"I Wish I Were a Pill Bug."

My husband and I aren't really sports fans. Okay, okay: we're not sports fans at all. I can't tell you when baseball season is or who won the Super Bowl last year or name more than three big name sports stars. Or maybe two.

We don't watch sports on tv, our kids have been to exactly one baseball game (where we stayed for two innings while one slept and one whined), and our one attempt at Little League was an unmitigated disaster.

So we were a little surprised when our then-seven-year-old announced last year that he wanted to play football. I didn't even know he knew what football was. Are you sure? Do you know how to play? That's the game with the pointy ball, you know? If you sign up, you have to play the whole season, right? Yeah, yeah, Mom.

I started hunting down a football league. It turns out, around here at least, the only kids' football league is Pop Warner. I was a little put off by the expense, and the paperwork, and the letter that read, in part: "Football is a very serious commitment," (because, you know, I have a hard time taking anyone in tight pants running around after a ball all that seriously). But the most astonishing part was that the flag football teams, which are made up of 5-7 year olds, have mandatory practice three nights a week for an hour and half, with games every Saturday! This, in my not-so-humble opinion, is completely insane. But if your kid wants to play football, it's literally the only game in town.

And as crazy as it is, it's nothing compared to the absurdity that is tackle football, which is what my now eight-year-old is playing this year. The eight-year-olds have practice two hours a night, five nights a week, with games every Saturday. Which means, if you're counting, that they play football six times a week. If you factor in driving time, we as a family are committed to nearly 20 hours per week of pee wee football--when the completely football-mad coach doesn't keep us half an hour late at practice or insist on a meeting after the game. On practice nights (i.e. every weeknight), my son doesn't get dinner until eight pm, which is actually his bedtime.

But if I find it all annoying and just slightly over-the-top, my poor husband has it much, much worse. He's an assistant coach. He coaches at every practice and every game and is regularly required to attend coaching workshops on the weekends and coaches' meetings at night. He is not a football fan; he's a dad, and he's doing his best to be supportive of his kid. He's a good coach, because he's good with the kids and does a great job of keeping them enthusiastic and making it fun. But I think it's safe to say he doesn't care a whole heck of a lot about playbook or the game films (yes, really) or the coach's latest plan for scoping out the competition.

So when he found out that he had to attend a coaches' meeting tonight (to go over game films at the bachelor apartment of the head coach--who doesn't even have kids, by the way--to the accompaniment of "hot links"--and I can only speculate what those might be), the one football-free night of the week, he was...disappointed. He's been...disappointed...all day. But the closer it got to the time he needed to leave, the more he slumped into the sofa, and the more scrunched up his face got, and the more his whole demeanor just sort of projected "I don't wanna!"

When I got home from walking the dog this evening and asked him, very gently, "Isn't it time for you to be going?", he gave me the same expression the dog usually reserves for those mornings when she doesn't get waffles and answered morosely:

"I wish I were a pill bug."

At least they don't play football, huh?

Wow.

Since I just finished the Lacy Hug-Me-Tight, I'm down to one project on the needles (that would be the Opulent Raglan, which only needs sleeves). I prefer to have only one or two projects going at a time, otherwise I start to feel overwhelmed. (Sort of why I only have two kids, come to think of it.) But with only the one, and only a few days of knitting to finish it, I'm starting to itch for my next project.

So I put in a little quality time with my Ravelry queue. I find the queue function useful, not so much to plan what I'm going to knit when (because I'm way too fickle for that), but just to have a list of things I like and might want to knit or use as inspiration for something to knit. I do have some specific projects in mind, including the Winter Wonderland coat, Silver Belle, and Shirley Paden's Pewter Coat, (all Ravelry links, sorry!) just to name a few, with yarn waiting in the stash for each of them. And I do plan to knit them all this fall/winter. I was just clicking around, trying to decide which one appeals to me the most right now this second, when the doorbell rang.

Sometimes fate sounds just like a ringing doorbell.

