Long day

Today has officially made me its bitch. I surrender. Uncle. Make it stop. I took my middle child (10) to a sub shop in town, no biggie. Until the argument between a man and woman in the parking lot turned really ugly. All the sudden the man was shoving the woman and getting really menacing. I was at the door, sent my daughter back to the table and yelled for the restaurant staff to call 911. A high school aged boy who worked there tried to go out and intervene but I stopped him. Someone handed me the phone and I called 911. The woman came back into the restaurant and the police showed up. Next thing I knew the man was in handcuffs, the police were there and my poor daughter was hysterical. I comforted her while I was still shaking. All this in our sleepy town. So disturbing! I feel like it was the best outcome in a really awful situation. At least my daughter knows that we help others no matter what. But I still want my day of rest back.

Finished

Sophie's scarf is finished and she promptly stashed in a pile in her room. Makes one doubt it will ever be worn. Oh well, at least she can't say I never made her anything. Now to get back to finishing off the languishing projects.
And there are plenty of baby things to be knit for all the pending babies.

New scarf

My sunday swing socks bored me to tears. We are on a break. I started a mindless ribbed scarf with knit picks chroma in mix tape and bittersweet heather. My take on the famous noro striped scarf from Jared Flood.
In unrelated news, there is a freaking mouse running around my house, and my cat is trying to help me out. When the kids saw the cat/mouse they shrieked until the mouse ran. My husband tried to help by knocking the tv with the broom, much to the detriment of the tv. Mouse is still alive and well.

Disenchanted

Well, I couldn't be less interested in my current knitting. Its zipless knitting, not in a good way. Its about to go to the frog pond. Last picture before riiiiiip.

New start

So I have been contemplating the vastness of my mostly finished objects and it leaves me wondering why the hell I stop when I am about 90% done....and I deal with my wonderment by starting a new project. My new goal is to at least document the specs so when I try tho finish this up I will at least have a reference point for when I quit. So in the interest of documentation...this is knitty sunday swing sock pattern done in knit picks stroll tonal in Queen Anne's lace.

Lenore sock part 3

So I decided to go through and finish some ufos and had success with one pair of reggia socks for my son. Less progress with the lenore sock (last posted on november 3, 2007). I can't find the freaking pattern and I don't think I can bring myself to rebuy it. Grrr..maybe I can fake it?

Done

Ends woven in, soaked and blocking. Now the big question is what to knit next. I have many baby gifts to make and a fair number of unfinished objects but there are also some newthings I am interested in. maybe I need to sleep on it. Some of the wonkieness seems to have blocked out but will see how it looks on.

Frustrated much?

Oh well turns out cutting the steeks was the easy part. Picking up the stitches and doing the ribbing has been a colossal pain in the butt. Adding to my already deficient counting skills, the color changes plus the screaming children have made today a virtual tink fest. And this baby better have some magic in the blocking cause there are some seriously wonky bits.

Can we make this easy

Well its been a long time. Work, family and live interfered with knitting among blogging but now I can do this from my phone! Pretty cool. So I will try to catch up by posting pictures of recent knitting from my sd card. Starting with current project which is the ivy league vest done in knit picks pallette yarn.

no writing does not equal no knitting

I want to try to keep this going so, here some stuff I knit when I wasn't writing. Those are baby socks from yarn I dyed with easter egg tabs. And the blanket is sort of made up log cabin foolishness with an endless icord border. Its lorna's laces vera colorway, don't recall the contrasting color name. The colors were gorgeous but the yarn was a royal pain, with several knots per skein & a complete gauge change from worsted to sock! More stuff soon, I hope!

Cue the cricket sounds

Don't equate the lack of writing with the lack of knitting. Since my last post I have knit one full pair of socks and two single socks, one of which I subsequently frogged. I made a pair of socks for DH in knit picks felici, which he wore endlessly untill I begged him to take them off so they could be washed. I started a pair of noro socks, got up to the leg and was teased by my SnB friends because it looked odd. It did fit but I had concerns about the guage and feel of the fabric. I frogged the sock and am considering washing the yarn before I knit it. And now I am making a pair of baudelaire socks from knit picks essential tweed. Pics to follow.

finished objects

This is the baby surprise jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman done in Lion Branc wool. The first picture is before it got sewn up.This picture is after sewing and felting.

And lastly, the finished mittens with added Icord so I don't lose them.

Happy Hanukah

In honor of hanukah, I hand grated 5 pounds of potatoes and fried them in oil. The only casualty was the pepper grinder that fell into the boiling oil, splashing oil everywhere and ruining the pepper grinder (but not the latkes). Luckily I was wearing an apron, so I was not injured. And of course the whole thing would not have happened without the assistance of my DH who thought it would be good to reach over the stove to get whatever... and kaboom!

