updates

Well, since the holiday knitting is done I have lost any sense of discipline. I have two active projects, one sock for DH and a scarf for my niece. Both projects are made of sock yarn. I will post wip photos when I can get my hands on the laptop.I have a bunch of stuff I want to start but will try to keep the number of projects on the neddles down to 3. Meanwhile Dh was back in the hospital while traveling for work (luckily he was dc'ed and able to come home on his own).

I had my first mammogram, which was followed by my first mammogram scare. Good news though, what they saw was determined to be just nodular breast tissue. I have to get the left breast mammogram repeated in 6 months, they don't want to see the right one again till next year. I am flabberghasted that they cannot find a less painful and humiliating way to screen for cancer. If they had to crush your head to visualize your brain I promise they would find a better way. The real issue is that you have some stranger handling your boobs, smashing them between the hard plastic. For mercy sake, can't they at least crush your boobs between something soft? Happy, healthy new year to all!

new stuff

I seem to always find room for a few new skiens of sock yarn, I'm just a girl who can't say no. The 4 balls of luna park by orgnaghi came from Yarn4socks from mass., but I originally saw it on a post from Mason Dixon . The opal regenbogen (which I just learned means rainbow) I ordered from MartinasBastel and it arrived in record time. Looks like mamma's going to make new socks for her girls! The colors are making me so happy!

washcloths

One down FIVE to go. If I can learn to knit while I sleep I am sure I can get this all done. I used Peaches and Creme yarn and the pattern from Knitty Gritty for the modular coaster. Its a little small for a washcloth but its cute. I am experimenting with making the next one larger. The problem is that I have to pay attention to what I am doing or I screw up the pattern. Do you know how hard it is to pay attention to knitting with three kids running around? Especially since they are all hopped up on Hannukah, very excited about prezzies and latkes. Gotta get back to grating potatoes and frying.

holiday update

So I finished the christmas stocking. It came out well and was really appreciated, but the fact that I had to rework the pattern to get it to make sense was a bummer. I did ask my friend to let me have it back after the holiday so that I can add some more embroidery to the tree. Now ALL I have to is knit all the washcloths to go with the soap I made for the teachers. Tick Tock!

I am also trying to get used to knitting with reading glasses. I decided to start wearing my contacts because my glasses did a poor job of correcting my distance vision. The contacts do an awesome job of correcting my distance vision, but I realized I need reading specs. Oh, well I am living some version of age before beauty, except in my case it means that I need to attend to my age related needs before my beauty related needs. As Bette Davis said, "Ageing is not for sissies".

Interesting

I saw this on someone's blog, and am kind of surprised. Some times you have that feeling that you are not alone! On the knitting from I have almost finished the intarsia part of the christmas stocking, and I hope it looks better blocked!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 295 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

starts with s

The first "S" is for soap. My friend Eleni (who I won't link to due to her lack of recent posts) and I got together and made soap for teachers' gifts. It's a shame you can't smell them - these are lemon verbena and we did a lot of lavander as well, yummm. I ran out to the craft store this morning and bought fondant cuters so we could spell out seasonally appropriate words.

The second "S" is the socks I finished like two weeks ago but didn't post. They from Trekking XXL, don't know the color number off hand. The pattern I made up as I went along. Its my fave picot edge, but this time I did an afterthought heel. I didn't like it much in progress cause the endless knit tube bored me, but I like the fit of the heel, so I will probably do it again.

problem solved

Well, after much thought I finally figured out how to solve the wonky chart problem. I am surprised I didn't get it earlier but I'll chalk that up to major tooth pain. I am going to restart the whole thing and do a provisional cast on. Then I will do the dreaded chart, pick up the ankle stiches on dpns and do the foot. Problem solved, and tomorrow I get my root canal and the tooth problem will be solved. Whoo hoo!

random thoughts

• How did I spend Thanksgiving with my family and assorted knitting projects without getting an effing thing done?
• The pattern for my Christmas stocking is making me nuts. The chart reads in a way that is inducing nausea in me. The chart reads from the upper rows to the ankle, then the foot is done on dpns. It makes it hard to look at the picture and tell if its right, or maybe its my brain that has a problem. I am just used to charts that work up, and I may have to reverse the pattern so it doesn't make my brain hurt.
• Joe Lieberman has hired some dude as his chief of staff or some such title who hails from Christian "family" oriented causes. Are we supposed to see Lieberman as a democrat? I think he might be trying to run for one of the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse. I still wished I could have voted against him more than once. On the plus side, my impulse control seems to be intact - I didn't leave a foul mouthed message at Lieberman's office.
• Did any one see the "Rhymes with Orange" cartoon in the paper sunday? It was a snake looking at a book titled Anyone Can Knit. The caption was to the effect that the snake remained optimistic.

helloooo.....

