Knit one, School two

Queen Susan Wednesday #2

2012-01-25T14:17:00.002-06:00

Start time: 1:25

End time: 2:00

Bread Bowls, Soot, and Obligatory Knitting Content

2012-01-24T13:02:00.002-06:00

For Christmas, I received a Bread Bowl.

To season it, I followed the directions which came with it. Coat thickly with olive oil or other food grade oil, let stand 3-4 hours, wash, dry, and enjoy your seasoned bowl. (That's a loose paraphrase, by the way.) Except the next day, the wood looked a bit dry. So I coated it again, and again, and again ... and two cups of olive oil later, it still looks a bit dry to me.

Then I had to figure out how to use it. I looked online, and saw that at least one person made her bread in it from start to almost-finish. She mixes up the dough for 3 loaves in there, kneads it, lets it rise ... and bakes it elsewhere. I gave it a shot, mixing up one loaf's worth of dough and making a mess all over the counter. The bowl isn't that deep. And kneading in it was tough - I banged my wrists on the narrow sides and got bruises on my legs from the bowl spinning on the table when I tried to rotate the dough. Hmmm. I must be missing something. It's a gorgeous bowl and I want to use it ... any ideas how one can safely use it? I've got the bit about putting the dough in, letting it rise, and then shaping it and doing a final rise elsewhere. I can't do a final rise in the bowl since the dough sticks (despite generous flouring of the bowl, or additional oiling of the bowl).

On another topic ... here are my gorgeous pink gloves AFTER being scrubbed with soap and water. Soot is a pernicious, dirty thing. My fingers are still soot-streaked, a day after cleaning our stove WITH the gloves on. This does not bode well for Queen Susan. I'll have to schedule my cleaning for days that I don't have much knitting time. (I did discover that a baking soda scrub, followed by dish soap, can work wonders for getting soot out/off of things. It's not perfect, but it's better than anything else I've tried)

Speaking of knitting time, I've been hard-pressed to come up with 'traveling knitting' projects to work on lately. I fell back on hats. Two watch caps, Jali, and now a Fish Hat, to be precise.

Today's a home day. I need to brave the elements and walk over to the post office to mail some packages, but apart from that - hot soup, a cuppa tea, and some sewing are on the agenda before I sit back to knit.

Queen Susan Wednesdays

2012-01-18T15:16:00.002-06:00

I love Fridays!

2012-01-14T09:00:00.003-06:00

Fridays this semester will be FUN!

Yesterday I finished my shawl (for the second time - the first time was in 2010).

I knit a swatch with the double-knitting technique to test a pattern.

And I got a good start on lengthening Filius's Christmas gansey.

All in ONE sitting. With no snacking. Or distractions. Or anything else of that ilk -- although the head of campus security did stop by to see if there were any spots on campus that Filia could think of which could be tweaked for better accessibility. (They're working on next year's plans, and he wanted her input. The college gets top marks for wanting to be accessible! There was one minor question we had, about getting in a locked-but-oh-so-convenient external door - and within 10 minutes, she had the right hardware to open it.)

Yes, Fridays are the day that I drive Filia to college and then wait until her classes are done to drive her home. I can do shopping in town then, but a minor surgery done just before class made me want to stick around 'just in case' since the last minor surgery of that sort had a wee complication before the day was over. No complications this time, which meant more knitting.

I'm also listening to Little Dorrit on my Kindle, and some Psalms on my iPod - but not at the same time. I just LOVE blank space in my day that cannot be gobbled up by stray dust bunnies, search engines, or random weeds.

How about you? If you had to sit somewhere comfortable for 5 hours or so once a week, what would you do? Go beserk? Bring jogging gear and shun the chair? Nap?

Odds and Ends

2012-01-06T10:39:00.003-06:00

Today is the last day of vacation. Filia starts an 11-credit load at Bethany Lutheran University on Monday, and Filius and I will dive back into his books. That makes today a perfect day to continue tidying, straightening, decluttering, and preparing for a new year.
One thing that needed doing was the Emptying of The Yarn Labels Bag. Over the course of 2011, I tried to keep all the yarn labels from my various projects. The final count is 77 labels. They will now go live in the recycling bin until Thursday, at which point they will join the ranks of post-consumer content. Maybe in some yarn?

One of my lesser-favorite things to do around the house is to clean the corn stove. I should probably call it a pellet stove, since we're burning wood pellets this year instead of corn ... but old names die hard. Wood generates a lot more soot than corn. Corn generates more ash than wood, at least on the (in)sides of the stove. Corn produces a 'clinker' - a nice solid chunk of spent fuel that can be pryed out of the firebox and popped into an ash can. Wood produces a bunch of ash which has to be scooped out. Both make my hands very dirty during the weekly deep cleaning. And since I have some heirloom-quality LIGHT colored knitting to do this year, I splurged and got myself a pair of gloves. Here, they are pictured in their original, clean state. They will never look like this again.

Any of my stove-owning friends know how to get soot off of hands and cloth? How about glass? (Ammonia, water, sudsy ammonia, elbow grease, magic eraser aren't working around the edges.) And is there any good way to clean the inside of a stove without producing airborne particles that make me think about wearing a face mask while cleaning?

2012 Knitting Goals ... but not really

2012-01-03T20:29:00.002-06:00

2012 will not be the year of the sock. It will not be the year of 12 shawls, or 12 sweaters, or even 12 pairs of mittens. (Those of you who know me a bit will not be surprised if I knit that many pairs of mittens without aiming to, however. And I did misplace my favorite pair of mittens in mid-December, so I probably should knit myself another nice toasty pair. Despite our current lack of real wintry weather.)

I thought about making it be the year of the Baby Items. Or another stash-busting year. But I’ll work from my stash anyways – yarn acquisition is not something I have a problem with. The only influxes come via either destashing friends or my own leftovers. So why make a goal of it? And Baby Items are generally too tiny to really make a nice goal. Now, 52 baby items might be a nice target … but I don’t know 52 babies, and have other things to knit, so that’s not going to make it on my list. I reserve the right to add it should a grandchild visit my future.

Which leaves me with no glorious knitting goals.

However, at the end of 2012, I hope to have a completed Queen Susan Shawl. Out of Phoenix yarn, in silver. Unless someone talks me into Pixie Dust – a gorgeous color, but not quite the thing I envision for my bespectacled self.

I think a Queen Susan in one year is a respectable goal. Not glorious – one shawl in a year? Good grief – but respectable.

Miscellany:

I have some 120/2 silk which I’d love to use in a project, but nothing has called my name quite yet. I don’t have a shawl’s worth of any one color, and there’s nothing worse than knitting up 1200 yards of thread and finding out you don’t have enough.

I could make the completion of Molly’s Fault a goal, but it’s gotten used to it’s perpetual position on the back burner. I did get another 15-21 squares done over Christmas (the period, not the day), so it is growing.

I didn’t get any spinning done in 2011.

If I finish the Queen Susan by late July, which shawl do I enter in the state fair? It, or Unst? Unst needs to be under a Christmas tree come December. Could be a tough call. Do you think I could get away with calling 20/2 merino wool ‘medium-weight’? That would put it in another category …

Twenty Twelve

2012-01-02T14:13:00.002-06:00

Wait a second ... weren't we just talking about whether it was "Two thousand and one" or "two thousand one"? Where did the past decade and a bit go?

But that's beside the point. More to the point, this is my blog and I've not been here all that much. Why? Oodles of good reasons.

I'm trying to scale back the time I sit in front of a computer screen.
My right hands gets ice cold when I type or use the mouse more than a few minutes.
Blathering on about items of next-to-no value is a thing to avoid.
I'm trying to spend more time ~~knitting~~ doing things of lasting value.
Two mornings a week I've been sitting in a college library rather than at my computer.
I haven't been up to anything bloggable?

Fact is, I'm also not schooling two all that much lately. My eldest, a high school junior, began taking classes at Bethany Lutheran College this fall and did a wonderful job with a 4-credit load (plus Math, Chemistry, Fine Arts, and English at home). This semester she's taking 11 credits, and I think that's enough to call a full load. If one semester of a college class equals one year of a high school class, then taking 6 college classes in one year should equal a full year of high school, no? Especially if we tuck in a second year of Fine Arts (finishing Master Hand Knitting Level 2), a year of Chemistry, and a summer spent brushing up on math skills. Plus a semester of English!

Point six above isn't exactly true. I have been up to all sorts of things, but nothing has demanded it be made into a blog post. I DO like to have things all nice and tidy, though. Since I didn't make my end-of-the-year wrap-up post, it's time for a post-mortem of 2011 here.

Let's look at the goals from my side bar. Test Knit - I did that four months of the year, taking most of the opportunities that came my way. I may be looking for more test knitting this year, but maybe not. There is The Queen Susan calling my name! Knit One Stash Project Per Month - yup, did that. A bit skimpy in some months, a bit overkill in others. Knit In Cycles - sorta. Nothing particularly called my name. I still like the idea.

Ravlery tells me I started and finished 58 projects in 2011. Perhaps even 60, since sometimes I don't start a new project if I'm making multiples of the same things. And right now, I'm finishing a project I started in 2010 -- the hap shawl I was never quite 'hap'py with. I frogged the entire edging and border and am working them over with a LOT more stitches.

My desk is tidy. There's fresh bread in the kitchen. I'm staying healthy (my joints aren't always happy with me, but all my knitting joints work so I'm okay with that.)

And there's a puzzle on the kitchen table that I really should put a few pieces into before I sit down and knit some more. Maybe I'll even finish Hannah Coulter!

Next up - plotting and planning for 2012!

How did your 2011 go? And what direction will you be going (or at least planning to go) in 2012?

Set, anyone?

2011-12-07T13:11:00.003-06:00

This deal happened at the beginning of the game, from a shuffled deck. The cards got rearranged -- the original deal wasn't QUITE this tidy, but still ...

International I Love Yarn Day

2011-10-14T10:31:00.004-05:00

Today happens to be I Love Yarn Day. Why anyone needed to pick a particular day in which to love yarn is beyond me. I manage to find time on most (but not all) days to play with yarn.

But in honor of this particular day, and the new Fiber Artist Spotlight at my local yarn store (for which I am the second person so featured), here are some photos of my knitting currently at my LYS. (I love my new camera!)

Unst Be Blocking

2011-10-11T15:19:00.002-05:00

Unst in Progress

2011-10-06T10:06:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, there was some yarn. Specifically a fine 2-ply merino yarn from Colourmart, spun and wound off at the lovely size of 2300 yds/150g cone. (Cone on the left is new, the one on the right may or may not last the shawl.)
The knitter swatched, just like Goldilocks, to find Just the Right Size Needle. (MamaBear had the right size)
The the knitter knit, and knit, and knit, and knit, and knit ...
And someone asked for pictures. So she stopped knitting and found a decrepit camera, and a couch, and some pins.
And, although the knitter didn't measure how wide the shawl pinned out in her Very Impromptu Pinning Session, she can report that each red stripe and each navy stripe on the couch blanket is 4" wide. Finished size is supposed to be 24" wide. Hmm. Overachieve!

Blank Space

2011-10-03T10:25:00.002-05:00

This morning, my students are studying quietly. The bread is rising, the washer and dryer are both running, supper is in the crockpot, and the mail is sorted on the kitchen desk. There's nothing on my to-do list that needs attention at the moment. (I just double-checked to make sure.) It's been much too long since I've carved out space to write on my blog, so here I am.

The past almost-three months have not gone by quietly and uneventfully. There's been Scout Camp, a TKGA conference, the State Fair, Joni and Friends Family Camp, and the start of the school year - both the homeschool one and the filia-taking-classes-at-a-local-college one. Knitting submissions have come, and knitting submissions have gone. Knitting projects have popped onto the needles, and they've popped off the needles. I've read the entire Barchester Chronicles and Palliser Chronicles by Trollope. (I'm a bit lost as to what to read next. I think 13 books by Trollope in a row is probably sufficient and I'd like something a bit more meaty to chew on auditorily.)

We're now into fall. The weather is rather warm for fall, which means it's not corn stove weather yet. This heating season isn't going to see us burning corn, since corn prices have more than doubled since last year. I will have to get used to saying (wood) 'pellet stove', I suppose. It's lovely weather for walking around town. This weekend, my husband and I took the road less traveled and walked away from town, then detoured on path through the fields rather than walk through the dust from a combine in a bean field. It was lovely to walk and see nothing but corn, beans, and the top of a farmhouse and some trees in the distance.

The project on the needles is Sharon Miller's Unst Lace Stole. I love shawls - knitting them, even more than wearing them. I expect to finish it in the next week or two. After tomorrow, there will be one long side left to edge, and then the magic of blocking will turn the gray lump into gorgeous lace. I'm pleased that it won't be too small. A too-small stole can be difficult to wear well. It will rest in my craft room until the fair next year, and then be on its way elsewhere. Sort of like the table centerpiece I knit last year in October, except I haven't sent that one on its way yet.

Facebook is being annoying. I miss being able to see only status updates. I really don't want to have to sort through all the things that people 'share' to find out who is up to what. I'm dipping my toes into the water of Google+, and have deleted Facebook from my browser bookmarks. Poof - several dozens of minutes of each day have been recovered! Just think how much more time there would be in a day if we didn't have bookmarks!

And now ... to get OFF the computer and into my knitting chair.

A Hodgepodge

2011-07-09T20:31:00.003-05:00

Summer has been, well, summery. We've been on one (of 3) trips away from home, have wrapped up the bulk of the school year (one child still has work to finish in one subject), and I'm happily plugging away at my summer goals.

One of those goals is to READ! What with working at the computer and knitting, reading hasn't been really happening. But then, I got a Kindle for Easter. (As well as the Chocolate Easter Bunny that I didn't eat between Easter 2010 and 2011. If my kids don't say something, I'll pass it back to mom for my 2012 Easter Basket. Shhhhh.) With my Kindle, I can listen to books AND knit. And read the books when I don't want to knit. It does happen. Especially when the book is interesting and it's taking too long for the computerized voice to get to the really, really interesting part.

So this summer (since Easter, actually), I've read - and remembered to write down -

Heir of Redclyffe (Thanks, Willa!)
Rilla of Ingleside
Common Sense
The Praying Life
The Next Story
Tortall Stories
The Man who Knew Too Much
Bloodhound
The Hero and the Crown
The Blue Sword
Walden
Bleak House
Ralph the Heir

I'm working on The Art of the Commonplace (Readaloud with the kids) and The Warden (by Anthony Trollope). Defintely too much fun. I've got Children of Hurin on the shelf too, and hope to read it before it has to go back to the library ... and then there will be The Wandering Arm, one of Abigail's college books. Reading is fun. But it can take away from knitting time.

As to knitting, I'm plugging away on the mittens. The picture from my last post is pretty representative of how things look, so no new photo. I am 6 diamonds into the mitten now, and start the top decreases at 8 diamonds. The end is in sight! I suppose the question is ... will I finish the mitten beFORE I finish listening to The Warden, or will I abandon the mitten briefly to read the book, or is the book shorter than the mitten?

One of my 'to-do' things this summer was to weed out unloved foods from the pantry and either use them or find a new home for them. One of the unloved things was Real Non-Instant Tapioca. I now have Tapioca Pudding in the frirdge. Mmmm. But why don't any of the recipes or instructions for folding in egg whites say to let the pudding cool first? The recipe on the bag even says "Beat Egg Whites until stiff. Fold into hot tapioca mixture." Snippets from Google Books suggest folding the hot tapioca mixture into the egg whites. Other advice is to let the pudding cool, then fold in the egg whites. Any opinions?

And one of my favorite recipes this summer so far (apart from homemade barbecue sauce and homemade baked beans with aforementioned barbecue sauce) is homemade pita bread. My last batch had perfect pockets on 6 of 8 pitas, and partial pockets on the rest. With baked beans and lettuce inside, a half pita makes a perfect lunch. Mmmm.

Not really planned or on my schedule, but happening anyways, is sitting in the passenger seat while my daughter practices driving. Not entirely in the passenger seat. I'm her brake pedal. Seems like most parents, when they drive with their children, have the liberty of letting their right foot weigh heavily upon an invisible brake. Not me! Due to Minnesota's shut-down, Filia's evaluation for hand controls is on hold, so we don't know what sort will work best for her. She's not about to trust her feet (which don't reach the pedals to begin with) to finding the right pedal and being able to exert the right amount of pressure ... so I get the job. And get to practice controlling that AAAAAAAH slam-on-the-brake instinct. Our van idles at a nice steady 5 mph -- perfect for cruising around a little-frequented cemetery and practicing turns. The ground isn't perfectly level, and thus a bit of brake pedal is needed from time to time.

And that is a hodgepodge of what's been going on around here!

One-word Wednesday

2011-07-06T07:54:00.000-05:00

Oops.

Mitten Progress

2011-06-08T08:46:00.001-05:00

A baby robin at breakfast

2011-06-07T08:56:00.001-05:00

Microgauge Mittens

2011-06-02T11:32:00.003-05:00

It's all Beth Brown-Reinsel's fault. Or maybe it's Arenda Holladay's. Or perhaps Birgitta Dandanell's.