I opened it to find a box full of this:

This is Beaverslide McTaggart Tweed in Arrowleaf Balsamroot (it's green, I swear, but I can't convince my camera--click on the color name to see the real color), which I couldn't resist ordering after reading Jared waxing poetic about it one more time. I tried. I really did. I visited the website at least six times in three days, each time adding yarn to my cart and then closing my browser without hitting the "submit" button. But, weakness, thy name is yarn--and I finally couldn't stand it anymore.

I popped open the box and pulled out the first skein...and all I could say was, "Wow."

It's gorgeous. Nubby and rich and tweedy, of course, but also soft. Much softer than I ever thought a wool tweed could be. And when I--the queen of all wool wimps--can call it soft with sincerity, that means you could knit a bra out of it and not be sorry. (At least about the texture. I can't speak to the issue of support, never having had anything that required support myself.) This is wool, no doubt about it, with a delightfully rustic, "mule spun" texture, and subtle sheepy fragrance, but it feels almost like a cotton or silk blend. I keep squeezing it and rubbing it against my neck, just to see if I'm mistaken about its softness.

I was immediately possessed with the need to cast on with this stuff. Unfortunately, I bought it without an actual project in mind. (Bad Yarnhog!) There isn't anything in my queue that calls for this weight of yarn either. But there is a project in my favorites that has been haunting me for a while now. It's another knitter's own creation (Ravelry link here), so there is no pattern, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. For those of you who aren't on Ravelry, it's a top down, hip length, swingy jacket in an aran weight tweed. The yoke is done in garter stitch, as are deep bands around the cuffs and bottom. The rest is stockinette. Very simple and totally appealing. Also perfect for wearing around the house, working at my desk, taking the kids to school, running out to the grocery store, and a multitude of other daily activities, which most of my sweaters are not, since I tend to knit projects that require an outfit to look good.

And it just screams for a soft, nubby tweed. So if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of sleeve knitting to get through before I can cast on for my new project. If you need me, I'll be in my butt groove.

FO: Lacy Hug-Me-Tight

Pattern: Lacy Hug-Me-Tight from Knit 2 Together by Tracy Ullman and Mel Clark
Size: Small/Medium


Yarn: 5 skeins Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk dk in Ivory
Needles: Sizes 5 and 8 KnitPicks Options circulars


Modifications: Absolutely none.


I loved knitting this, despite the Endless Lace Trim. I think I've covered the issue of not being a lace-knitter pretty thoroughly in previous posts. This was, by any definition, easy lace. Still, it took me a long time and a lot of teeth-gritting to get it done. Most people complain about all the 2 x 2 ribbing. I enjoyed that part the most. I suspect this is because I knit continental style, and it appears to me that ribbing is easier to knit that way. (Please note, this is not a value judgment or a condemnation of English style, or combined knitting, or any other way you may choose to make loops out of yarn, including--gasp!--with a hook. It's all good with me. This is just an observation, 'k?)

This took much less yarn than I expected. In fact, I have enough of this yarn left to make at least one more of these, and maybe two. Not that I'm planning to do so. But I could!

60 Inches...and Counting!

It's true: I finished the Endless Lace Trim! Well, at least, I finished the trim for the body, aided by the season premier of The Shield and the series premier of Sons of Anarchy. At this point, I'll take that as a victory.

But, as you probably figured out some time ago, I have been ignoring a basic reality of separately-knitted trim, which is that, at some point, the trim needs to be sewn on to the sweater, or it's really just a fancy scarf.

Yes, those are binder clips from the local office supply store. I find them to be extremely useful for holding seams together while I sew them.

So as not to lose heart at the thought of 60 inches of mattress stitching in lace, I pretended I was done with the lace knitting and that this was the last step in the finishing of this sweater.

It seems to have worked, since the trim went on with surprising speed and ease and didn't even require ripping! I've laid the shrug out to give you some idea of how it looks on. The structure is odd. The body is really just a rectangle, folded in half and sewn halfway up the side seams, leaving half open to serve as armholes. Then the long strip of lace is sewn on around the bottom edge of the rectangle, and the two short strips of lace are sewn around the armholes, and voila! A shrug. The fabric is so drapey that the rectangle eases into a soft, curved shape around the shoulders that is surprisingly flattering. It will be a few days before I can get a modeled shot, so you'll have to take my word for it for the moment.