Well, let's see. Despite maintaining my silence I have in fact been knitting. I even finished a pair of socks for me, wore them and washed them twice. I swear I will post a pic. What has stopped me from doing so? A toothache to end the genre, which left half of my face numb from my eye to my chin (but only after causing horrible pain). I am on antibiotics and waiting for root canal on the 30th. Whoo who!

Then I stupidly invited my parents and sister to celebrate my son's brithday and my 10 year old daughter for having chanted the havdalah (end of Shabbat) service all by herself on Saturday. Then I thought, why not have a brunch and invited about 40 people over. So I thought I could clean the house and buy the food and all that stuff during the week. I did not plan for the number of hours I would spend at the dentist or sleeping off percocet on the couch. By Friday I was in a state of panic, but I pulled it off (mostly). Instead of the expense of ordering trays, I went to costco and bought lox and fixings. Cleaning was boiled down to the bare minimum and there were things that didn't actually get cleaned (some knitting stuff got hidden under the sofa and in closets). I did get 14 bags of clothes to Good Will, and wrote down the contents so they could be used to offset taxes. I also gave away three bags of really nice hardly worn clothes to friends. No sooner than I get some shit out of the house, people start showing up with gifts for the kids. Arghh! Some days I think I will never get out from under it. Did I mention that my temporary filling fell out? I hear the couch and the percocet calling me again. Hopefully my friend the dentist will have time to fix that before I drive myself and the kids to Phildelphia for thanksgiving (tomorrow afternoon).

mitten kit swap questionaire

Are you allergic to any fibers? No!
What are your favorite colors? Leafy green, burnt orange, mustard yellow, rich browns
Are you a new mitt knitter? Nope
How long have you been knitting mittens? I have been knitting since I was seven and am now 43. I don't remember my first mittens but would guess they were in the last 10 years.
Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn? I like solids if there is some variation in the depth of color other wise multi.
What fibers do you prefer in mitten yarn? Wool
Where do you usually knit mittens? Every where I like socks and mitten because they are portable and I can always have something to do with me.
How do you usually carry/store small projects? in ziplock bags in my big bag
What are your favorite mitten patterns? A fairilse mitten from interweave knits that I did a few years ago. The colors were great.
What are your favorite mitten knitting techniques? I use eith dpns or 2 circs, I got tired of all the fiddling around with magic loop
What new techniques would you like to try? I don't know
What are your favorite needles for knitting mittens? Addi circs, but I am thinking of tring knit picks circs
What are some of your favorite yarns? I love sock yarn and have made mittens from both commercial and hand dyed sock yarns
What yarn do you totally covet? I have a strange obsession with rowan kidsilk haze but I am a miser about using it, though I have stranded it with sock yarn to make a warmer fuzzy mitten.
Any pattern you would love to make if money and time were no object? Probably some insanely comlicated color work or testural pattern
Favorite kind of needles (brand, materials, straights or circs, etc)? Metal, addi, circs. I rarely use straight needles.
If you were a specific kind of yarn, which brand and kind of yarn would you be? Hand dyed cashmere, maybe lobster pot from Purl Soho.
Do you have a favorite candy or mail-able snack?Sour gummy peaches, good and plenty. I love chocolate but it doesn't always mail well!
What’s your favorite animal? cats, but I am petless right now
Would you prefer super warm mittens or something more like fingerless mitts? Living in new england, I guess I have to say warm
If you were a color what color would you be? leafy green
What is your most inspiring image, flower, or object in nature? a new baby sleeping, it doesn't even need to be one of my kids
Do you have a wishlist? Not a formal one!
Anything else you’d like to share with the group today? Nope, but always open to questions

finished father & son socks

So I finished this matching set for my guys with this tiny bit of yarn left. That never ceases to amaze me, that no matter how stressed I get about whether I will have enough yarn, I always make it with the tiniest bit left. This is opal chameleon from the first rainforest collection ordered from Astrid (and she is always a pleasure to buy from).
Now the only question is why dh and ds keep asking me to make them socks that they never wear. My nearly three year old informed me he doesn't like the "knitting" socks except for skating on the wood floors. No attempt to explain by DH, but he was informed that this is the last pair he gets unless he starts wearing the others.

Okay here it is. The rhinebeck loot. I am possibly the last person in blogland to post my aquisitions. The sock yarn is all from ellenshalfpintfarm.com and the scarf kit is from morehouse merino. Hard to believe how much money was involved!

better late than...

Here are some Rhinebeck pics, how can you miss with kids and animals? The kids had a lot of fun. They did not even mind the fact that I was having fun too. I am being thwarted by blogger and my pop up blocker, which are conspiring to keep me from posting the pics of my goodies from Rhinebeck, and recent finished objects. I will have to try a different computer or something.

the muldirectional witches

I am so mystified. I tried to join the yahoo group for multideirectional knitting and my request to join was REFUSED. WTF? I cannot imagine how anyone could refuse a knitter membership in a knitting forum! I was informed by the letter that "all decisions are final". Am I missing something?

Rhinebeck!