Or maybe it's just that I'm not normally a sane person. I have flashes of normalcy, perhaps - but I've never quite walked the beaten path. Years ago, when I read Twined Knitting, I marvelled at the gloves that were knit out of cotton at 22 stitches per inch, and thought "would that I could do that someday! But not gloves. Gloves aren't nice." And then Arenda designed a lovely sweater using fine yarn, and I thought again - ahhh, finer gauges. How lovely. I should make one. But I'd have to revise the pattern so I could steek it. And then Beth posted her lovely photo of a hat/mitten set made at 13 stitches per inch in the same yarn Arenda used ... and then Beth posted, a few months later, a picture of a Latvian mitten at 19 stitches per inch.

THAT was the straw that broke the camel's back. I can do mittens. I can do Latvian. And I can do skinny yarn. So I decided to knit a Latvian mitten using fingering-weight yarn and a pattern with lots of stitches on small needles (that would be a US size 1, for those of you who allergic to relative terms) and ended up with Cindy's Mittens. Mmmmm, pretty, aren't they?

But there was a problem. Those were only 54 stitches per 4", and they knit up awfully fast. So I decided I must need skinnier yarn, and thus the Great Yarn Hunt began. It ended up at (don't click on the link if you don't need more yarn) RedFish Dyeworks, with some 20/2 pure silk. I really wanted to use 30/2, but the knitting community rallied in defense of my sanity and I decided to play along - for this pair of mittens.

See? Pretty yarn. I must be in a red white and blue phase, since my vacation project is also red white and blue. And no, I am NOT so insane as to think of working on these while sitting in a car going down a road full of potholes. They do require some concentration.

After the yarn arrived, I had a crisis of intent. I knew what pattern I wanted for the top of the mitten -- it came from a stocking photo at Flickr. (If you don't want design inspiration and are avoiding stranded knitting at the moment, don't click on that link either.) But I also knew I didn't want to have ribbing at the cuff, or any of the other traditional Norwegian cuffs. So what should I do??? I thought, and thought, and whimpered quietly to my knitting friends online, knit up a sample in fingering weight, threw that idea totally out the window, and cast on 150 stitches, and started knitting while perusing Latvian Mittens. (Sorry, I'm linked out.)

And, after a while, this is what I had ...

Mmmm. I like it. A sweater at this gauge would be nice, too.

But I wouldn't.

Would I?

May Jottings

2011-05-10T14:19:00.002-05:00

April has disappeared, and May has arrived - cool at first, and rather toasty in the sunshine today. I am glad it will cool off again tomorrow, and stay cooler for a while (cool now is 70 degrees, give or take 10. Obviously I'm in summer mode - an easy place to be when the window thermometer says 106 degrees.)

My fun project right now is dreaming of the mittens I will make at a Very Tiny Gauge. Here are two swatches ... More yarn for swatching is on the way. In the meantime, I've pulled Molly's Fault out of hibernation and am making decent progress on it. The plan is to make it into a scarf first, then a wrap, and then a bona fide blanket.
We have all sorts of plans around here. Filia was planning out her History Day presentation board, when Canis Magnus decided he would help.
And a week or so earlier, in that very spot, Canis Minimus decided he would help Filius with some science questions. Canis Minimus is very picky about where he reposes, and because of his arthritis and prior-to-us life, often responds to annoyances in his repose with snarls and a tooth. Filius doesn't like being a place of repose.
Short, sweet, and plenty of photos. Now it's back to organizing my desk!

Knitting in March ... and reading?

2011-03-19T12:14:00.004-05:00

March has been a busy month. It really started in February, when I took on a test knit .. and then had a small problem with the test knit that involved reknitting a large chunk of it, and life just sort of rolled on from there.

While waiting for more yarn for the test knit, I whipped out some stash projects. (Stash courtesy of Molly). We have the Yummy Mittens, by Beth Brown-Reinsel.

Then we had the annual meeting of the county historical society, which begged for some easy knitting. And behold, a stash hat jumped onto the needles. I did good. The tassel contains ALL the CC that was left over. Then my son announced he needed some socks. In fingering weight yarn, please, so he could wear them with shoes. And I ended up making herringbone socks. I don't like herringbone. It's pesky. And the pattern had an error in one of the two pattern rows. And the pattern was for SEAMED socks. I fixed the error and ignored the seam.
Then the yarn for the test knit arrived, and I knit that up and finished it. And I cast on for a pair of mittens. Using fine yarn (of course) and my new set of Blackthorn dpns. Regrettably, the gauge I got was a shade too plump for the number of stitches I was dealing with, so I only knit the cuff with those needles - the switched to a US 1 for the stranded portion.
Isn't it pretty? The chart is #37 in Latvian Mittens - and, near as I can tell, there aren't any photos of it in the book. I'm working it up at around 12.5 sts/", and it fit my hand (m) nicely. Much better than any of the other mittens with a peasant thumbs that I've tried, actually. Mitten #1 is done, and I'm on row 1 of colorwork of #2. And there's a nice quiet weekend ahead. Unless one gets wrapped up in basketball.

Reading. It really cuts into knitting time. (So does blogging.) I couldn't find the rest of the Giants in the Earth trilogy, so I have ILL'd them. I discovered Kindle for PC, and was amazed to find that BOTH books recommended in the day's US History lecture from the Teaching Company (which I will get used to calling The Great Courses sometime in the next decade or two, perhaps) were available as free downloads. Then Filius decided he needed to check it out, and the next thing I knew, all sorts of Jules Verne books were dropping into my Kindle. And the entire works of Edgar Allen Poe. If you've got boys who liked Stowaway or Shackleton's Stowaway (two different books), consider hunting up Jules Verne's An Antarctic Adventure. I became acquainted with it through Librivox, and it's also a free download at Kindle.

And if you like Jane Austen, and are in the mood for a short story (a wee bit over an hour) do give Love and Friendship a try. It borders on slapstick comedy, and the reader does a lovely job.

Current Reading: The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr, and Caesar's Column, by someone whose name I forget. That's a problem with the Kindle for PC. You don't see the author's name lurking on the book spine to help fix it in your memory.

Happy Spring, all! Our garden is just a foot under the snow now, and I can see the tops of my oregano plant!

Finishing Things

2011-02-22T09:39:00.002-06:00

After finishing the mini-sweater in my last post, I decided to tackle a pair of Bavarian Knee Stockings. Ahhhhh - they were fun. And they took a while. The pattern was a bit vague - no gauge or schematic, just 'fine wool, size 0 needles, to fit size 40 shoe (German)'. I dove in with my trusty 2.75mm, Spud&Chloe Sock, and decided to see what happened. The first thing I discovered is that for the ribbing, one is supposed to work stockinette. Ooops! I persevered, and with some help from a friend, had enough yarn to finish off two stockings that fit nicely (thanks to decreasing an extra pattern at the ankle)
Sometime this year, I knit up a sample mitten for a forthcoming project, but I wasn't happy with the gauge. Dale Heilo seems thinner than it used to be - but the stats don't support my fingers' report. They're a nice easy knit.
But I wanted to get a denser mitten, so I pulled some KnitPicks Telemark out of the stash and worked these guys up on Sunday. 70 minutes per mitten, not counting weaving in tails.
After the tails were woven in, there was still more time left in the day. I pulled out The Complete Photo Book of Knitting (nifty book, but pleasepleasePLEASE do not use it as a reference for picking up stitches from bound off or cast on edges, or mattress stitch.) and worked up a twined mitten. Found two errata! My day is made when I can fix a little bit of errata in this big wide world of ours.

Yesterday I made the mate, and then cast around for something to do. It needed to be small, since a large project is lurking in the wings and I don't like having too many projects on the needles. I settled upon the Wooly Bear Mittens from the latest issue of Knitting Traditions, and got started on those with some Bartlettyarns Sport - until I discovered that yarn and gauge did not go together. My new project ended up being a pair of socks for Filius.

For a few months, I've been listening to audiobooks while knitting. I didn't have anything on my iPod I hadn't listened to, though, and was in the middle of Giants in the Earth - so I got that out and read. It's a nice change to have a knitting project I can read during! Those Bavarian stockings are NOT something you can knit and read through.

Giants in the Earth is, so far, an enjoyable book. It's like Little House on the Prairie for adults. I think I may have to hunt up other books by the author.

Wordless Wednesday, One Day Late

2011-01-20T14:14:00.001-06:00

Quiet

2011-01-19T17:03:00.005-06:00

Tonight will be a quiet evening. The to-do list has been dispatched, the lists for tomorrow and future days will be ignored, and my most pressing activities are washing my hair and knitting.

I love evenings like this. Time to sit back and recharge, to create something (in tonight's case, a second sleeve on the wee little sample sweater from my previous post), to think, to pray -- I will enjoy this evening.

But I discovered I hadn't updated my blog yet this year, and I do not want to neglect it like I did last year. So - an update!

The knitting, it goes well. Since my last blog post I have redone three thumbs on half-mitts, knit 7 stranded socks, and made a stash hat for January. Oh, and another pair of Compass Mittens. There are 9 Compass Mitten projects on Ravelry. Five of them are mine. Why does that sound wrong? I have also reviewed (think think think) 4 knitting submissions and at least 5 resubmissions. And I made some pretty diagrams out of tortuous sentences for an answer key.

The filii, they are well. And the vir, he is well. Los perros quoque son bien. And the polyglot, she is ready to head off and knit. After the hairs are washed.

On the 7th day of Christmas the postman gave to me

2010-12-31T14:29:00.002-06:00

A box of yarn

with some patterns

And a folder.

Happy sigh. 'Scuse me while I go knit.

A Christmas present for ???

2010-12-28T09:59:00.003-06:00

This year, we thought Filia got a Papasan chair for Christmas. When we woke up on December 26th, we thought again.

I'm still waiting for a box of Christmas goodies I ordered in mid-December. Hopefully it will get here before the 12 days of Christmas are over - but if not, then we'll just celebrate when it gets here. As my family will tell you, I am dangerous enough already with my gift -- a Vita-Mix! Since getting home with it, I have made banana ice cream, peanut butter, rice bread, wheat bread, garbanzo bean pancakes ... and before the day is over will have made Bacon and Cheddar Soup, as well as a smoothie or two. The flour it makes is so much finer than what my grain mill produces - NOW I can see how I can make breads with no store-bought flour. Truly, I am going to be having too much fun.

The new year is rapidly approaching. My somewhat random approach to knitting this year (take pictures of the ball bands once a month) felt like a total flop. Apart from NOT taking pictures of the ball bands, there wasn't much of a sense of accomplishment. No decent goals to work towards. Floppy, floppy, floppy. My organizing, goal-achieving, pointy little heart did not feel any satisfaction from checking off items on the non-existent list. (What? You say I knit 10 miles of yarn anyways? That wasn't on the list.)

Obviously, I need a better list for 2011. And so I present .....

Test and Sample Knits
Knit from My Stash
Knit in Cycles

Divine providence has plopped some lovely test and sample knitting in my direction, and I am looking forwards to it with delight. As 'work', I can even knit on those sorts of things when there's other stuff to do! Getting the yarn and pattern for one of these knits is like Christmas all over again.

Knitting from my stash is going to be a goal, because I just have too much stash. I also want to weed out some stash (non-wool yarns, your heads are on the chopping block!) and in general, get my yarns down to a nice tidy inspiring bunch. I'm currently working on watch caps made from a sweater I recycled from my stash of FO's. When test knits are not calling, I hope to be whittling down the stash with hats and mittens and such-like. I'm going to aim for one project per month.

Knit in Cycles is something I thought of a few months ago, when I got not one but TWO knitting books on the same day. There are just too many fun things out there to knit - and since I don't know how many years God has given me, assigning a year to each flavor of knitting may not be a good idea. I'm also too much of a 'leaf' knitter. Flit here, flit there, flit all over the place scattering random finished objects behind me. So instead of having a whole YEAR of Brioche, or Norwegian, or Ganseys, or Lace (aaaaah), I think it would be interesting to do a QUARTER of whatever. It'll somewhat depend on what destashing projects I come up with, and how much other knitting falls my direction, but I think I'd like to give this a shot. Maybe I can even make it a challenge - send me a theme, and I'll come up with a destashing project to use it!

Then there's that Twisted-Stitch Knitting book I got for Christmas. I want to make a pair of ladies' stockings .... and that is DEFINITELY a project that will take some concentration, especially for starters. And calculations. Sure, the book has patterns with needle size, and yarn weight - but there is no gauge given! It'll be a matter of measure me, count stitches, figure out negative ease, take a stab at gauge, then take a stab at needles and yarns to get that gauge -- cast on, start knitting, and see how it goes! Unless I want to start off by knitting the samplers in the front of the book, using 00 needles with laceweight?

So - what are YOUR plans for the upcoming year? Any fun knits in the works?

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

2010-12-24T14:04:00.002-06:00

First Snowstorm of November, 2010

December 12, 2010

December 24, 2010

Our pass to the 'real world' -- the top of the pass is as tall as I am!

(the willow tree is off to the right)

It really seems like we'll have a White Christmas this year. I can't see away around it.

Merry Christmas!

Yarn Stats!

2010-12-23T10:19:00.003-06:00

As it's coming to the year's end, I decided to go through my tin of ball bands and see what I've been knitting with this year. Spreadsheets are so dandy for statistics - so I made some up.

Total Yardage Knit: 17656
Total Miles Knit: 10
Average Yardage Per Day: 48
Ball Bands Saved: 94

And what have I knit with this year? Drops Alpaca, Rauma Finullgarn, Knit One Crochet Too USDK, Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, Naturespun Sport, and Wildfoote, Kauni Effektgarn, Elann Highland Wool and Lino, DMC Cebelia, Cherry Tree Hill Sock, Rabbit Works Toe Jam, Blue Sky Alpaca Bulky and Sport, KnitPicks' Gloss, Wool of the Andes, Merino Style, Telemark, Essential, and Palette, Louet Gems, Bartlettyarns Fisherman 2-ply, Froelich Blauband, and Araucania Ranco.

And that list doesn't include things I didn't finish skeins of, like Sandnes Garn Tove, or Denis St. Nordique, or even my handspun (one shawl's worth).

I must be a knitter. (Don't tell me you are surprised.)

Hats!

2010-12-22T10:12:00.005-06:00

Lately, I have been knitting hats. Hats are great for small projects when one isn't sure when THE yarn will arrive to knit other fun things, like socks. I forsee many socks and mittens in the coming year. But the yarn for them isn't here yet, so I am biding my time by knitting hats.

This hat was actually planned. The yarn came from Yarn Harbor in Duluth, and the pattern from Knitting Brioche. It's reversible, and definitely would benefit from a lighter weight yarn. Still, it's cozy and was much-used this fall.

This hat came from the latest issue of Cast On. I didn't have the patriotic red white and blue of the original hat, so instead of USA mine says SDG - Soli Deo Gloria! Mom liked the hat so much she asked for one.

So I pulled out the bag of stash yarns I had with me (doesn't everyone travel around with 13 skeins of leftover sportweight, 'just in case'?) and she picked out these colors for her own hat. Corn stoves are great - this hat blocked and dried in just 3 hours.

I've been meaning to knit something from Dale of Norway's Commemorative Collection -- and here is the Lake Louise Hat, worked in leftover Blue Sky Alpaca Sport. A fun knit, and a perfect fit for a pink-loving girl.

Before I knit Louise, though, I was at a loss. What to knit, what to knit? Friends told me to cast on for the socks El Pronto - but it's hard to cast on without yarn. I pulled out Molly's Fault and worked on it and thought. (Molly's Fault has grown quite a bit - 25 more squares - due to my indecision) I browsed through things on Ravelry to see what my friends were finding interesting. Someone had favorited a hat by knittergized and it called my name. Loudly. With just a wee bit of number crunching, I discovered that my gauge from the Soli Deo Gloria hats would work nicely with 5 reps of the X pattern, and off I went. Then one of my friends asked for the pattern, so I jotted it down and knit another one to make sure the pattern was accurate, and sent it off to other knitters so they could check it as well. I called it the Estonian Sock Hat because it uses a motif from an Estonian Sock (and probably a Lithuanian, Latvian, and Komi motif as well). Then I knit Louise and decided I needed to make another Estonian Sock Hat which is going to be MINE!!!

I wonder how many of these I will knit before the winter is over?

Speaking of winter, here's a photo of our 'pass to the street' on the first day of winter. The snow fell on the last day of fall, but there was no sign of a pass at that time. I am so happy to have a teenaged boy in the house this year!

Whatever will the pass look like by midwinter?

Getting back to the labels ...

2010-11-06T10:14:00.004-05:00

Here's the tally of ball bands. First comes the Lamb's Pride Worsted that went into a Christmas sweater and some tablecloth-destined Cebelia. Then there's the odd Knit Picks and Elann yarns which made twined mittens. And some odds and ends and sock yarn that went into places I'm not entirely sure about -socks, baby jackets, and sample mittens, I believe. The BartlettYarns made Filia's winter hat (although I don't have a picture of her wearing it yet). The hat she IS wearing came from some yarn I don't see here.

