhausting, often irritating, and sometimes depressing. And that's before the rejections start rolling in. It also has not escaped my notice that the last time I looked for work, in 1991, the nation was in the midst of a nasty recession that left 75% of my Harvard graduating class still out of work a year after graduation, and now, in 2010...well.

But it's time. Fourteen years ago, I resigned from my last "outside" job when I got married. I was a diplomat for the U.S. Government, and my then-fiance was an aerospace engineer in San Diego. I was posted to Moscow (the one in Russia), and scheduled to be reassigned to the far ends of Siberia with no phone service, internet, or international airport. This seemed a less than ideal locale from which to conduct a marriage, so I made the decision to leave that career behind, get married, and then figure out where to go from there. I moved (back) to San Diego two weeks before the wedding and I've been here ever since.

In the meantime, I had two babies and became a lawyer, the aerospace engineer moved to the computer industry and then became a lawyer, and we started a law practice. Since becoming a lawyer seven years ago, I've been working mostly part-time in our practice and working mostly full-time raising kids.

Now I want to do something different. Something that comes with a steady salary and full benefits to help balance out some of the disadvantages of the KH being self-employed. When I started law school, it was with the idea of eventually becoming a criminal prosecutor. By the time I graduated, with a toddler and a preschooler in tow, this sort of demanding, full-time career was no longer a viable option for our family. But now the kids are older and somewhat self-sufficient, the KH works mostly from home, and I am finally in a position to consider what I want to do instead of what I can do. So I've put in applications to the various government institutions that prosecute the bad guys and some of the private companies that help them do it, and we'll see what comes of it.

For now, though, I'm clinging to my yarn and needles and my favorite mantra: "Keep calm and knit on."

In Case You Were Wondering

2010-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is how you fit ten sewing machines in a 10'x12' room:

On top of the bookcase.

On every level surface, under the desk, and inside the cabinet.

And lined up along the wall with the extension tables removed to conserve space.

Oh, and I did say ten. I know last week it was nine, but this week it is ten. This is number ten:

She's a 1955 Singer 201, often called the finest machine Singer ever made. I can't attest to that, since I haven't tried every--or even most--machines Singer ever made, but she is a beauty. She has a "potted motor", which means that she is gear-driven. No belt to stretch or wear out and she's very quiet. Not nearly as powerful as my Pfaffs, but definitely an elegant lady. Once again (sorry, Kat!) $25 on craigslist, with the art deco cabinet. Yes, I am aware that I am approaching crazy cat lady territory with the sewing machines, but when they fall into my lap for less than the cost of a skein of sock yarn, what's a sewing machine enthusiast to do?

FO: Buggy

2010-07-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Buggy--otherwise known as Hey, Teach--is officially done!

The Details:

Pattern: Hey, Teach! by Helene Rush.

Size: Um. Small, I think.

Yarn: Rowan Summer Tweed. No sir, I don't like it! This yarn was a pain to knit--literally. A heavy worsted raw silk and cotton blend with no give or flexibility at all; my wrists and elbows may never recover. It does make for a nice finished fabric, but not nice enough to go through that again!

Needles: size 7 KP Options.

Mods: I made the body two inches longer and did elbow-length sleeves. I also added buttons (6 instead of 4). I added extra ribbing to the neckline to bring it up a little higher and keep it from sagging. Oh, and I did twisted ribbing instead of regular 1x1 ribbing because I prefer it. Otherwise I followed the pattern on this one. It's a nice pattern if you don't mind seaming. Personally, I think I'm going to stick to seamless garments for a while!

And So He Grows

2010-07-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned before that the KH and Older Son are in Civil Air Patrol, which is the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. The KH was a cadet for several years way back in the 1970s in Ohio, and it was a major life experience for him. Older Son joined the local squadron when he turned 12 last year. Since then, he's participated in many really great events and programs, but last week he took part in the most important CAP cadet experience: Encampment. This is boot camp for CAP cadets, and it is just as tough for them as real boot camp is for new military recruits. We knew he had no idea how tough it was going to be, and we wondered how he would do, and how it would change him.

Saturday was graduation day. It was the culmination of a week of 18-hour days, grueling physical training, enforced silence, endless drill, and a wild roller coaster ride of teenage emotions. For Older Son, it was a week of firsts: getting up at 5:00 am; learning to make a bed with military precision; standing perfectly still for hours on end; facing and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles; eating, sleeping, and peeing on a schedule...and his first shave. Which I missed. For some reason, this one detail represents for me everything he experienced during this intense week of change and growth.

He's only thirteen; I still think of him as my little boy. But at the same time, he's turning into a man before my eyes. Even as he drives me crazy with his messy room, his bizarre, testosterone-driven decisions, and his endless drama of teen angst, he has moments of remarkable maturity, impressive competence, and genuine responsibility.

There are brief, shining instants when I see past the little boy he has been and the half-grown adolescent he is to the man he is becoming, and it is inexpressibly poignant.

It is a mother's job to raise adults, not children. Doing her job well renders her obsolete. It will be many years yet before my kids are truly grown and gone, but every now and then I can see the future in my little boy's eyes, and I wonder what sort of man he'll be. Will he be strong and competent and responsible? Will he be compassionate and thoughtful and reliable? Will he be the man I am trying to raise? I don't know; I can only watch and wait and hope.

But for now, in this moment, I have never been prouder of him.