Well, despite the fact that my partner in crime was unable to go I took the two little ones and went to Rhinebeck. What a scene! It was the most gorgeous day and one of the lovliest drives ever. Thanks to a fun new game we learned ( virtual hide and seek) the ride was without any bickering. Driving into the lot and seeing the massive number of cars was amazing. There were some fun things for the kids to do and there was yarn. We watched a sheep shearing. My five year old now is desperate to learn to spin with a drop spindle, she is carring a small piece of angora fiber that a spinner gave her. I continue to chant "Must not take up spinning". My favorite find was Ellen's Half Pint Farms sock yarn, the colors are lovely and the yarn has a great feel. I will post photos later. I bought 5 skiens but I am not sure they are all for me.

The Fold's booth had been stripped bare of STR by 1PM on saturday, they had only sockcandy left. I guess there is a slight exaggeration when I say stripped bare, as there were two skiens of the almost solid olivine left. I saw so many people wearing their handknits, but was most impresses with the two women I saw wearing items they made from the Knitting Nature book. Wow did they look great.

Coming from the epicenter of bland whiteness (Connecticut), it was great fun to see some funky fresh non-beige people. My kids behaved amazingly well, and I realized how lucky I was when I saw so many moms with crying kids. Its hard to find a place to time the kids out in the midst of a fiber fest. I will post pics as soon as I can.

brain cramp

So I have started knitting aChristmas Stocking for a really nice woman who recently adopted a child from Russia. Over the summer she told me about the stockings that her mother lovingly knit for all her grandchildren (I loved the part about how they got bigger as the years went on and her mom's gauge grew). Sadly her mother was not here to meet this grandchild or to make her a stocking, so Jean asked if I knew anyone she could hire to make one for Krystina. I of course told her I would do and she could pay me in coffee! SO she ordered a kit from Patternworks in New Hampshire, and I got to work. I couldn't figure out why the instructions called for straight needles in addition to dpns, so I cast on the dpns. When I finished the cuff, it finally hit me - the intarsia part of the stocking was to be knit flat, then they tell you to change to dpns. Boy did I feel dumb as I frogged it! In my defense, it doesn't say to cast on using straight needles, you only kind of figure that out when they tell you to change to dps for the heel. Now I am back on track. The pattern is really cute - its a teddy bear sitting next to a xmas tree. I plan to jazz it up a little! The ornaments are supposed to be duplicate stichted in colored yarn, but I think they really need to be little crystal beads. Now if I could only figure out how to explain this project to the rabbi when he sees me knitting in front of the kid's hebrew school.

for real finished object (frfo)

Well in between all of the challenges of life, health and sockwars , I managed to get some knitting done. My son is in a green phase and begged for some green socks so I used the opal chameleon. It is a pattern from my head and from now on I really should write them down as I do the first sock. It was a challenge to remember what I did. The ribbing is k3p1, with a heel that combines a PGR short row heel and Lucy Neatby's garter stitch short row heel. The toe is also a combo toe. I really like doing the heel and toe on crazy small needles, I think this was a 00. While my son liked the socks, he was scaring us by using them to skate on the wooden floor. He can find a way to make anything dangerous! By the way the other feet belong to my 5 year old daughter who cannot tolerate being left out of any picture, even a goofy knitting shot.

Now I am using the rest of the skein to make DH a matching pair, but his will be a low ankle sock so I don't run out of yarn.

my socks from the"war"

Now you can see what I got from being killed in the sock war. A pair of beautiful purple merino socks of doom. They fit like a glove...can't resist word play. I mailed my 1 and 1/2 socks off to be finished by Hope!

sock wars victim

Well this is how far I got before I recieved my pair in the mail, so in short - I was the assasinated not the assasin. I will go directly to the post office and mail my attempt to my assasin so she can complete the mission. Blogger is clearly also involved in the conspiracy since I cannot upload the picture of the beautiful socks of doom I received. At least I have the socks, heh heh. If any one is interested the yarn is a regia six ply, and the colors are pretty close to accurate.

in memory

Today I went to the funeral of an incredible woman who should by all rights be walking among us still. She was a devoted mother, a friend to many and someone who never tried to shine a light on herself. At her funeral, I learned that she was a talented singer. I knew of her love of music. I recently learned about her academic and professional achievements when my DH and I tried to help her buff her resume. She was widely traveled. Clearly she was modest. Devoted friends from her life were there. And her beautiful children, 11 and 13, were a testament to her. She ended her life because she became hopeless about her marital issues and feared for her future. If you knew her you would never believe that she would leave her children behind.

My garden is full of gifts from her, when she split her perennials she left them in my driveway. Hug your kids and tell your friends how much you cherish them. Never assume that tragedy cannot occur. I knit her a scarf because she had helped me so much after my husband's open heart surgery eighteen months ago. When I came to her house to drop it off she leaned in the window of my car and said that is so beautiful. She seemed delighted that it was a gift for her. I was proud to know her and hope she knows that.