Details.

So trivial.

I have been really enjoying Nancy Marchant's Knitting Brioche, but did the nearly unthinkable yesterday. I sent a half-finished project, minus needles and plus a letter, back to the not-so-LYS. My reason? The Geveldak Scarf is a thing of beauty - but not when there are at least 6 knots in one skein of Kauni which play fast and loose with the color sequence. The gradual shifting from one color to the next is lovely - and totally lost when solid colors are knotted together. I have hopes that I'll get a knotless skein before mid-December, and then I can retackle a Christmas present! But if not -- I will have to figure out something else.

I've knit myself out from under the skeins and balls of yarn acquired in the past few months. There are two projects on the needles, and I am looking forward to a flurry of fun mittens and hats when those are done. We are getting into mitten and hat weather, you know!

Wordless Saturday

2010-10-30T09:15:00.001-05:00

Where are the brakes?

2010-10-29T18:17:00.004-05:00

I had good intentions of posting on a weekly basis.

Then life happened.

Life has included planned doctor appointments, chauffeuring a Boy Scout selling popcorn around (Thanks, dh! You grabbed the chauffeur cap tonight), school, and general household stuff.

Household stuff is usually knitting around here, but this year it happens to have PUMPKINS in it as well. And not just any pumpkins, but rouge Rouge Vif d'Etampes. Rogue pumpkins, because they are the Wrong Color. They're supposed to be a brilliant red, but they are instead a rather wimpy salmon color - greatly improved to orange by digital photography. This 22-lb pumpkin has been reduced to 12 pints of pumpkin puree, and the seeds from it are drying over the stove, perhaps to be roasted tomorrow.

Today's mail was delightful. Three letters came from our insurance company, telling us coverage was extended for another 6 months (whee), something had been denied due to bad paperwork (bad, bad, paperwork), and that they had paid for a few medical services. Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing that needed my attention.

But then ... there was a BOX and a padded ENVELOPE! The box contained goodies from Elann for me and dd. I can now get my not-Niebling blocked! (Yup, I finished it. One month. And it's going to be purty.) The boxy you see is a very odd size, but it had to be in order to contain the blocking wires. And 21 skeins of yarn (for dd. She has big eyes when it comes to projects, and this one is going to be delicious when it's finished. But it's for her.) The envelope contained my new eyeglasses, which are very long overdue. For the past 2-3 years, my left lens has been clouded. Now I have a pair with unclouded lenses! I can hardly wait to sit and knit with clear vision.

Finished Object: Morning Glory Mittens (twined), by Beth Brown-Reinsel. A delightful knit, marred only by the knitter's failure to put the thumb for the medium mitten in the proper spot for the medium thumb. The failure was discovered while knitting the second mitten, and was rectified by practically knitting a 3rd mitten (since the mitten needed to be frogged to 2 rows past the cuff).

Current WIP: Delfts Blauw (in Cincinnati Bengals colors, which do happen to be rather popular this time of year, despite the team's abject performance on the football field which has led to a complete lack of any discussion of the team's post season prospects, and even their current prospects) by Nancy Marchant.

Bandit

2010-10-01T14:28:00.004-05:00

I'm not talking about a stash bandit here. This is one of the things that happened to us over the summer. Meet Bandit, a 'small dog', who entered our family in June. Our resident dog (Terry) was not pleased to be sharing his house with another dog, and for a few days I wasn't sure the first week would end with two live dogs and one sane me. Forty-eight hours of total and utter pandemonium, lunging, and non-stop barking (on the part of the resident dog) ended with a truce, and I'm thinking before we get too far into winter that Bandit is going to be the next best thing to an electric blanket, so far as Terry is concerned.

Another thing that happened to us this summer was a grandmother giving four cans of paint to her granddaughter as a birthday present. And when life gives you paint cans (in your choice of color!), you have your mom paint. And so I painted. And painted. And painted. The other two walls are solid - teal and tangerine. No one has called the room 'boring and dull' lately. It's even clean, thanks to a week of post-painting destashing.

And a Sad Event

I learned that my Niebling isn't a Niebling. It's a Duchrow. That means that after I finish it, I should probably go knit a real Niebling.

The Niebling, it groweth

2010-09-24T16:01:00.003-05:00

I am having way too much fun knitting my Niebling. It doesn't have a fancy name, like Lyra, or Federdolde. No, its name is Page 19. Someone ran out of inspiration, I guess. Or he was too busy designing to think of cute names.

Someone has alerted me that Franklin posted about the Five Stages of Niebling. Now, when I read about it, I thought - Ben Franklin commented on Niebling? I thought Niebling was more contemporary than that. Hmm.

Oh, THAT Franklin. And those five stages have nothing to do with me. True to form, I don't follow the form. My five stages read something more like Dreaming (about making one), Drooling (over my choices, when I get into the serious planning stage), Delight (in casting on, and once I get past the second row), Tedium (somewhere around 50 hours into the project), and then it's back to Delight (when I get close to finishing, finishing, and smiling upon it when it's blocked)

I'm still waiting for my FleegleNeedles. Rumor has it that our heavy rains (thanks, Earl) disrupted mail traffic a bit. So far, I'm doing fine with 360 stitches on dpns. Small yarn, six needles to work with, light needles, and tight tension have conspired together to produce no dropped stitches. But boy, will it be nice to have a circular!

A KnitPicks order went in today. I got only one skein of yarn (pats self on back), but two books. Filia will find one of them helpful for her knitting class next year. Yup, that's it. (That wasn't the whole order - Filia got yarn for an argyle sock, non-argyle mitten, and her swatches. And a friend got some goodies as well.)

If I'm going to be knitting with my new skein this year, I need to get back to Page 19.

Carowho?

2010-09-22T12:50:00.004-05:00

It's been a while, one might say, since I wrote a blog entry. What happened?

I joined SparkPeople, and blogged there a bit more regularly than I did here.
I had the Hectic Summer to end all Hectic Summers, and didn't find myself sitting at the computer wondering what I could do, ever.
There wasn't that much knitting one going on.
There wasn't much schooling two going on either.

But now, my activity on SparkPeople has shifted into maintenance mode, my hectic summer has ended (hear that, summer? You are NOT allowed to be hectic any more. No carryover into fall, either. Period.), I am knitting, and I am schooling.

Life is pleasant. It's staying pleasant by regular and repeated pronouncement of the word 'no.' This is necessary because

The schooled two have activities on Monday night, in towns 10 miles apart. This requires two parents (since the towns are 12 and 20 miles from home, respectively)
I'm in a book discussion group on Tuesday night.
The schooled two and dh have activities on Wednesday night.
Thursday is knit night.
Our next free Saturday is the 23rd of October.

It's also pleasant because I have begun to knit a Niebling. There aren't any photos of it on the internet that I can find, but if you're on Ravelry you can look at my projects and see the one item someone else has made and photographed. I'm using size 30 crochet cotton (don't panic - it's on 2.25 mm needles) and estimate it will be just a yard in diameter, as opposed to the 5 ft suggested by the model which used size 10 crochet cotton (and 3.0 mm needles)

In order to knit this Niebling, I needed (yes, really and truly needed) a circular needle, and one with an excellent join. So I have ordered myself some FleegleNeedles - and decided I may as well get a short one and a long one. (22" and 32") If I love them as much as I think I will, it's highly likely that size 1 will become my size of choice for lacework.

Lunch break over ... back to school! Reading for the afternoon includes Book I of The Histories by Herodotus, 5 pages of Johnson's History of the American People, and 2 pages of Every Thought Captive. Plus Job 31-42.

Little Scraps of Paper

2010-04-30T19:14:00.002-05:00

It's the end of April, which means it's time to check in and see what I've been up to this month as evidenced by ball bands.

I cheated a little bit. I'm including some ball bands which were laying on the floor in the craft room (hmm, when did THIS get used?) and also some partial balls that still need their bands. But I'm excluding quite a few bands that are perched on partial skeins of KP MerinoStyle, so it all works out.

Discovery of the month: Louet Gems Merino bands are HUGE!

It's lovely to knit with, too. No split stitches, except for when I goof and need to tink down 10 rows or so to rearrange a zig zag. And that only happens when I go to knit night. I've thought about avoiding knit night until the gansey is done, but since I found my first error - 10 rows back - only 5 minutes after sitting down to knit, I don't know if that would help.

I'm practically finished with the front, and am well into the back. Well, sort of. It's knit in the round up to the armholes, and then the parts split. Since I've just 4" or so to go on the back, let's just say I'm almost done with the body and leave it at that.

And here are the contents of my yarn stand. Needles, quilt (in the process of having the binding blind-stitched on), handspun scarf (waiting for the gansey to be done), and extra gansey yarn.

In other news, spring continues to be beautiful, and all sorts of things are growing in the yard. The car isn't fixed yet, but after waiting two weeks for the parts to arrive, we called and found that they'd been in for a while but someone forgot to call us. Hmmm. And there are just three weeks left in our school year.

Of Tea and Jenga

2010-04-23T17:44:00.005-05:00

When children are small, often they find the packaging of a toy more appealing than the toy itself.

I thought those days were far behind me. (No, not ME finding the packaging more fun. My children.) Today's tea order's arrival shows that I have been operating under a severe delusion.

Consider: The Box

Consider: The Contents

Consider: The Result

Jenga, anyone?

Gratuitous Yarn Photo

And an update on my oven. Not only is 500 degrees on the dial equal to 420 degrees after 40 minutes, 350 is equal to 350 after one hour. And 450 is sometimes equal to 450, and other times it's equal to 375. Rather than get another stove for a wee bit more than it would take to make Lady Eleanor in the yarn used by the designer, I have reset my cooking mentality back to the days of the Wood Stove, and check the temperature every 5-10 minutes and adjust accordingly.

Happy Spring, everyone!

Big joys and small annoyances

2010-04-15T07:29:00.002-05:00

The annoyances are easier to catalog.

One of the major reasons why it takes forever for roast vegetables to roast is that my oven temperature, according to at least one oven thermometer, is often 80 degrees lower than the temperature setting. Can I blame all the cooking failures of the past 15 years on this? Maybe my no-burn granola will burn now.
The oven isn't ALWAYS 80 degrees off. Sometimes it's pretty close. So I have to check every 5 minutes or so to be safe. There's no rhyme or reason. 425 = 500, 350 = 450, and yesterday for a while, 450 = 450.
Updating our brand new GPS (aka speedometer) to the latest map has caused the GPS to become non-functional. Did I really want to spend 12 hours watching the computer download and install updates in order to find out that the installation would crash after 2+ hours, twice? No.
My shawl isn't as long as I want it to be. And I have a finite amount of yarn. But, if there are 150 grams of yarn in a 71 st wide shawl, 78 grams of yarn should be enough to do a narrow VanDyke edging, no? Better be.

And now, for the Big Joys

(Insert Happy Dance) I get to knit a gansey!
(Insert Smile of Delight) It's by one of my favoritest designers! You know, the kind of designer whose patterns you'd knit up without even checking to see if you liked them because that would be redundant? Yes, that one.
(Gleeful Grin) The yarn is en route. Louet Gems Merino Sport, which I've seen in Level II argyle socks, but have never worked with myself.
(Sticking nose comically in air) No one else can knit it. The pattern is not publically available. That must mean I'm special. (cough, choke, return nose to normal position)
I've spun up all the yarn from Shepherd's Harvest 2009 and am 37 repeats into 48+ repeats of the shawl I'm making with it.
I had fresh asparagus from my garden yesterday.
My swiss chard and parsely didn't get hit by the same hail that stopped us in our tracks while driving just 5 miles north of here. Nassssty hail. But the car is okay, and we were inside the car.
My husband is so good at helping car dealerships realize they shouldn't charge us for fixing something that broke on the car while they were fixing something else.
There are daffodils outside my window.
There's fresh granola in the oven. Better go eat it!

Monthly Ball Band Tally

2010-03-31T13:50:00.002-05:00

March was a much better month for having ball bands.

The month's knitting tally includes a pair of socks, a finished baby cardigan, two pair of Compass mittens, and felted slippers. Some spinning also happened - and in fact, I'm planning on my next serious knitting project being a shawl to use the yarn. Serious knitting projects, because one simply cannot go days without knitting while waiting for yarn to be spun (although, since I'm the spinner, the yarn gets spun faster if I'm not knitting) and dried. And my spinning wheel doesn't fit into the front seat of the car (no, I do *not* need a traveling spindle.) So I need a traveling, non-serious, knitting project.

I finished up socks Tuesday morning and haven't cast on for something yet. I think it's a record.

Molly's Fault doesn't count as a project. It's a lifestyle.

March Musings

2010-03-20T12:00:00.004-05:00

Every so often, I remember that projects with garter stitch seem to take longer than they should. So it has been with Minni. She's done now - or as done as she can get with the yarn I have on hand. Praise God for Ravelry Stashes! I've found someone with a skein of the color I'm out of (almost out - and 2 yards will not make a sleeve) and we're working out the details of a swap that will not only let me finish Minni, but also clear out one of my yarn boxes! How efficient can one get?

The socks are done, too. I'm positive my camera ate some pictures of them, but here's what one of them looks like. They're warm, and toasty, and TALL! Now I need something old-fashioned to hold them up better. But for sitting and knitting? They can't be beat.

Of course, now that the socks are done, the weather warms up. We lost almost 2' of snow in our front yard in just over a week. The flowers are up, the sidewalks are visible under all the snow that the plows pushed into the yard, and the yard needs a good vacuuming. Inspired by the warmth, I started some Swiss Chard, peppers, and parsley. The first is up, the latter sprouted in a paper towel and has been gently transferred into pots, and the middle isn't saying anything about its activities.

The massive time-gobbler of genealogy has been kept under strict control. But - because it's always fun to find new relatives - I'll still pass along a bit of family history here and there. Back a ways up my husband's tree, he has a Very Jewish Relative. (Just like I have Very Polish and Czech Relatives ... can't get more Polish than Tekla Gaciarzianka, can you?) Dan's Jewish Relative is named .... Judah Levi. You can't get much more ethnically distinctive than that. Judah came from ... England. And because he seems to have been escaping an unpleasant situation in the old country, the line dead ends there.

The shawl hasn't been frogged yet. It's nice to pop on in the evening when my shoulders get cold.

And a question: Why do all the pictures of roast veggies show them with nice dark marks from roasting, but mine - despite cooking them for twice the suggested time - don't? Yesterday's new recipe called for roasting potatoes until golden brown - 20-25 minutes. I upped the temperature 50 degrees and cooked them for closer to an hour, and they were still pasty white. It's a small annoyance in life, but if anyone has a solution, let me know!

Big Projects

2010-02-27T09:57:00.002-06:00

So much for the year of the Ball Band.

This month I finished the twined hat - no ball bands to show you.

I'm working on, and hope to finish tomorrow, a hap shawl - no ball bands to show you. The yarn doesn't have ball bands, being coned and partial cones.

The second skein of sock yarn I began this month didn't come with a ball band. But I did start it!

Insert picture of nothing < >.

Yup, that's my February knitting.

I'd have done more (and still had nothing to show for it) if I hadn't been sucked into genealogy research. The initial burst of activity is gone, thankfully, but there are so many fascinating little ends to hunt down, and a Certain Friend (who doesn't read this blog) keeps feeding me wonderful genealogy sites. Thanks, Patti. Just when I exhaust what I think I can find, you point me somewhere else.

Which is why I now know that Rebecca Wood Butts Bigelow's (b. 1824, NY) granddaughter Lillian Eagles Lee (b. 1876, MO) moved to Texas in 1920. You'd think with names like Leroy, Robert, Eunice, and Velva (in descending birth order), I'd be able to find them. But no ... do you know how many people there are named Robert Lee in Texas? We think they moved back to Kansas, anyways.

And there's your Carolyn's Bunnytrail Genealogy snippet for the day. If you're related, let me know! I like knitting things together, and that applies to BIG family trees as well as yarn.

2010 - The Year of the Ball Band

2010-01-29T14:30:00.003-06:00

Last week, I decided to make this The Year of the Ball Band. I will save (note - not I *have* saved, but I *will* save) the ball bands or tags from each skein of yarn I use. At the end of each month, I can take a picture of the month's contribution and tot up how many yards have passed through my fingers.

Unfortunately, my big project uses coned yarn. So the totting up of yardage will be an estimate.

Also, I just decided to do this last week. Therefore, I am missing evidence of a decent amount of yarn usage - the green from the medieval mittens, anything from the Compass mittens or Brewster Stockings, and the Offering Mitts. (I cheated slightly by using the Merino Style label from the Shades hat (December) to stand in for the green, or the red or purple Merino Style that were wound into a plied ball several months ago, but which I am now using for a class hat. Any way you look at it, I'm 2 labels of MerinoStyle short.)

That should cover all my caveats. Am I missing any?

Ah, yes. The fact that I have a ball band pictured does not mean there are no leftovers. It just means the leftovers are with other yarn of the same ilk, where one ball band will do for all.