In the interests of not losing momentum, I've already cast on for the sleeve trim.

I wonder what's on tv tonight?

And just for the heck of it, here's a typical shot of Sophie the Escher Dog napping on the kitchen floor. How do you suppose she twists her spine like that?

Fashion Cycle

Is anybody else feeling the need to party like it's 1977?

36 Inches

I'll admit this is getting tedious.

Here's the ubiquitous progress shot on the endless lace trim:

But I have officially reached three feet, of the five that I need for this piece, and the seven that I need total.

It would probably be going faster if I weren't also working on this, which is ever so much more fun:

Yes, it's time for another crappy bathroom mirror wip photoshoot. Note to self: clean bathroom mirror before next photoshoot. But as you can see, despite the embarrassing spots of what I can only hope is toothpaste, the Opulent Raglan is progressing swimmingly. I love that fancy cable up the front, and it's so easy! I haven't done much in the way of modification to this one, except for increasing the length and adjusting the spacing of the waist shaping to fit. Oh, and I replaced the turned hem with some simple 1x1 ribbing, which will match the ribbing on the neckline. The turned hem looked sort of lumpy and unfinished to me in other FO pictures, and ribbing is faster and easier and gives a more finished look, in my opinion.

I'm just about to pick up stitches for the sleeves, having already done my daily lace-knitting penance. I still haven't decided exactly how I'm going to do the sleeves, but to my own surprise, I'm leaning toward knitting them as written!

School Daze

It's official. The new school year is kicking my butt. (No, we didn't just start school today. I am competent enough to handle one day. This is week three for us, and I'm apparently not competent enough to sustain that first day performance for three weeks.)

Getting up at six am is the worst part. I'm not a morning person. I'm not even a before noon person. It is still dark out at six am. My body flatly refuses to accept that it is daytime when it is still dark out. The alarm goes off and I have the same reaction every morning: "WTF?! Who set the $@%#!&^ alarm clock for the middle of the night? Oh...no. That's just not possible. Already?! &*%!"

But my scatterbrained kid's morning performance is a close second. My older son is very, very bright, and very, very distracted. He talks at me a mile a minute while my brain is working in slow motion, and somehow manages to misplace his glasses/wallet/bus pass/homework/shoes every single morning. Last night I asked him 16 times, "Are you ready for school tomorrow? Do you have any homework left? Is your backpack packed? Are you SURE?" To which he responded each time, "YES, Mom!" with much disgusted eye-rolling. At eleven, he's just on the brink of coming into his own as a teenager. I shudder to think what he'll be like in two years, once he's in the full grip of testosterone psychosis.

This morning, he couldn't find his glasses, his wallet, his student ID, or his bus pass. He hadn't done his reading response and hadn't added his reading totals, nor had he given me any of the papers that needed signing. He discovered each of these lacks individually, after I asked him, "Do you have your [fill in the blank]?" To which he responded each time, "Uh...no! I'll go find it." Note the choice of word here. Not "I'll go get it," which would imply he knows where it is, but "I'll go find it," which implies (correctly) that he has no freakin' clue where it is.

By the time I finally got him out of the house (after sending him back in from the car when I discovered he had socks but no shoes), I knew we were going to be racing the bus to the bus stop. We lost. So I hung an illegal U-turn and hauled him through three different school traffic jams to the middle school, sans sunglasses, which were in my purse on the counter, in the brilliant morning light, and before my morning coffee. "Why are you so mad, Mom?" he asked, bewildered.

By the time I got home from that little unplanned jaunt, I was 20 minutes late waking up my younger son for school. "Come on, Sweetie. Time to wake up. We're really late today," I whispered. Younger son smiled sleepily, stretched leisurely, opened his eyes slowly, and looked at the clock. "Oh, you think?" he exclaimed, with a vast wealth of sarcasm. "Next time, wake me up earlier, Mom!"

It's eight am. I'm going back to bed.