This month's total ball band yardage? 1,452 yards. Not counting the cone of 2300 yards of cashmere, which has so far become a 4x4 ft square.

For those of you following our corn stove odyssey, here is what you do NOT want to see inside the stove when you come downstairs at 5 AM and 52 degrees. We're not sure why it does this, sometimes, at the higher heat settings. It could be a warped firebox (and we confess to aiding in the warpage since the critter would NOT come out for cleaning), but that doesn't explain why it works most of the time. Its favorite time to not work is around 2 AM, but it will do it while being watched. All day yesterday? Fine and dandy. This morning? PLUG!

Ah well. It's warm out - 5 degrees with no wind - so I turned it into a stove-cleaning opportunity.

It's a Bonnie Winter

2010-01-19T09:26:00.002-06:00

Some winters go by with no sign of hoarfrost. This winter has seen an abundance of it, and I'd like to think it's welcoming our pastor's wife, Bonnie, to Minnesota. Late last fall we saw a lovely picture entitled "Hoarfrosted Berries" and she commented that she hadn't heard of that variety of berry. I explained to her about hoarfrost so she wouldn't go looking for a hoarfrost plant in the catalogs, and hoped we would get some hoarfrost this year.

Hoarfrost has been abundant! And not only abundant, but the winds have been very light, allowing the trees and bushes (and anything else outside) to retain the extra beauty for several hours. A good wind will wipe hoarfrost right off the landscape in 5 minutes or so.

And my latest knitting toy has arrived. Vir thinks it adds a touch of class to our living room. I love how it lets the yarn fumes grace the room with inspiration.

No more knitting toys for a while. I've got a lot of 2/28NM yarn to work up into a shawl (basket 2), plus some Compass Mittens and toasty warm Brewster Stockings to do. Plus there's the Araucania Ranco in basket 1 to find a project for. Lilleput and Stole? Socks? Time will tell.

Piecework Project #3

2010-01-08T14:55:00.002-06:00

And, while two of the remaining projects in Piecework are lovely, I have no need for either of them at the moment - unlike the three pairs of Compass Mittens for which I ordered the yarn today. The remaining project from Piecework will have to wait until the yarn arrives as well. So - onwards I go to the Hap Shawl which has been calling my name for a few months!

It will not be featured as a finished project tomorrow. Guaranteed.

Piecework Project #2

2010-01-07T20:35:00.002-06:00

Three more pair of Compass Mittens have been requested, and there are three more projects in Piecework calling my name, one of them Very Loudly. Plus one more that I am ordering yarn for tomorrow.

Six project from one magazine? Is that possible?

Piecework Project #1

2010-01-06T10:54:00.000-06:00

The latest edition of Piecework should have been illegal.

2010-01-05T10:01:00.005-06:00

Here I am, all set to plan on knitting everything from Folk Knitting in Estonia, when into my mailbox drops Piecework.

It's the knitting issue, which is a major reason why I subscribe to Piecework. The Rovaniemi Mitts came out two years ago in the knitting issue, and I scrambled to get a copy.

This issue is drool-worthy. I've got the Compass Mittens on the needles already, and have popped the Offering Mittens and The Brewster Stocking in to my queue to work on next. I'm torn about whether to knit the stocking using the pattern given in the magazine, or get the reproduction pattern from the author, or recreate the sock at the original gauge from the information in the magazine. There are two or three other things in the magazine I'd like to knit, too. Sigh.

Traveling Sock #1

Rita's Socks from Folk Knitting in Estonia - finished yesterday!

Happy Knitting!

It was either the 5th or 6th day of Christmas, depending

2009-12-30T12:08:00.002-06:00

You'd think that roughly 2000 years after Christmas, and many centuries into the tradition, there would be a consensus on when the 12th day of Christmas is. But no, there is not. Some consider the 12th day to be January 5th, and some consider the 12th day to be January 6th. Complicating matters is the fact that Twelfth Night is after sundown on January 5th (for everyone that celebrates it, as far as I know), but in the Hebrew tradition the post-sundown period goes with the daylight time of the following day. ("There was evening and there was morning, the first day." -- that comes from a pretty good authority!) So I'm celebrating the 5th day of Christmas today, and watching several of my Facebook friends celebrate the 6th day of Christmas.

Calendars are sneaky critters, and good for deceiving one's self about the weather. Consider: "It's fall, and we're having a blizzard. Oh well, snow from fall blizzards never lasts long." One month later, with the snow depth still over 6": "It's winter, and we're having a blizzard. But usually in January there's a thaw." (I'm not holding my breath. 2010 is certainly not starting off with a thaw, at a projected -12 and 5F.) Several months later: "It's spring, and we're having a blizzard. Spring blizzards can dump a lot of snow, but it doesn't last long." The only season I have NOT seen a blizzard in is summer. But next year, I wouldn't be surprised at all if one happened. I'm not talking Antartica in a northern hemisphere summer, either. I'm talking about a I-90-closing-blizzard in one of the months which are known in some locales for their hot weather.

I just hope we have enough of a summer that the farmers can plant, God can water and give growth, and then the farmers harvest the corn for our beloved corn stove.

But back to my normal subject: knitting. In a continuation of HatWeek, here's the next hat to jump off my needles. Will's Hat, modeled by Not Will. Twined,with black sportweight(cough) Telemark and blue worsted Wool of the Andes. I used my standard top-down pattern, but shifted the last row of triangles just because.

Today's burst of organization is directed to closets. Clothes closets. My husband's half of the clothes closet. It looks so purty now! I hope to keep it away after today's laundry gets finished, too.

And today's knitting? Nothing on the needles except a traveling sock. If some yarn doesn't arrive in the mail, I'll have to knit another hat. Or see how much of a disaster knitting new soles for felted slippers is. Will felting them without the rest of the slipper attached, then sewing them on, work? Or not?

2009 Knit From Your Shelf ... How did it go?

2009-12-29T14:03:00.002-06:00

I realize the updates on our informal group have been few and far between ... but the year is running out, and so is the time for updates.

I accomplished what I set out to do. The six delicious knitting books I received in December are not knit from (or at least 5 of them aren't), but they don't count. Nor does Haapsalu Sall, or the Dale of Norway Commemorative Collection 8501. All the other books on my shelf are now USED!

2010 is close upon us, but no theme for it has jumped out at me. There are just so many lovely things to make! I hope to knit the Queen Susan Shawl, but a whole year of one shawl doesn't sound right. I'm not sure if I will muster up the proper insanity to tackle it either. There's still the Unst Lace Stole, or even Miss Hamilton's Gift that could be done also. Or an Estonian Lace Shawl. Or several of them. So much to knit, so little time.

The week between Christmas and New Year's is definitely The Week of Hats, though. One watch cap, two twined caps, and two unnamed Fair Isle hats. (Any suggestions for names? The pattern is destined for release as a freebie at Ravelry, and it's a stash-shrinker). I think 2010 would be a good Year of the Hat, too. Has someone already started a group for that at Ravelry?

I love the week after Christmas. Not because of all the chocolate within arm's reach, nor because of the silence that reigns while new gifts are being constructed, devoured, or rearranged. It's a time to wrap up one year, and prepare to enter a new one. A new calendar page, new check book register, new all sorts of things! There'll probably be a new knitting project too.

Best wishes to all of you for a happy New Year!

Mute Monday

2009-12-28T08:52:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-26T14:38:00.003-06:00

Christmas was different this year. I love the Christmas Eve service, and the Christmas Day service. Both those were no-gos this year, due to the abundance of SNOW! It's a terrible thing (not in the grand scheme of things) to be marooned 12 miles from your Christmas Eve destination, due to a blizzard whose idea of timing didn't match up with your travel schedule. So, Filius, Filia, and I packed up to go over the river and through the woods a mere 34 hours before scheduled.

The weather then cooperated, dumping all sorts of snow upon us, and even having just enough of a break for Vir to join us Christmas Eve. Hooray! Getting out of the driveway and into town for services wasn't really a good idea, though, so we curled up with White Christmas, Holiday Inn, tea, and hymnbooks. And knitting, of course. We had a lovely family Christmas, and headed home yesterday afternoon. Once Vir managed to get the van out of the driveway (not an easy feat, when the road has been plowed after 8" of fresh snow has fallen), we loaded up the van and had an easy drive home... where he valiantly battled the detrius left behind by the plow in OUR driveway. Three cheers for husbands who a) dig cars out of unplowed parking lots at work so they can get home, b) snowblow driveway so they can park, once they're home, c) battle the elements after dark to join the family for Christmas, d) shovel out the car so family can get home, and e) snowblow driveway so they can park. In a 24-hour period.

It's a lovely snowy world out there. Canis is having a few problems with the depth of the snow, since it's as deep as he is tall. When I first got home and opened the back door to let him out, we discovered instead of jumping down 10" to the ground, he needed to jump UP to the ground. And then sink. We normally have winds with the snow, which makes for nice drifts to walk AROUND, but this snowfall hasn't left any windblown patches for him to walk on. It'll melt ... one of these months. Vir is predicting a white Easter.

I'm predicting a long mud season.

Life is very quiet in our household right after Christmas, save for the occasional sports announcer. Some of us are exhausted from the physical labor involved in getting cars to and from the road, others are busy reading new books.... and some are building Great Things.

Cuteness

2009-11-30T18:29:00.006-06:00

One finished bit of cuteness. I can definitely see myself making another. Sock yarn, garter stitch, my favorite size needles ... what's not to love? Garter stitch jackets do take relatively forever ... but it's a BABY size, so I got over it. (Cute model, too, but she needs to grow into the jacket a bit.)

I am now projectless. The yarn for Filius' gansey and the twined hat are in the mail. The test knit is awaiting further input. So it's off to Molly's Fault I go. While dreaming of The Queen Susan Shawl. And Molly said I couldn't blame her for that one. I really can't ... her e-mail just prompted me to check Fleegle's Blog a little earlier in the day than I otherwise would have.

Swoon.

And that really blows the idea of having an All Baltic Year right out of the water. For the Shetlands are, by no stretch of the tsunami, located in or adjacent to the Baltic Sea. If I sail on over to the North Sea, then there goes Haapsalu Sall right off the stern. For Estonia is not in the North Sea.

Maybe I should collect the labels from all the skeins I finish off and take a year-end picture of them? Or keep actual tabs on yardage knit? But that involves paperwork, and I'd rather knit that play with a calculator.

So. On to Molly's Fault. And if the test knit stalls for long enough, perhaps some spinning tomorrow. After delivering more Boy Scout Popcorn. It takes a while to deliver 68 orders.

Knit From Your Shelf - A Success!

2009-11-25T09:32:00.007-06:00

I'd like to declare that the 2009 Knit From Your Shelf campaign was a success. A small one, 'tis true - not many knitters (in fact, only one that I know of) are ~~brave~~ strange enough to attempt to work from their current pattern stash in such a fashion. But in the face of overwhelming opposition, I aimed high and have finished using my last book. (I'm not counting the booklet I received last week, nor the Haapsalu Sall. Books in foreign languages and items received after October 1st don't count.)

To celebrate, I cast on for a pair of mittens, using patterns from a Lithuanian mitten book. The next day, I finished the pair.

And then I cast on for Lilleput. 250 grams of sock yarn worked in garter stitch will take a while, but it's so CUUUUUTE! Filius is desirous of having a new gansey that fits him (barring that, he'd accept the Sandwater Jumper. It fits him nicely.) And I've a test knit in the works, and a twined hat, and ...

Speaking of niceties, our corn stove is still delighting us daily. Here's a photo of our grain delivery. The auger (the long white thing, for those of you not savvy with mechanized agriculture) is swinging into position. Not to pour the corn into our house (though that would be a neat trick. Insulation AND fuel!) but rather heading another 120 degrees or so counterclockwise over the house (from which the photo is taken) and garage (lower right corner) to our storage bin. Our first fill-up (and we figure on only one or two a year) was quite the event. Neighbors came out to watch. It's more fun than watching paint dry.

But paint dries really fast when you put it in front of a corn stove. So do socks, mittens, and stoles. It's a blocking tool!

We're halfway through the second term of school. SOS Spanish I is a great improvement over SOS Secondary Spanish. One tenth the mistakes, ten times the teaching, and there are a few games to practice spelling and vocabulary. Although one could wish that capitalization and punctuation didn't count in the spelling. It's tricky to remember that 'hoy es' is supposed to be 'Hoy es..' Filius is greatly enjoying the SOS Civil War elective, and wants to get all their history courses. SOS makes for an interesting change from the AO Year 8 Lite reading list!

Youth Group is starting the Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Yay! I love it when my children are reading good books outside of school. And I just happen to have this as an audiobook.

I had several pictures of me in the sweater ... but something went terribly wrong between the model and the digitized version.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

ps - I'm accepting ideas for next year's theme. What should 2010 be the year of?

Can it be November?

2009-11-17T18:34:00.004-06:00

It can't be November. For one thing, the house is too warm. We frugally keep our thermostat around 65 in the cooler months (and 50 in the warmer months) and it's closer to 70 in here. So it can't be November.

Unless, perhaps, we have a new heating system that isn't connected to a thermostat?

It's true! Finally, the corn is getting harvested (a month late, thanks to a wet and damp fall) and yesterday saw a truck pull into our driveway to deliver 100 bushes of corn. After 5 false starts and an hour or two of wondering if the pile of kernels being dropped in by the augur were going to extinguish the burning kernels (like happened the first 5 times), we got the corn happily burning yesterday evening and it's been burning ever since. Not all of the corn, of course ... just the kernels in the firepot. If you have 100 bushes of corn burning at once, it's called a problem, not a stove. Today wasn't that cold, but the stove has the ENTIRE house at a comfortable temperature on the lowest possible setting. Ah, it's just too much fun.

We're in our second term of school now and are hitting the doldrums. Tomorrow is a very partial day because of grocery shopping (a truck from Michigan is pulling up to our front door with almost 500 pounds of groceries on it at 10:30 AM) and volunteering with Operation Christmas Child at 11:00 in a town 25 miles from our front door. We shall SCAMPER! The next day is non-existent as far as school goes because of a doctor's appointment way up yonder. But it's been ages since we were at a used bookstore, so that almost counts as school -- does it not? Next week has Thanksgiving, so it's another partial week. Partial weeks give me a scattered feeling. However, we are making progress, reading a lot, writing a bit, and many opportunities are being laid out for growing in knowledge.

Knitting is booming. Really and truly booming. I'm not sure if I like it. No, pick your collective jaws up off the floor. I know I like knitting. I'm just not sure if I like it becoming a cottage industry in this household, at this time. Especially a cottage industry that takes up a score or two of hours a week, a few weeks a month.

So, what have I been up to in knitting? Sandwater is growing nicely - I have one partial sleeve and a bit of neck left to do. The gauge is decent enough that, when I tried it on with one sleeve and two steeks, I decided it's for me. I have a bag of yarn for a test knit tucked under my knitting chair. Several squares have been added to my sock yarn blanket. I've got a Watch Cap on the needles, using a chart from a Lithuanian mitten book that called my name Very Loudly from Vilnius. (Oh, and the Dale of Norway Commemorative Collection 8501 booklet has gone OOP. Somehow, I found two of them.) I just sent off a design and a design proposal, and Filius has a long list of items he would find very handy in his life. Lengthened sweaters, socks, dickeys, and mittenssockssweatershats for various friends of his.

Blogger is not being photo-friendly today. Otherwise, you'd have PICTURES!

Sheer Sandwater Bliss

2009-10-26T10:14:00.003-05:00

At long last -- well, all of two months' last, at least -- I have begun the final project from this year's Knit From Your Shelf Trek. The yarn has been sitting under my chair, waiting for my knitting queue to empty, and at long last...

It emptied.

Almost. I still have one buttonhole band to knit, but the buttons are getting shipped from CA today, so I obviously can't do anything with that.

And I don't want to work on a leftover blanket for two days straight.

And I just *had* to start a traveling project, but that doesn't count as a project to work on while I'm at home.

So yesterday, I cast on 312 stitches and began knitting. It'll be a rather large gauge swatch if I've miscalculated my needle size.

And this is our Fall Break week. A break week, a new sweater on the needles, and a corn stove. What more could one want? (Corn, actually. The fields are too wet unto the harvest. Dry out, ye!)

Catching up on October

2009-10-17T13:02:00.007-05:00

Much knitting has been going on (of course. What else do I do? And it's not summer any more.) Several things have been knit on the QT, but enough other things have been knit to make a decent post.

First, we have Ze Mittens. They go with the hat from my last post, and I can definitely see myself making more of these sets. A fun knit, easy pattern, warm results ... what more could one want?

Then we have the finished Lithuanian sweater. It looks best on the one person in the family who would never wear it. I love the yarn, and have a few skeins left over. Hmmm. Maybe I should make some mittens from it! (Although superwash wool isn't as warm as the unsuperwash varieties, perhaps global warming will make superwash mittens preferable? Maybe?)

There are also 5 pieces of a sweater sitting on the floor in front of our corn stove (running on wood pellets at the moment. Come on, weather, dry out so the farmers can get into the fields to harvest the corn so the elevator can sell us some!) They're dry now (the pieces, that is, not the corn) and I will be sewing them up and working a collar and button bands one of these October days. After I finish another QT project.

When I'm between projects or need something travelable, I pull out the modular sock thing. It's modular, made from sock yarn, and has (in less than two weeks of existence) been destined to be first a cushion cover (nope, too stretchy), then a blanket (nope, too ambitious and large), and for the past week has been a scarf. See, if I call it a scarf, I can make it 1x6 feet, and then slowly start expanding the 1 foot until it's a blanket! Right?

Lastly, there's Canis. Canis likes curling up and sleeping. He doesn't like it when anyone bumps him or moves him while he's engaged in this vital activity. So, one would think he would pick a quiet, out-of-the-way location.

Nope. He picks a lap. The lap formerly containing a book, which was being read aloud from.

Filia is hoping our next dog is a Shih Tzu. They're better lap dogs than crochety terriers.

Takin' Care of Business

2009-09-19T13:19:00.003-05:00

School has started. Three weeks into our first term, all is going well. My hare and tortoise are unequally yoked, perhaps to the benefit of both. We're reading good books, have played happily with subtending arcs and circles, and are beginning to plumb the shallows of set theory. Parsing verbs is becoming par for the course.

Our new pastor is here, and is settling in. The Monday night discussion of the Inferno has begun. My summer Bible Study has finished. And yarn and directions for knitting projects seems to be falling into my lap all at once.

First, the Lithuanian Sweater. It's done now, except for a few ends to weave in, but here's the beginnings of it. Lovely Shibui Knits Worsted Yarn. I'm not sure who it's for, but Filia is angling to have her name put into consideration.

Today I cast on for two projects. One is The Project Which Must Not Be Named, but needs to be done in 3 weeks and may well take me at least two solid weeks of knitting. The other project is a cardigan, which will serve as a nice traveling project while TPWMNBN is under way.

Lurking under my knitting chair are two bags of yarn for the Sandwater Jumper.

Lurking in my knitting box is yarn for Rebecca's Mittens, to match Rebecca's Hat.

And lurking next to the corn stove is a boy hoping for a long cold snap. Except today, he's not lurking. He's installing a fence around the grain bin with Vir, in order to fulfill his pledge to aforementioned Vir, who drove Filius to grandma's to pick up a package which arrived there today. Lego Star Wars II. For Computer.

We normally have stuff sent to us, but Amazon said this item couldn't ship to a PO Box. So we deleted the PO Box. And Amazon said our address didn't check out in their postal records. Which is true, since the postal service doesn't deliver to our house. Enter Grandma's address! And some willing free help for Vir.

I wonder if anyone will want to use my computer this afternoon?

Socks, Triinu, and Salsa

2009-08-22T09:52:00.003-05:00

STS. Yes, if that acronym sounds familiar, then the title of this post is a reminder. Where Are Those Photos?!?

But of course, I had to cover myself, and get the photos of MY newly blocked scarf up first. Triinu (the mini-Triinu, actually) is blocked. And I have photographic evidence to prove it!

So, that covers the Triinu part of things. The socks were a desperation project. One simply can't not have a traveling project, especially if one plans to sit in the car for 5 hours. So, I snagged what yarn I had enough of to make a pair of socks, packed it, almost forgot my needles (yikes!) and knit. Day 1 saw 2 pair of child's socks knit up in Esprit on size 6 needles, and I got through another 3.5+ socks in the rest of the time. And next week, I'll be getting more sock yarn! I love getting yarny boxes in the mail.

The last project in the Knit from your Shelf 2009 is going to be the Sandwater Jumper in blue, from The Art of Fair Isle Knitting. I'm hoping to order the yarn directly from Jamieson and Smith, except their website doesn't quite have a shopping cart yet. I'm hoping e-mail will work.

And as for the Salsa? If life gives you ripe tomatoes, you make salsa! That's on the docket for the rest of the morning. The hard part is peeling the critters. Then comes adding Mrs. Wages' mix, and it'll be practically done.

It's hot outside

2009-08-08T15:53:00.003-05:00

Summer has arrived.

I know it's a paltry summer, since it's just this one day, and the temperature is just tipping 90 degrees. Since when is 90 degrees hot, anyways? We have a tornado watch, which means it's more fun to watch the colors on the weather map change than it is to listen to the corn grow. The breeze (which detracts from the summer swelter) disrupts listening to the corn grow. And the corn is probably in shock (not in the shocks) that it's warm enough to grow, finally.

The start of the traditional US school year is approaching, so I buckled down and plotted out our calendar and books. Foreign language, math, science, and writing are easy choices. Lit and history have not made it onto the formal list of subjects, though. Since Filia is a 9th grader this year, I decided it was time to have something that would really LOOK Lit and History-ish. Enter Ambleside Online Lite Booklists! We read tons of books to begin with -- their list looks intriguing and I think I can stick with it.

I got some luscious yarn for a test knit yesterday, and blocked it this morning. That means I'm back to just one project on the needles, the Triinu scarf. With 9-st nupps (and I've snuck an 11-st nupp in there as well. Gotta love those Addi Lace needles!) I need to come up with a better project for traveling knitting. I don't need the pattern for Triinu, but I do need to look at it. Does the knitter exist who can knit lace without looking?

The little egg on the milkweed leaf that Filius was raising for his Insect merit badge turned black at one end, just like the websites said it would when the larva was ready to hatch. Except then the whole thing turned black, and it's fuzzy on the outside. I think we have mold on a dead egg. Time to go hunt for another egg!

Summer, Full Speed Ahead!

2009-08-05T19:22:00.003-05:00

Summer is finally here. The books are edited, the bookkeeping is caught up, and my days stretch ahead of me like summer days. It will take me a day or two to get used to having an empty slate in the morning. Not that it's really empty ... its just that the Tyranny of the Urgent is gone and I can now turn to the Delights of the Organized Person. Or at least pretend that it's that way.

On the needles now is the Triinu Scarf from Nancy Bush's book. I'm using a laceweight yarn and decided to play with 9-st nupps. So far, so good! All my other knitting projects are done at the moment. No socks, no sweaters, no nothing. There are things on the horizon, but they're not here yet. And - with one book left to use in Knit From Your Shelf 2009, I'm starting to think about next year. I just got Haapsalu Sall (which doesn't count for this year, because I said so.) Maybe next year will have an Estonian theme! Or a Baltic theme. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania could keep me quite occupied.

Stormy Weather

2009-07-16T09:33:00.002-05:00

Dogs have unique personalities. Our current dog does not like unsettled weather. He makes his dislike known by either attaching himself to my ankle and laying down on my feet if I stop moving, or by crawing into the smallest hidey-hole he can find and settling in for the duration.

Even if the duration never exactly happens, and the storm watches are one country over and never turn into storm warnings.

We've tried to help him get comfy by putting a dog bed in the space under my desk so he can retreat there, but you know ... he's a small dog, and space enough for an adult's legs is a large space. So, he practices burrowing.

In the children's desks.

Lately, he's been trying out both desks each day to see which one he can make the most comfortable. It makes for a messy floor.

I wonder what I'll do today?

2009-07-09T09:46:00.004-05:00

Look what arrived in the mail today!

Knit From Your Shelf ... A Call for Updates!

2009-07-02T21:30:00.002-05:00

Because I have something to say about my KFYS progress, I would like everyone else to chime in and report too. (It's rather like telling your children to put socks on because you're cold. Or that you're thirsty, what would they like to drink?)

My KFYS isn't quite trotting along at the project-a-month I had envisioned, or even the 'always have a project from the shelf on the needles.' I'm having a hard time keeping projects on the needles, actually. But they're not particularly from my shelf. I say 'not particularly' because I decided to consider At Sea as being from Knitting Ganseys. It's not, really ... but the author/designer is the same, and a friend sent me the book because I was going to be knitting the gansey, so ... it'll do.

Today, I ordered yarn for the Lupine Cardigan from Meg Swansen's Knitting. I'm not sure when I will sneak in the actual knitting, because rumor has it that I'll be getting yarn for a sample sweater in two weeks or so (yay!) and two weeks later have more yarn for more sample kntting (more yay!) and there are some other things in the works ... but I don't have anything NOW and since this unenviable condition may well occur again in the future, I wanted to take what steps I could to remedy the situation. (I thought about begging for a friend's WIPs, but decided against it. And my mom is helping me out by requesting a cozy for her iced tea glass. But that won't take me through 2 weeks of swimming lessons.)

After the cardigan gets knit (7-10 days of serious knitting), I will have just one unused book on my shelf. Any project from there should take about 1 month to finish, and I'm sure I can sneak that in this fall.

Anyone else have an end in sight?

The Lazy Days of Summer

2009-06-27T10:32:00.002-05:00

The first blush of post-school busy-ness has faded away, and summer spreads before me like a blank canvas.

Great sentence? But not quite true. The insanity of article to knit and books to edit and databases to design has indeed faded away. The articles ARE knit (or aren't ready to be knit), I'm practically caught up on edits, and I have two nicely working databases. But somehow, the blank canvas part isn't true. Filia and Filius are signed up for swim lessons starting in a week or two, and once those are over Filius has scout camp, followed by VBS for both, followed by a week off and then another camp. But I won't complain. There is plenty of free space in our summer. A 50-minute swim lesson, even if it is two towns away, still doesn't take the entire day. I would like to know how it ended up that I have four doctor's appointments in a 3-week period while Filia has a 4 month period without any. (Orthodontist doesn't count. I don't think we've EVER gone 3 months before without a check-up with someone.)

And dh put the air conditioner in yesterday ... so today, the heat breaks. Just in time for cooler weather, which I appreciate. Summer is a very good thing for crops and long walks, but I miss warming up with hot cocoa and cozily warm blankets.

Strong on pictures, short on words

2009-06-22T09:31:00.003-05:00

Let me present the finished At Sea gansey:

And then a closeup, followed by Podrick (in cozy and out), and the project on the needles.

And then I will get back to work!

Catching up on things

2009-06-12T10:33:00.005-05:00

Summer is always an opportunity to dive into things wholeheartedly. I like submerging myself in things. I'd say 'immersing', but since I don't come up for air, submerging is probably more accurate.

I've finished the Irish Lace Scarf. Soaking it was an interesting tactile experience. So was knitting it, actually. It felt and looked like I was knitting dust bunnies. I leave it to your imagination how to describe the 'shawl coming out of warm water bath'.

The gansey is moving along nicely. I hit a small snag when I started the sleeve with a star pattern, then realized it should be a tree. Rather than frog 16 rows, I decided to do a bit of minor surgery. Another knitter in the family, who shall remain nameless, accidentally deleted the 'before' photo, but here's a picture of the corrections mid-stream. Star on the left needle, tree on the right needle! The swap took me just over a half-hour, and that sleeve is now done. I hope to start and finish the second sleeve this week.

But this morning, I finished some mittens for Terri Shea's upcoming book.....

And yesterday, I began using the new database I've constructed (using OO Base) for Classical Writing accounting/invoicing/royalties stuff. I had two hurdle to surmount. One involved my own stupidity (bad figures give bad data ... fortunately, the bad figure was only in a note to myself, not to a customer!), but the cause of the other problem is still beyond me. How can an automatically incremented record ID produce duplicate numbers?

Now, to go see if I can finish editing Chapter 3 of Herodotus. And then make sure the answer key has answers that pertain to the contents of the chapter. Fun!!!

On the Way Home from Church

2009-05-31T13:47:00.003-05:00

Happily Surrounded by Yarn

2009-05-27T15:50:00.001-05:00

Have you ever had one of those days where you finished a project and wondered what you were going to work on next? I have, and I really like to know what I'll be doing next.

Lately, I don't even have to wonder. On Monday, I worked on four projects. Yesterday, I worked on three projects. Filia also worked on one of them for me, and got it into proper shape for next Tuesday's knitting class (allowing me to work on another project. Maybe, just maybe, she'll grow up to be my Twin in the Closet? Just think of everything I could get done with a Real Twin! But no, then she wouldn't get her socks done. And she did finish one yesterday -- and didn't have yarn for the second with her, which is why I threw my sock to her.)

The At Sea gansey is coming along beautifully. I've one 'tree' motif to knit, and then I can start in on the back. After the back comes the neck, and then the sleeves, and then ... it'll be done. The lace scarf is about half-done, and the traveling socks? Well, those are traveling, and don't count.

When I'm not knitting, I'm wandering through Open Office Base tutorials, dreaming of a nice and tidy way to keep all the records I need for my Customer Service, Editor, and Accounting hats. I have much to learn, but it's nice to take a summer and see what I can figure out.

There's other things on my to-do list, but these are the ones that give me the most delight. (Bringing order to the chaos of an unformatted book comes close, though.)

What are YOU doing this summer that delights you?

And the winner is ...

2009-05-23T08:49:00.003-05:00

Eileen! Congratulations, Eileen. I've contacted you via your blog, and will get the yarn off to you when I know what to put on the address label.

I've made progress on 3 of my 4 projects this week. One class sock is two tail weaves away from completion, the gansey is less than an inch from the top of the armhole gusset, and the scarf is one orthodontist appointment (braces removal) further along.
We're wrapping up our school year, and the summer is stretching ahead of us. It's not exactly vacant, though. There are SO many things to learn. I could learn SQL and database design (spending lots of time to make bookkeeping take a little less time), or I could potter about in the yard, or I could practice harp lots, or I could completely declutter the house, or ... so many possibilities. I also need to at least pretend to plan out the high school years for my kiddos. What Spanish curriculum do I want to use for Filia? What will I do for Latin 3 for Filius? And then there's history and literature ... eeek! The reading of it isn't a problem, but the discussing thereof is another matter entirely. Now that things are getting 'transcriptable', I find myself staring at the large gap between my own high school history class (sit through class, do homework involving copying down sentences from the book, take multiple choice open book tests) and the possibilities inherent in homeschooling. My tendency is to expect a doctoral dissertation from a 9th grader, I fear. Maybe Filius could read some of Suetonius in Latin and write an original paper on it...

Thank goodness Math is easy. Singapore NEM 3b and 4a, and we're set!

What Happened?

2009-05-19T21:03:00.005-05:00

I am a monogamous knitter. Those who know me know I have one, perhaps two, projects on the needles at a time. A project to work on at home, and if it's not portable, a project for traveling.

Tuesday night the realization struck me that I had not two, nor even three, but FOUR projects on the needles. How did that happen?

Let me explain. No, that would take too long. Let me sum up.

I love being helpful. And although in some areas of life I have no difficulty saying 'no', I'm a sucker for knitting things. And helpfulness collided with a design I am working on (despite the fact that I am *not* a designer), plus a traveling knitting project and a class sample ... well, there are four things on the needles. The 16x8" lace swatch on a spare set of needles doesn't count. My daughter is going to finish that (after she finishes her socks and sweater), or else it will get frogged. Except Frog Tree Alpaca doesn't frog well, so it may just quietly disappear. Or get bound off. What does one do with Unloved Swatches, anyways? Or even Loved Swatches?
You, spinning wheel, with the half-spun bobbin. Shush.

The Bohus mittens, at least, are finished. They were a slightly finicky knit (the palm sides are beige and unpatterned, and the mittens are worked in the round with no spare strands on the palm side), but knit up surprisingly quickly. The yarn came out of my stash and was acquired from four states - CA, OR, MN and MD - and three generations of my own family plus a friend. Does that make these interstate multigenerational mittens?

A Monday morning blog giveaway!

2009-05-18T08:36:00.003-05:00

Aren't these pretty? And "these" happen to be Spud & Chloe, a lovely worsted yarn in superwash wool and cotton from Blue Sky Alpacas. (Don't ask me where the alpacas are in this. I think maybe they watch.) ((Spud and Chloe also comes in a fingering weight and a bulky weight. But these are worsted weight, aka 'Sweater'.)

If you'd like the yarn, leave a comment by Friday, May 22nd. I will use my handy-dandy, much-beloved HP11c to generate a random number, multiply it by the number of commenters, and that person will be the winner!

Yarn!!!

2009-05-11T11:10:00.002-05:00

When I'm making a pointed attempt not to knit (an unusual event, but necessitated by being between projects and not having the yarn for the next project yet), SOMETHING has to be going on. Reading books is one way to pass the time, or cleaning, or decluttering, or organizing ...

but if one is just back from Shepherd's Harvest and has roving, the obvious thing to do is SPIN!

Yesterday, I spun. I think the yarn is heading for a lace shawl. A Knitted Veil is in the running, but I'm not sure if it will work with the variation in color, or if I'll have enough.

Today, I will knit. (Dances in glee) Three boxes came in the mail today -- one with books, one with cassette tapes about books, and one with yarn.

Yippee!

Back from Shepherd's Harvest

2009-05-09T16:23:00.005-05:00

What is Shepherd's Harvest, you ask? It's a sheep and wool festival! And what do you get at sheep and wool festivals? Wool fumes!

But before I show you the wool fumes that came home with me, let me show you how far we live from Shepherd's Harvest. (I should have taken a 'before' picture ... it would have showed one ball of yarn and two needles.)

Yup. About that far - minus one meal eaten in the car, plus reading the mail we picked up on our way out of town. And some time just watching the road go by. (I probably spent some of that time knitting ... my hands may have forgotten to tell me they were occupying themselves)

I was a good girl this year. (I usually am. Some people tell me I'm disciplined and have self-restraint.) I didn't have anything particular in mind to buy -- unlike last year, where my quest was to find White Laceweight Yarn for the Sanquhar Gloves. The quest ended with an order to KnitPicks. Laceweight just isn't a good seller, apparently. I can't really complain, as a skein here and a skein there last me a good long whlie.

So this year, knowing that I have OODLES of knitting just waiting to descend on me, I didn't want to overload myself with projects. And yes, a yarn purchase means a yarn project. Stash is for leftovers. And since I have plenty of yarn to play with - I could probably knit mittens for 2-3 months out of my stash (with no guarantees as to authentic colors for ethnic patterns) - I knew I didn't need to buy yarn. Really. So that left me with buying roving. Like I bought last year. But of course, roving must be spun before it's knit, and that takes time, so I don't need a LOT of roving. Just enough for a project or two.

And I didn't get the merino/silk blend in a dark charcoal. Ahhhh... that was gorgeous.

No, I got another ball of roving that called my name. See this? It says Shetland on it. And I like Shetland. Shetland Lace, Shetland/Fair Isle patterns, Shetland sheepies, Shetland weather.... all good. I get a bit sea sick, so if I lived there I like to think I could knit all winter and listen to improving lectures. One has to dream, right?

So, this called me. To show you just how LOUDLY it called, here's a bit of the ball draped over my arm. Yes, I was wearing that. (And yes, that's the shawl I spun and knit last year).

Spinning doesn't count as knitting, so when my knitting projects begin to arrive, it won't count as a project on the needles. Isn't that clever of me? (Nods head) I thought so. I rather like it.

In the meantime, I have a dishcloth to finish, and the second of these. Green Meadow Mittens, from Poems in Color. (A Knit from Your Shelf project!). It's not near as fiddly as I thought it would be, but I would much rather knit a sweater than a cardigan or mitten. The palm side is plain, and the colors are Not Carried.

Yikes.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-05-06T07:55:00.003-05:00

2009-04-25T09:48:00.002-05:00

Only 24,682 stitches left! The shawl is moving along nicely, and I hope to get the edging started today. I can squeeze in two hours of knitting today so I can get to the edging, right?

Yes. Two hours of knitting on a quiet Saturday (the weather is cooperating ... outside work is not calling on this cold, threatening-to-drizzle day) is easily done.

The Latin curriculum we use is Henle. I've seen several, and tried a few of them out on my guinea pigs. I used Latina Christiana and Henle to teach myself Latin (not that I'm proficient, or fluent, you understand), and used the same with my children. We tried Oerberg's Lingua Latina, which is a wonderful book, but becomes a terrible teaching tool in my hands. I am not an inductive teacher, and I do not have inductive children. We all love Familia Romana, though, and highly recommend it for reading. Wheelock's was just too scattered for me after Henle's very sequential presentation of grammar. But it's a good book too. For next year, I should probably join the LatinStudy list and find something fun to translate with a group. I don't know that we'll go on to Henle 3. To do it well will, I think, require less grammar instruction and more discussion of speeches. Talk of discussion makes me run for my knitting and find a cozy corner to sit and listen.

Hmm. What shall I knit after the shawl, if my other knitting doesn't materialize?

April Update

2009-04-20T18:35:00.002-05:00

April is here. My blog has not been here.

And I don't have any pictures to show you.

It's called a Shawl. A circular lace in tiny yarn, better known as the Shetland Tea Shawl. It's been on my list to make since I first laid eyes on A Gathering of Lace, and I decided I was going to make it. I should have it finished in a month or so, if other knitting doesn't pop up and bump the STS to the back burner. Other knitting is supposed to pop up .. so don't hold your breath for finished pictures. If my estimates are right, I have 75,600 stitches left.

School is starting to wind down. We've finished Diogenes: Maxim, are working on the review exercises in math, and are close to the end of Logic and Science. Latin ... well, there's always more Latin to learn. Results of the NLE Level 2 show that my Latin Scholars are Magna Cum Laude, which delights my teacher's heart.

Spring is actually springing. The grass is green, the trees are budding, and Filius got in a strawberry bed. He's looking forward to ripe strawberries later this season. I'm looking forward to them too. Fresh asparagus is on my list of delicacies as well, but not his. Yet. I'm not sure if I should tell him how good it is.

Earlier this month a semi pulled up in front of our house with an order of grains, cereals, dried fruit, and nuts. Mmmmm! I have discovered how to make almond milk -- an excellent substitute for milk in creamy soups. Filia loves the almond pulp left over, so there's no waste whatsoever. We all love dried Bing cherries, and fresh ground whole wheat beats store-bought flour any day. We're overflowing in so many good things!!!

And that's it for April.

March Update

2009-03-27T18:29:00.005-05:00

Where did the month go? It hasn't disappeared into the black hole that is Facebook, nor did it vanish into Ravelry. I must have done something, then.

That's right! I knit. I knit (let me go check Ravelry) the Meadow Flowers Shawl. I knit my wee little Minimitts. I finished knitting the Maikell Stole. And I did some test knitting.

Aren't the minimitts cute? I thought about calling them Double Knit Miniature Christmas Tree Ornament Mittens, but no project should have a title longer than the item is big, so I shrunk the title.

This month has definitely not been a home month. I'm leading a Bible Study on Habakkuk, teaching some young girls to knit another day, and have just started teaching an adult Beginning Knitting class. My, was that fun! We've two weeks left in that, and I am excited to see what my students will be doing by then. As this is the first time I've ever taught a beginning class, I'm also putting together handouts and such-like.

Another first happened today. I put in an order with Country Life Natural Foods, and will be a truck stop on their route. Wow! Me -- a truck stop. I get a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about it. The order was definitely necessary ... I ground the last wheat berries today.

Taxes happened this month, too. That gobbled up a day (and wiped out a cartridge of ink ... I still need to print out some forms, and then copy them. Why does Minnesota need the entire Federal return?)

School is slithering along slowly. Filius took a Lego Design class over the school spring break, and enjoyed it. We're ready to begin the last writing project in Diogenes: Maxim, in the last chapter of NEM 3A, trotting along nicely in Henle (oh, the NLE happened in March as well), and it seems like Traditional Logic and Apologia will never end. Why is it that the subject I enjoy the most happen in the morning? Hmmm. I wonder.

One of the last things we do in the morning is read. The Story of the Greeks is what I've been reading lately. While I read, Filia works on her home exercise plan, and Filius groans about sit ups, push ups, and the like. He's actually made serious improvement in the sit up arena, but getting the proper form for a push up is proving tough. Stretching is also a, well, stretch for him. Sit on the floor with your feet straight out? Yee-Owch! It doesn't help that Filia is as flexible as a wet noodle. She can sit on the floor, legs straight in front of her, and her nose reaches mid-shin when she bends over.

After a sufficient amount of torture, Filius likes to curl up on the couch. Canis also likes to curl up on the couch. Especially on a blanket on the couch. Unfortunately, he also has a bit of an attitude when it comes to Filius (or Vir, for that matter.) He gets rather upset when his 'cushion' moves and will snap at any exposed flesh. Filius would rather vacate the premises than lose his nose (even if I promise to protect him), so he has been practicing the art of Escaping While Keeping the Blanket. I'm not sure how he does it, but it's worked the past three days.

One of these days, spring will spring, and we won't need blankets to stay warm. Until then ... we thank God for blankets, and hot cocoa, and tea

That's right! I got my first order from the Republic of Tea this month. Mmmm, I like their Republic Chai, and the cinnamony Rooibos tea. A pot a day keeps the allergies away!

Tax copies await. Whee.

Photos, anyone?

2009-02-28T13:21:00.002-06:00

I have been informed that my blogs posts have been a bit technical lately, so this one is going to be as untechnical as I can make it. Pictures are very non-technical.

First, we have a picture.
Then we have another picture. This arrived in the mail today. It's a little more pink than it looks.

And lastly, socks.

There! Nice and non-technical.

Shhhh... knitting is happening

2009-02-22T21:36:00.002-06:00

Knitting is happening, but nothing too spectacular. There's test knits that I really shouldn't be blogging about, stockings that I have no photos of, and lace shawls that are going to take quite some time to knit.

The stockings - Teri Shea's from Piecework - are done. They came out large, as I suspected, but they're not too bad with the extra 4 decreases I snuck in between the calf and the ankle. And they are warm! Cold legs in bed? Pop these stockings on, given them an extra tug up, and your tootsies will stay nice and toasty.

After the stockings came the Maikell Shawl. My sample swatch came out a bit small, but I didn't have any intention of working a 2/28 laceweight (fine laceweight, at that) on anything much larger than a US 3 needles, so I planned for an extra repeat widthwise, and to knit until it 'looked long enough.' Turns out I might have been able to get away with a size 4 needle, but at 6 repeats in I've about 18" of shawl (stretched) done. 12 repeats, as called for in the pattern, will simply not suffice. And that is going to throw off the entire border.

Sniff. I'm going to have to wing it. See, in a traditional Estonian shawl, the border is worked in two pieces. Two, because the knitters used 10" straight needles. And they worked the border by casting on a few hundred stitches, working 10 rows or so in a pretty lace pattern, casting off, and then SEWING the cast on to the center of the shawl. Since the needles were just 10" long, there wasn't enough room to knit the border in one piece. So, two sides of the shawl would have one border sewn on, and the other two would get another, identical border.

Planned insanity. But they did quite nicely at it. And if I were getting gauge, I probably would too. Seams are overrated as regards difficulty and finickiness.

But to add one multiple in width and oh, 8 repeats in length? And then add in the fudge factor of X border stitches to Y shawl stitches? No. I may change my mind in about 14 more repeats of the pattern, but at the present, it seems good to me to study the fudge factor in the book, stare at my shawl, and then in a good light and with a modern circular needle, pick up a few hundred stitches. No, make that several hundred stitches. I think the book mentions over 300 ... and that's for half, and with less rows than I'm going to make. THEN I can count those several hundred stitches and figure out my Secondary Fudge Factor, which will ensure that the lace motifs come out even.

But that won't be for another month or so. Lace isn't usually a fast knit, and nupps aren't for the speed knitter either. This has both. (Of course. Who would work a nupp without lace?) I'm hoping to have enough yarn (and the good news, Rachel, is that I found another nice fat ball of it upstairs. Yay!) but if not? Well, I can always do it borderless. That would be a pity, designwise, but I wouldn't be distressed not to knit the border rows.

Since the shawl isn't particularly traveling knitting, I made a pair of legwarmers for Filia. And since there was leftover yarn, and I didn't want to put it into my stash, I knit a tube of 2x2 rib until there was about 6" left, then turned the two into two half mitts. How? Bind off both ends of the tube in a contrasting sock yarn, then find the middle of the tube, turn THAT into two new ends, and bind those off with the contrasting sock yarn as well. Voila! Ankle/wrist/handwarmers to coordinate perfectly with the legwarmers!

No pictures of those either.

My mom is really enjoying our Sample Skeins Subscription from Elann. Every month they mail us (me) FIVE SKEINS of yarns that they will be selling at nifty prices throughout the next month. With those five skeins (about 10 yds in length), we can sample, doodle, pet, etc, the yarns before they go on sale. And with the color card included, we can see what the actual colors are! I've been a good girl and haven't ordered any this year, but mom is keeping up her end of the economy and has been picking one a month. She's doing good, too. The January Yarn is already knit up and being worn in a shawl. I'm not sure what she plans to do with her February yarn.

And one of these months, I'll probably see something I 'need' to get. But with cobwebby laceweight, one doesn't need to purchase yarn all that often. Speaking of cobwebby ... one of Colourmart's latest offerings came in at over 15,000 yards/lb. Teensy!!! (For comparison, that's over 1600 yds/50g) Colourmart could be dangerous. Fortunately, they have free shipping, so I don't 'need' to order all sorts of things 'while I'm ordering.' That's how I escaped with just one cone of yarn in my order to them last week.

It'll be traveling knitting, and I need a traveling project.

Really.

Doesn't everyone knit lace shawls in mohair for traveling projects?

Oh.

Report!

2009-01-31T13:20:00.002-06:00

How *is* everyone doing with their 2008 Knit From Your Shelf Goals?

I finished a project from my shelf - the Nachaq.

I did not get another project started :( so I have flunked the 'Always Have a Project From Your Shelf On Your Needles' portion of the year. I'm not too concerned, however, since I am diving into the world of test knitting and have decided that juggling test knits, travel knits, and Shelf knits is unreasonable. Especially when my travel knits are Norwegian Patterened Stockings. They're not my typical travel knit, but they work. I have great plans for finding a quiet lighted corner at the church Super Bowl party and getting much knit.

I also added a book to my shelf - Poems in Color. If this keeps up -add a book, use a book -I will not 'clear' my shelf of unused books.

Next on the agenda is the Maikell shawl from Estonian Lace. I started a swatch and got nice pointy needles to work it on. I hope to get going on it more in early February.

Today we're experiencing a January Thaw. It was warm enough to go for a decent walk (2 miles) with the dog (who hasn't been out, except to go out, since what, October?) and the front walk is actually drying out in places. Hooray for Filius, who has kept it faithfully shoveled!

Knitting Away

2009-01-22T22:15:00.003-06:00

Rather like Anchors Aweigh, but different. Although tomorrow I will be picking up my anchor (you know, the knitting box I'm never far from?) and heading Up North for a while. A class to teach, some cashmere to come home with ... that sort of thing.

Since the slippers departed, and the Nachaq got finished (but not photographed yet. It's lurking in the depths of the aforementioned anchor), a sweater has jumped off and off my needles. Quick knits are fun, and wool sweaters are warm. This one isn't my usual waterproof, densely knit, stranded efforts. That probably has something to do with its short lifespan on my WIPlist.
Data:

(Rosemary's Middle Sweater, size small, + Rosemary's Small Sweater, size large)/2, from Green Mountain Spinnery.
Yarn, Knit One Crochet Too Arabesque in Toffee. 10 balls and a bit. Yay for Elann!
Needles, 10 1/2 US
Gauge, 18 sts/4" and I never even looked at the row gauge.

A sock is my only project on the needles now. Saturday will see the beginning of a twined hat, and Monday should see the beginning of something else. So my only logistic problem is ... what do I do if I finish the sock before Saturday at noon? Maybe I'll have to read a book, or something.

Speaking of books, with the completion of the Nachaq, Arctic Lace is now a 'used book' from my bookshelf. I'm not sure what I'll make next. Something lacy, with the cashmere I'm getting tomorrow? Or something Bohus-y, from my fingering-weight stash? It'll probably be one of those two things. I certainly don't have enough stash yarn to pull off Russian Prime in anything larger than a Barbie size.

Responsible parenting has landed me in the realm of Facebookians. Curious thing, that.

Slippers!!!!

2009-01-11T15:51:00.004-06:00

This could also be called

The January Jinx

and if I were smart, I might swear off knitting for the rest of the month. I'm not that smart, though. I will use the remaining 20 days of this month as an opportunity to practice the Maintenance of an Even Temperament in the Face of Adversity (Even That Occasioned by One's Own ~~Idiocy~~ ~~Stupidity~~ Mortality).

This year I have knit some mittens I am calling The Frogged Project. And with that, begun last Monday, the January Jinx began. Knitting was going beautifully, until I got to the stranded section above the ribbing and discovered I had the wrong number of stitches. Starting with the cast on. Frog, and re-knit. I dove into the stranded section with delight (one can only take so much ribbing, after all) and was doing dandy until I was drawing to the close of the mitten. And there I discovered that it was Way Too Long. A bit of digging revealed that there was a bit of a gauge problem ... the item needed to be Severely Blocked, so while I had stitch gauge nicely, the row gauge was Severely Off, and smaller needles were called for. Frog back to the ribbing. Stick tongue out at knitting. Proceed. Later on in the same project, I picked it up to do some knitting, glanced at it to make sure I was where I thought I was, and knit merrily away. 400 stitches later, I glanced down to see if I was ready for the next part of the pattern ... and discovered that all 400 stitches needed to be frogged since I was ready for the next part of the pattern when I picked up the knitting.

Pffft.

Next, I knit a beehive hat. It was great and grand, until I washed it. Then it grew so that it sat on my shoulders and would have fit a kitchen trash can. I frogged it and reknit it while it was still damp.

Then I made slippers. Slipper one went beautifully. Slipper two went along nicely, right up until the second round of the 'upper.' At which point I realized ... hey, the FIRST slipper didn't look like this. Uh-oh.

And the January Jinx hit me. Cast on, frog, finish project. Repeat.

So, I finished the second slipper, frogged the upper of the first, reknit it (it's quite tricky to knit the upper of a slipper when the center of the sole is seamed. And I just sliced through the cuff. My ends were woven in too well, and hidden and snagged in the little tube quite secretly) and then today?

Today, I *felted* the slippers. I felted them with great watchings. Check every 5 minutes? No way! I checked every 2-3 minutes. The familial consensus is they're a bit large, but I'm not putting them in for another 2 minutes. Nuh-uh. They fit the circumerence of my foot snugly, the length is just a smidge long, and the opening is loose. They will do.

And my old ones are in the TRASH.

I suppose I could rescue them and cut out pieces, roll them up, and let my son use them in his marshmallow blaster. But I don't think so.

The Postman Cometh

2009-01-08T11:49:00.006-06:00

The postman brought me three boxes of goodies on Monday, but I forget what the third one was. It wasn't my new knitting book :( which I need like I need more yarn.

But wait ... I did get more yarn! This is a Very Important Yarn Box. The primary purpose was to get yarn for a Sweater Filii ... but in the lower half of the box, you see Slipper Yarn. Slippers are on the agenda as soon as I get a test knitting project done (ideally, tomorrow), and re-knit a Beehive Hat (ideally, tomorrow also.) My toes may be warm on Monday!

The other box was really a padded envelope. Inside the envelope were two pieces of cardboard, taped together neatly. And labeled. With a clue.

Out came the scissors (since I had an inkling what might be Inside Here, and had no intent of just ripping the cardboard AND contents into smaller pieces). I carefully sliced the tape all around, reverently lifted a piece of cardboard, and saw ...

I won't be knitting slippers on these. Mittens and lace, anyone?

Oh, that's right. I already have something on the needles. But that will pass -- hopefully by early February.

My Nachaq is sidelined at the moment, but it's looking good. I'm not to the half-way point yet, but I was getting there once upon a time. It's sulking in my knitting box at the moment while I'm working on test knitting (THAT was the other package I got on Monday. More yarn!) and a class sample.

2008 Wrap-Up and 2009 Preview

2009-01-01T15:11:00.003-06:00

Last year was the Year of the Monthly Mitten. My goal was to make a pair of mittens each month. And how did I do?

38 pairs of mittens, plus 4 'demo' models that don't quite make pairs. Can that be called 40 pairs? Probably not. Especially since 2 mittens are so demo they don't have thumbs. I may make matches for one of them sometime this year. The other will probably have a productive life in my collection of Things Not To Do (And The Colors Not To Do Them With) for classes.

2008 was also the year of the Puritan Reading Challenge. Mom and I both endured to the end. Mom is actually still enduring, closing in on the final pages of the last book.

I had fine intentions of calculating how many yards/miles of yarn I had knit up, or how many pounds. But my kitchen scale lives in the kitchen, and I was not faithful in weighing my finished projects. That's not going to happen. But despite acquisitions (most of them from helpful enabling friends), I think my stash is lighter than it was at the beginning of 2008. I certainly didn't order as much yarn as I did the previous year. (I think. Maybe I shouldn't think too hard.)

2009 promises to be an interesting year. The ~~gentle~~ nudges of a few friends have bumped me into Designer Status, despite my pleas that I am not a designer. Thanks to a well-connected friend and a Ravelry group, I am beginning to do some test knitting. And thanks to the same friend, I will be teaching a class or two not located at my LYS. Which is sort of scary, if you think about it, since I've only ever taught one knitting class even AT my LYS. The things I like to teach about are perhaps too strange for this area? Aren't there thousands of knitters dying to spend a year knitting a lace shawl on 000 needles with thread it takes a magnifying glass and good lighting to see?

Let me close by sharing a tip I learned (the hard way) this morning: When knitting socks with dpns of the sort with stiletto tips, one ought NOT scratch one's nose with a knuckle on one's index finger unless one's thumb is firmly placed on the uppermost tip of the free dpn in that hand.

Ouch.

Why I Am Making New Slippers

2008-12-31T11:41:00.005-06:00

I am not making new slippers for a variety of reasons.

I need more than one pair.
I got tired of the color of the old ones.
My feet grew and don't fit in the old ones.
My feet shrank and don't fit in the old ones.
I wanted to knit something and couldn't come up with any other project.
I'm participating in a '365 slippers 2009' knit-a-long.
I found a new pattern I just had to try.
I found a new yarn I just had to try.
I'm so fashion conscious I have to change slippers every 2-3 years.

No, I have a Very Good Reason for making new slippers as soon as the yarn arrives. My old ones are falling apart! I'm sure some people use that term loosely, but I have pictorial evidence asserting the veracity of my statement.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Then there's Exhibit C, the half-mitts I made last night. Four skeins of yarn used in four single-skein projects in four days!

And nothing on my needles for tonight's New Year's Eve Party. I think I need to start some socks on my new needles.

The Last Christmas Present

2008-12-30T08:19:00.004-06:00

It came! It came!

My husband's Christmas present to me arrived in the mail yesterday. And, in a fit of perfect timing, he picked up the mail on his way in to work, JUST before The Tube was popped into our box. So when I went to the post office, the only thing there was The Tube.

Behold, the contents of the tube. Aren't they pretty? They're even Christmassy colored. And such a nice little bag to store them in. After reading the warning on the packing slip, I am wondering if the bag is made of Kevlar.

But I can't blame the company for including the warning. People can get so lawsuit happy these days, I suppose a wise company makes provision for that. And since you may, at some time in your life, experience the euphoria of finding a set of these needles (sans packing slip), permit me to share with you some Necessary Information.

Signature Arts, LLC's knitting needles are intended for knitting purposes only. The knitting needles are sharp and should be handled with care, stored with the pointed end down, out of the reach of children, and should not be left on the floor. The knitting needles should also be carried with the pointed end down. The knitting needles should not be used in a moving vehicle due to the possibility they could cause the puncture of persons or air bags in the case of an accident. The knitting needles should not be stuck in the ear or in other body parts. Signature Needle Arts, LLC hereby disclaims liability for all claims for damages other than for damages provided for in the Uniform Commercial Code for breaches of warranties. Signature Needle Arts, LLC's liability shall in no event exceed the price of the knitting needles.

I'd like to go on record and note that never, EVER, have I become so distraught over a dropped stitch or other knitting accident so as to puncture persons or air bags. My children will bear witness to this. Now, if an air bag was about to explode on my knitting? Puncturing it might cross my mind. Self-defense, you know.

In most situations, I'm a law-abiding citizen, and quite willing to go along with suggested safety precautions. But I simply cannot countenance the idea of carrying these needles point down. Or storing them that way. It just won't work. And please, no one tell the airlines about the moving vehicles part.

But, on to the needles. There they lay (on the floor, sorry), just waiting for a project. Or at least a swatch.

The swatch of the day used Colourmart's 3/28NM Cashmere Heavy Laceweight. Oh, I like the needles. I was a wee bit concerned they'd be heavy ... but let me share some figures.

KnitPicks Harmony dpns - 4g
KnitPicks Metal dpns - 20g
Signature Needles dpns - 12g

They'll do just fine. I did a lozenge/bead swatch, and had so much yarn left over I decided to do a swatch from Estonian Lace. A single Lily of the Valley swatch, as a matter of fact. With the dreaded NUPPS!

The first two nupps on the bottom are 5 stitch nupps. The next 4 are 7 stitch nupps. I like them better... and the last two were even easy to work.

Please, no one mention the fact that one does not make a lace shawl on 6" dpns. It's a sad reality. But these needles are going to be greatly used for socks and mittens.

Catching Up

2008-12-29T09:48:00.006-06:00

The needles have been busy, and I'm afraid I haven't been writing my post-Christmas letters the way my to-do list has been telling me.

I have been decluttering, however. I sold a book on Amazon.com! (One less book to knit from my shelf out of) and immediately bought a book on Amazon.com. I did *not* (picture extreme self-restraint) pre-order the reprinted Alice Starmore Fair Isle book. Too much of a good thing leaves the children unfed and the bills in a pile on the kitchen desk. And putting the book in my Amazon cart so I don't forget about it doesn't count.

As those of you who know my mom may have guessed, I got a knitting book for Christmas! It is sitting within arm's reach of my knitting chair, and despite the time I have spent with it, I'm still not sure what my first project will be. But it's a good book. I used the Blueberry pattern from it for a scarf using the fuzzy alpaca from my Knit Picks Alpaca Sampler. I have my doubts about how well it will stay blocked, but even unblocked, it makes a nice skinny scarf.

Also from that sampler, I've made the Treasured Neckerchief. If you have plans to make that pattern, check for errata, drop the first 8 rows of section 2 (the second second section mentioned, not the first) and don't be concerned if you're confused. I'll be happy for the company.

The blocking neckerchief reminds me of nothing more than a tapeworm. The color is gorgeous, and it is a nice quick knit. And one skein, as advertised! (Even with what I think are 16 extra rows.)

But on to the Beautiful Knitting.

First, let me introduce Wisteria. Wisteria is a quick knit, with lots of gorgeous cables and plenty of speedy stockinette. I think I could wear this sweater out quickly. It's warm, it's cozy ... and yes, I did shorten the sleeves. I have a pet peeve with sweaters that attack my dpns.

And cashmere. One cute little sample swatch of a lozenge with a single bead in it, all blocked out for your cosideration. I think this yarn has a future as an Estonian Lace shawl. Or maybe something from Heirloom knitting. Although the mittens made from a double strand of it were gorgeous -- 13.5 sts per inch leave one with plenty of room for detailed stranded patterns.

Tomorrow I may have a picture of the Last Christmas Present. It's from dh, and is in the mailstream somewhere. Will it arrive today?

I'd better go find out.

Let's Consider That Stash

2008-12-27T14:31:00.003-06:00

Here is a picture of the yarn corner of my craft room. It's a bit, shall we say, populated? for a person who doesn't particularly have a stash. But truly, the only things there are more than one skein of are things that were given me by destashing people. Really!

Christmas hasn't changed that much. I got two lovely samplers from my mom, with 21 skeins between the two of them. And would you know, there are no duplicates in the lot? And nothing in the samplers duplicates anything that I already have. I call that Careful Planning!

I think I will take the four-skein bag first. Those are such gorgeous colors! The other bag is nice, too ... and it calls to me loudly of MITTENS! The colors are better in person.

But I am using stuff on hand. I finished the half-mitts, and took pictures (with macro!) of the silk/cotton swatch. It needs to be worked on bigger needles.

A cashmere swatch in 2/28NM is utterly gorgeous. Next in my swatching sights is the 2/28 silk!

A Russian Prime sweater in 10/28 cashwool is also calling to me.

The second day of Christmas ...

2008-12-27T08:56:00.002-06:00

The Christmas spirit really gets a hold of some people in strange ways.

Others prefer to lounge around in new finery. So I may present, at long last, the Not-So-Secret Christmas Present. Planned in the open (because it can be a bad idea to knit something for a teen girl if one hasn't pre-approved the design) and knit entirely in secret. Do you know how long it can take to knit a sweater at 7 stitches per inch only working after a teen bedtime?
Now that the Secret Thing is off my needles, the knitting seems to be going ever so much faster. (Funny how switching projects whenever Filia is out of the room can really make standard knitting drag.) Yesterday I did some swatching with a silk/cotton yarn from Colourmart, first with 2.75 mm needles and then with something around a 6.5 US. (Old needles, too big for a US 6 and too small for a US 7). I think the yarn would be perfect with a US 5, but HORRIBLE for anything resembling a nupp. It is calling me for a summer shawl, though. (sigh)

On the needles currently is the second half-mitt in a cashmere wool blend. The sample skein Colourmart sent has more than enough yarn for two halfmitts -- in fact, it looks like I could make three out of it. I really like the yarn, which I'm working up on US 5 needles, but could probably stand to be worked looser.

The yarny goodies are abounding of late. Yarny goodies for Christmas, yarny goodies arriving in the mail yesterday, and needlie goodies set to arrive in the mail some day soon. And I'm ordering more yarny goodies on Tuesday!

I'd better get to knitting so I don't develop an official stash! Leftovers are one thing, but a stash?

In which evidence of sewing activities are produced

2008-12-26T10:00:00.004-06:00

Christmas knitting always goes so much more smoothly than Christmas sewing. It's true I can sew, but I am not by any means a seamstress. It's not that sewing is a necessary evil, but sewing is not knitting, and I am not exactly competent with it. (Exhibit A: My husband did not get a homemade sweatshirt this year, because I read the layout wrong and ended up not having enough fabric for the front of the sweatshirt. Exhibit B: Plastic bag in craft room closet containing all the pieces for a nice flannel shirt (except it's chambray, I think) except the left front. I got the layout right, but the fabric shrunk in the pre-washing so there wasn't enough. And the fabric stores around here haven't had any of that fabric when I've looked for, oh, the last 5 years or so.)

But sometimes, I get things right. Observe Filius, in a custom-made pair of pajamas. "Polar fleece, please, because it's nice and toasty warm." The front is in the front, the plaids are reasonably matched, and the length of the pants is right around the ankles. Which means they'll be short in a few months, but he has socks to take care of that.

Next, we have Filia. Filia thought a nightgown might be nice this year. Something orange/pink and floral. Maybe even like her dear mom's Prairie Dress (which is made of blue and pink sprigged flannel and has always existed as a nightgown.) Filia tried mine on, pronounced it Good, and protested having to surrender it.
She now has her own. The thing is voluminous -- 7.5 yds of 45" wide flannel for a floor-length version, and a bit less for the calf-length. Before the yoke gathers, I think it had a circumference close to 8 ft. Which means, of course, that AFTER the gathers, the hem still has a huge circumference. Perfect for tucking one's legs up under nice toasty flannel. Here's a nice neckline detail, because I'm still having too much fun plaing with macro on the camera.

And what's even better? It's the same size as mine. That meant I didn't have to copy and cut out new pattern pieces, and if she ever decides she's not the snuggly flannel type ... I have a new nightgown!

I'm easily pleased.

Opinions Needed!

2008-12-23T14:58:00.002-06:00

I've been knitting a bit. (No one should be surprised.) Before my yarn came yesterday, I knit up a wee little swatch. I rather like it ... an Irish Lace Edging pattern from Heirloom Knitting. I think it will grow up to be a double-bordered scarf. The question I am wondering about is whether or not I should lengthen the repeats by adding another row of holes around the large hole. I think so ... which means my entry into redesigning lace may be at hand. Oh dearie, oh my.

But that is not the opinion I need. No, I am humbly soliciting mitten opinions. You see below a mitten. Would it look better if the natural (gray) and moss (brown) were switched in the cuff? How about in the mitten body?

Here's a comparison of what the bottom three bands look like, switched. And, as an aside, I am delighted to note that after FOUR tries of rendering a M1, I have finally achieved one that gives the proper results. Who'd've thunk a M1 could be so tricky?

It's not Christmas yet

2008-12-22T18:32:00.004-06:00

The Rainbow Baby Jacket

The Armenian Knitting Hat

and I am DONE with Christmas knitting. I even did a project I wasn't planning on doing. I am also done with Christmas sewing, and I even have the pattern put away! (Speaking of which, if any of my gentle readers happen to have some Navy Chambray in their fabric stash, I would love to have some. The stuff shrinks, and for the past several years I've had a not-quite-all-cut-out shirt for my husband in the craft room. All I need is enough fabric for the right front of an XL men's shirt. The fabric stores haven't been carrying it whenver I remember to look. Simplicity 7030, I think.)

The yarn for my next project will be arriving in a few hours. Beyond that, I have the challenge of Knitting Small Stuff until Christmas. Because really, who wants to be working on Old Projects after opening New and Delightful Knitterly Things?

Frog Tree Alpaca and some lace swatches are in my sights at the moment.

I'm cheating

2008-12-20T13:04:00.003-06:00

Somewhat.

Because after all, the Knit From Your Shelf 2009 is something that has flexible rules. I have just flexed things in the direction of either starting early, or else trimming my book queue down to size before 2009 begins.

For you see, I have a new cousin being born in March. (Technically, he's a first cousin once removed, but that's too technical for newborns, so he gets to be a cousin or nephew.) And I had some yarn in my stash, see? And then Ravelry told me that in my Very Own Library was a nice baby item that was suitable for the yarn I had in my stash ... and is it terribly horrible if the book the project came from was on my list of books to use next year? No!

Thus, I have started a Baby Jacket, from Sally Melville's Color book. She likes the back side of linen stitch for the right side, but I am liking the right side for the right side. Time to ad lib!

I have also finished another Twined and Felted Hat, and decided that I need to regard felting with more respect. Yes, the hat is Too Small again. It was fine at one point (perhaps not suitable for the recipient, but still an adult M), but it is no longer fine. It is, instead, a Class Sample.

Today we are having a lovely, gorgeous blizzard. Tomorrow we are planning to enjoy some more of the same blizzard. This is good for knitting. If we have a power outage, I won't even feel bad about not working on Christmas sewing. Since Wisteria is finished (sorry, no pictures yet), my new goal is to get the baby jacket finished before the yarn arrives for some mittens. We shall see how that goes!

I just figured out how to use Macro on Filia's camera. Yay!!

Knit From Your Shelf 2009

2008-12-13T15:16:00.003-06:00

As the year is starting to wrap up, it's time to take stock of the task before me. I have nine 'unused' books on my shelf at the moment, am almost assuredly getting one more for Christmas, and may get even another one. Leaving aside the eager anticipation (Thanks, mom!) and speculation (did dh get the book?), that gives me

Arctic Lace
~~Sally Melville's Color~~
The Art of Fair Isle Knitting
Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified
Knitter's Stash
~~Armenian Knitting~~
Meg Swansen's Knitting
Robin Melanson's Mittens and Gloves book
2 Debbie Macomber books

Now, the last two were sent to my author-dh, and I am not sure if they should count. I mean, just because someone sends your HUSBAND a knitting book, does that mean it's part of my shelf? The Mittens and Gloves book was given me (to rescue it from a fate worse than death), and I am wondering if Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified needs to find a new home. I do *not* like the technique they teach for stranding. We'll see if I still have that book at year's end.

I already know my first official project will be something from Armenian Knitting, probably the hat with the flower. Beyond that ... I was disappointed in the book. How one can take a technique which could be summed up as "Take an design normally worked in Intarsia and work it by stranding the unused yarn, trapping it every 4 stitches or so" and turn it into a book is beyond me.

Also in January, I hope to knit a sweater for Filius. The 'hope' is in there because I would like to use the yarn Elann is offering starting December 30th, and if there is a major Feeding Frenzy of Yarn Lovers and I don't get the color I'd like, then I won't be making it. The sweater is projected to be Rosemary's Not-Quite-Middle Sweater, from Green Mountain Spinnery (with adaptations. I mean, how CAN you jump from a 32" chest to a 40" chest in a basic sweater?)

From Color, I hope to knit one of the wraps. I forget if it's the Linen Stitch one or the Big Bang one. But that's the likely project there. Ann Feitelson's book has several very makeable projects, but the Fridarey Vest is my favorite. Knitter's Stash has a shawl in it a friend has asked for, and also the Celtic Cardigan, and some other nifty projects. I *think* I may have made a washcloth from that book, though. Maybe it needs to be dropped from the list?

That leaves me with Meg Swansen's Knitting. Box the Compass is the obvious choice there, for my mom ... but perhaps she will want something else.

That, plus two shawls, plus a pair of mittens, plus some other carefully chosen miscellaneous knitting, should take care of my bookshelf.

On my needles now is Wisteria. I started it earlier this week, and hope to finish it by Christmas. Which means ... I should go knit.

I wonder how long it takes Colourmart to send their samples? Maybe if I work REALLY hard, I can have Wisteria finished before they get here, and start playing immediately?

(edited to zap books which were used even before Christmas arrived.)

What I've Been Knitting

2008-12-10T08:19:00.009-06:00

I've been doing some Christmas knitting lately (no pictures, and no progress report either. The recipient is a devoted reader of her mother's blog.)

I've done some other knitting, too. First, there was the Twined and Felted Hat. You see it displayed on an obliging child who shall remain nameless. (Partly because my best guess as to which one it is has to do with where the child is positioned in the house. ) The white threads are marking out a 4x4 square so I can get some good data on how twined knitting felts. I've done a pair of twined and felted mittens, which shrank 0% in width and 10% in length, but this is a larger sample. As you can see, I'm ready for the 10% in length!

But the hat didn't cooperate. It shrunk 7% in width and 30% in length, so as to fit a 5 year old quite nicely. The cuteness of it being yet apparent, and the warmth indubitable, I have another one on the needles for a travelling project.

Next to jump on the Traveling Project bandwagon was a pair of Endpaper Mitts, using a pattern from Latvian Dreams. They came out so nicely, that I decided I'd have to make another pair with a different pattern.

And then, I cast on for a puppy sweater. I've never made one before, but our dog has the knack of shivering when it's 80 degrees inside, and it's closer to 60 at the moment. (61.2 on top of the piano, to be precise.) I had some sport yarn that wasn't saying "Make Me Into Mittens!" so I used that, and with the help of a web pattern, had a dog sweater. It fit much better the first day than it does now, and I can see how to improve the fit in future sweaters, should they occur. But, it's done, and he Actually Wears It.

Although I did wake up a few days ago with an empty dog sweater next to me. There was a dog in it when I went to bed, and the dog was in HIS bed.

Sleeve Issues

2008-12-09T11:57:00.003-06:00

(Yes, I really do like to be this organized)

One of the things contributing to my lack of blogging is the lack of publicly documentable progress. One of my projects is 'under the radar' and the other is a test knitting project, and I'm not sure what the proper netiquette is for revealing that sort of thing. Given my background in National Security (which is not random at all, so I didn't mention it then), I decided that 'twas best left unmentioned.

The test knitting was not without issues, and one of them was entirely mine. It comes from reading directions and then doing them. Except I'm dealing with two sets of directions, and if one set gets applied to the other item ... then it comes about, after the passage of time, that one will look at one's knitting and say "Oh. No."

As did I, one day not that long ago. SSK. K2tog. Not K2tog. SSK. I quickly ran through my options. Ignore it? Not on a test knit. As a gift, sure. For myself, no doubt. But I would have done it differently in either of those cases anyways. Frog it? Time consuming. Working down the column of stitches? BINGO!

Since I didn't discover the Issue until halfway through the second sleeve, and the issue only involved the first sleeve, my first act was to Identify the Offending Sleeve.

The sleeve being identified (ablative absolute construction), I proceeded to finish the second sleeve, then discovered that some smaller issues had arisen and 5 rows of frogging were necessary on both sleeves. Easy peasy. So, I hit 'start' on the timer, frogged the last 5 rows, picked up a few oodles of stitches, and observed that I had spent 2 minutes in the repair effort.

The next thing to do was to allow the offending column of stitches to unravel. With great encouragement, it did so in less than a minute. As it ran, I gathered up the decreased stitches on a dpn. (That reminds me. Do NOT try this with one long circular needle. Magic Loop may work for some things, but not in the OR. It's akin to doing a heart transplant through three little incisions.)

Then, I pulled out a crochet hook, repressed my natural aversion to the tool, and spent a minute picking up the stitches, working the decreases with the proper slant. That took less than 2 minutes.

Easy, right? I even improved on the technique, by picking up the 'decreased' stitches on a dpn BEFORE unraveling the other column of stitches.

And I was so delighted with myself for noticing that I hadn't unraveled far enough to get the last increase (or first increase) on the first column of stitches. I muttered slightly, but the times involved were so insignificant that I didn't mutter much. Then I realized that I was making the same error on the second set of stitches. Oops. Fortunately, I realized that before I started any constructive repairs.

The finished sleeve looks lovely. My SSKs are gorgeous. The moral of the story could be: If you want perfect SSKs, work them as K2tog, then unravel the knitting when you're just about done and fix it with a crochet hook.

But not you, Rachel. That would be avoiding the whole issue, wouldn't it?

The Terrible Thumb Trickery

2008-12-07T17:26:00.004-06:00

In keeping with my non-random personality, I shall now write about mitten thumbs. (May as well expand it to be about mitten cuffs too, although that's more of a personal quest for enlightenment at the moment, as opposed to tension issues.)

The thumbs. You see here two mittens, rather identical except for the thumbs. Did you ever wonder about color dominance? Or ask yourself if, when push came to shove, it really mattered which hand you held which color in? Or, if you don't bother using the TWO hands the good Lord has given you to hold yarns with, how you hold them in a single hand?

Yes, Virginia, it does.

The mitten on the left has a lovely thumb. Pink, with little splotches of green, staggered 'just so.' The mitten on the right, in comparison, rather looks like the green flecks are about to take over the thumb. They are exercising dominion over the pink, are taking many steriods illegally, and are no doubt making orations to their lesser brothers on the hand to Rise Up and Conquer!

All because I don't *like* working with the yarn in my left hand, so I assigned the green to that hand since there's less of it than there is the pink. Ahem. I ignored my preferences when it came to knitting the thumb on the left. Such a cute thumb. No scary Asparagus Supremacy sprouting over there. Let that be a lesson to you. I gave the green a serious talking to (stretched the steroids right out of that thumb) and they are now behaving much better. Subdued ... until the next time.

The cuff is a much happier story. It wasn't *my* dumb error. But I wasn't quite aiming for the effect I got. It's supposed to look more entrelacquie. The pattern hinges on an adjacent m1 and k2togtbl, but I didn't know WHAT kind of m1. So I started off with a m1l, because that was the easiest to do. (I hadn't done the thumbs yet, so I didn't know to steer away from that on this particular mitten). When the results turned out Not Quite As Desired, I decided that a m1r was the thing to do. (That's the right mitten.) But as you can see, those results were even less than Not Quite As Desired. So it must (MUST) be an open m1. I've never worked anything calling for that. But I will! Because I need to write a pattern up for these mittens, and knit some up for photographs, and guess what kind of m1 I will use? You're RIGHT!

I will also hold the fleck color in my right hand while working the thumbs. Trust me.

Keeping things in order

2008-12-06T09:03:00.003-06:00

We'll begin with the Crockpot Pound Cake Flop.

I have been enjoying a wonderful blog lately, A Year of Crockpotting. The recipes tend to be gluten free, which makes it even more appealing to me. When I found a pound cake recipe, I thought it would be the perfect birthday cake for my GF husband. Foolproof, even!

Not so foolproof as to survive a crockpot that has been around as long as I have, give or take five years. But still, how hard could it be? Grease crockpot, mix ingredients, pop them in, vent the lid, and cook for four hours.

Except after 3 hours, a burning smell filled the house. Maybe it cooked fast? Old crockpots can be temperamental, I suppose. So, I turned the crockpot upside down with a plate held in the critical position, tapped, and awaited the deliciousness of pound cake.

But to no avail. This is what glared at me from the crockpot.

And, after carefully loosening the edge of the cake and trying again, this is what came out. Ashes of Pound Cake, and a buttery-eggy ooze.

Not good.

If a cake is unbaked, but burnt, what does one do? I decided not to try for longer, but rather to see if there was anything edible. So, by cutting the cake in to fourths and using an extractor, I was able to get it out of the crockpot (which, after 2 days of soaking and some water changes, was back to its normal self). The cake was incredibly dense (undoubtedly helped by my substituting a GF flour for Pamela's Baking Mix, and not realizing that the baking mix included baking powder and other goodies), but the semi-cooked/not-quite-burned-parts were good.

I think I'm getting a newer crockpot for Christmas. Maybe mom wants this one back? It is GREAT for soups and mulled apple cider. The cider is on today's menu.

Tagged?

2008-12-05T16:08:00.003-06:00

It's been too long since I last posted. And there's so much to say! I could write about

the Pound Cake Disaster
the Terrible Thumb Trickery
Sleeve Issues
what I've been knitting
my new pattern on Ravlery

but no, I tell myself I should really write a post about Knit From Your Shelf 2009. Because, it's time to remind those of you insane enough to think this is a good idea that we have 26 days left to plot out our first project. I've not gotten around to writing that post yet.

Because TwistedinStitches tagged me. Otherwise, I'd be knitting right now and doing things other than staring at this computer and typing.

Sigh.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random, arbitrary things about yourself.

4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Thing One and Thing Two are done. Six random, arbitrary things?

I don't do random and arbitrary. It's not in my genes. I'm sure there will be a trend in what is to come, but I'm not writing them down beforehand and selecting them. It's as random as I get.
I have sold FOUR original designs this year.
I own a sewing machine and know how to use it. I'd just rather not. At this time of year, there are Christmas PJs to make.
I bake bread from scratch without recourse to a recipe or measuring implements. It's edible.
I love parsing sentences and diagramming them, and even have a small job doing just that.
I can't draw worth a hoot. Or beans. Or whatever goes for next to nothing in this economy.

Tag six people? Oh dear. I'm not a tagger, and so shall decree all who wish to participate in this after reading my blog, or those who don't want to participate but wish they'd been tagged, to consider themselves tagged.

Now, those of you who are going to Knit From Your Shelf 2009 ... fess up and join in! I will stretch my abilities and pop in a sidebar with a list of who is setting this worthy goal.

Another step in the Felted Slipper Saga

2008-11-10T12:02:00.004-06:00

My blue clogs are felted.

Very felted.

Curiously felted.

How, I ask, does one knitter, using one brand of yarn, in just one weight, by dropping down one slipper size, and by felting ten minutes less, end up going from a Ladies size 10 narrow to a CHILD's 13?

Heathered yarn. That's got to be the answer. I wanted the red clogs, but about 1/2" shorter. I dropped down a size, and on just the SECOND check of the washer (the red ones took 5 checks, and I was afeared they'd get too narrow if I kept trying to get them shorter) out popped these cute little piggy covers. This makes four (4) slippers that I have knitted and felted in an attempt to replace my current pair. First pair - too small. Second pair - nice, but they let in too much cold air at the ankle. Third pair - a trial for the real pair. Fourth pair - struck by shrinking dust.

A fifth pair will jump on the needles shortly after my next yarn order. It's got to. My current slippers already resemble a pair of sling-back flats more than they do their original shape.

A neglected blog

2008-11-09T19:30:00.002-06:00

A neglected blog is an uninformative blog.

So, what's been happening here in the background, whilst nothing is happening in the foreground?

At long last the Baby Leggings are done. I will like them better when I see them on a tot, no doubt. But at the moment, they are done, and that is a very nice thing about them.

Finishing the leggings allowed me to tackle some yarn that arrived last week (or was it the week before? Things have been package-rich around here, and I forget).

First, the clogs. Two felted, two unfelted. The unfelted ones won't be so tomorrow noonish, if the morning goes as planned. And having them almost done allowed me to put on the needles, with good conscience, some dishcloths. Four need to be done by the 22nd, and I got the yarn for the first two yesterday. Two down, two to go.

And now there is nothing on my non-super-secret-Christmas-knitting needles. There are three--no, four--things on my to-do list, but I'm not quite ready to start any of them because I may get some Serious Knitting to work on tomorrow, and I don't want to have just started something if it should arrive.

But, let me talk about last Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a Long Day. First off, it was pouring rain. And in the pouring rain we went out to do our big monthly shopping trip. Thursday made me glad I cancelled school on the last 'nice' day of the year, Monday, so we could sit outside reading. But Thursday was cold and rainy. And dashing into stores is all well and good, but if one of the shopping party (and trust me, we had a shopping party) walks slowly, and the other has a wheelchair to load and unload ... well, dashing in becomes somewhat impracticable. So, we got a bit wet. And we got lots of stuff. Two shoeboxes' worth of goodies for Operation Christmas Child. New not-so-mentionables for a child who shall remain anonymous because said child vowed said child was down to just two pair of aforementioned item. Groceries. Lots of groceries. And then, we rejoiced because the rain had gone away temporarily and we could unload in relative comfort at my mom's house. The afternoon was spent at mom's (knitting, of course!) and then KnitNight in the evening, then home to re-unpack the groceries, tackle the day's 200 e-mails, and head to bed.

Friday was a day that should go down in the annals of conflicting emotions. In the morning, I checked to see if I should scurry to the post office to get a box from Amazon. Project delivery was the 10th, so I decided not to scurry. In the afternoon, I got an e-mail from Amazon telling me my package was unable to be delivered and I could pick it up at the post office. So, off I scurried. Package! Replacement for Bible which is in multiple pieces! Joy!

Walking home, I did not scurry. I trod slowly and heavily, laden down by TWO boxes. Large boxes. But packages are good, so all was well in my world.

Then I opened the packages (over the next few hours, which tells you loads about my Friday). The yarn I got London Tweed Bag Sale at Elann) wasn't the color the website said. Sniff. But liveable. The actual Tuesday sale was a bit of a frenzy ... twice I got to the checkout only to find that the color I wanted was no longer available. The color that my mom wanted, and the color that my friend wanted ... those were still around. But not my Autumn Glory, nor my Mallard.

The books were yet another matter. Herodotus has a mildly dinged corner. I can live with that. Thucydides was paperback, not hardback. I goofed :( and it's not fun to good. And my bible had a different binding from what the website said it did. That was annoying. But, the sunny side was that one part of the order was undinged and correct, and we've all been enjoying it.

Tomorrow is package day at the post office. I'm sending out yarn, books, and some miscellany. Who knows what I will get?

Next Monday will be the mailing date for hats. We've got a big box full already, and more are dropping off the needles of an industrious Filia daily.

Random Updates

2008-10-29T19:01:00.003-05:00

It snowed on Sunday. I love snow.
The power was out when we got home that day. It stayed off for 6 hours.
Wool sweaters are nice to wear when the power is out.
Hot chocolate, knitting and quiet music get condensed to knitting without electricity.
Our printer is in my list of companies to get coal in their stockings. They changed their printing prices and didn't notify their users of that fact by e-mail.
Adrenaline helps a body regroup quickly and multitask across many browser windows.
The Baby Leggings aren't going anywhere fast.
Boxes in the mail are fun. This week has seen a box from Woolgirl, KnitPicks, two MK boxes, and compression stockings.
Thirty two. That's how many hats we have in the box for Filia's contribution to a James 2 project.
It's time to go knit.