I have been knitting and even finishing stuff, I will post pics soon. I have some serious starteritis, there are at least three single socks in my house, some have nearly finished mates.

world's lamest UFO

So I started these mittens a hundred years ago (okay at least three years ago). I put them down with everything but one thumb done, and there they sat and sat. I don't know why. So I dragged them out and decided it was time for mittens. I knitted a huge icord string to keep them together and am now slogging through the last thumb. I mean I wish I knew what I was thinking or if thinking was involved.

Today is my little guy's fourth birthday. I can't believe it! Also today, one of the kids I work with needed some help in his class with a craft project so I was helping him. At some point he touched my hand and he said "Your hand doesn't match your hair. Your hair is old and your skin is young". You have to love a kid with PDD for a backhanded compliment!

Lenore

Well, after several failed attempts and untold use of inappropriate words, I have kicked Lenore's ass. The color is pretty accurate, but the pattern looks a little flat here. The center line is a yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo and it has a lot to texture that my photo does not show.

I also washed and blocked the carolis socks I made for a sockapalooza person who never received their socks. They will get mailed tomorrow. I loved the color but I don't think I am a fan of Lorna'a Laces Shepard sock. I have really enjoyed other LL yarns, but I think I prefer a sock yarn with more twist.

Other than that life is chugging along. My 11 year old daughter's 6th grade teacher resigned without much explanation and the school managed to screw it up even more. They told the kids on Halloween before communicating with the families. Then they had the school psychologist "process" with the kids as a group and in some cases individually, again without parental input. As a school social worker and as a mom, I am appalled. At the least, I would have not let her ride the bus all sad - I would have picked her up if I had any notice. There is a special place in hell for the teacher, who though she was young really should have known better and done better. She came from three generations of women who taught for more than twenty years each so I think she should have known whether or not this was right for her. Also, since I work in the school world I really think that the 10 month commitment is pretty sacred, and even the worst fit in a job can be tolerated for 44 weeks, especially since 10 weeks were done already. I think the kids can't help but feel bad, they liked her and they had no chance to say goodbye.

sooo frustrated

I got the new sock club package from Blue Moon and it is great! Its a semi solid, black over red. The Pattern is called Lenore, and was written by the Yarn Harlot. I was so excited that I dumped what I was doing and cast on. I got to the third row and had a problem (with the count and the tension), so I started over. Then I cast on again, got to the fifth row and my count was off. I tried to tink but it got to be a mess so I ripped it back. And then I cast on again and it seemed okay but I had to rip again.

I posted my problem on sock knitters, and I hope that someone can help me. This is giving me bad memories of the black aran sweater I tried in college that put me off knitting for several years. The dark color makes it really hard to read the stitches. I have been working in good light, but its hard!

To Rhinebeck or Not

For me Rhinebeck is turning into a logistical mess. My husband is sick, and therefore not reliable for child care. I am not sure that I want to do more driving with kids. I could live without spending money on yarn. If I DON'T spend money on yarn, I won't feel guilty about rejoining STR Club. I am edging into the don't go column. Now I heard that the weather may suck. Its really hard to live so close and not go. I will have to think on it.The picture is from last year, with the medium and small kids. The large kid stayed home and was sorry. We did have fun.

Still knitting the Carolis socks for my sock savee (I guess that's the word for the recipient of your savior socks). Hope she will like them, it really takes some getting used to - since the pattern is really different than your standard sock.

The Sanctity of Marriage

Well, Plastic Pam has married some ridiculous turd of a man whose claim to fame is being in the Paris Hilton sex tape. This is her third. Makes me so glad that the conservatives are fighting to honor this most holy of unions. I mean really how can any one expect gays and lesbians to keep this institution as fresh and clean as the straight people have. I give it six months.

Busy Day

I spent about an hour setting up some stuff on ravelry. It was suprisingly easy. I set up my flikr account, and was able to add some projects to my note book. I started adding yarn to my stash, but that will be a big project. There's a lot of yarn in my stash, and I want to take photos. My ravelry name in Lindapt2. I am very pleased that I was able to save a photo for my profile there, since I have never been able to do it on blogger despite several attempts.

I had a real muggle moment today. I was trying to explain ravelry to my mom. This is difficult because she doesn't understand the computer or the internet and she actually hates knit socks. SO you may wonder why I felt the need to explain a cool web site that is letting me catalog my sock yarn and sock projects. I wonder that two. I love my mom but I must say that our dynamic has often been my continuing to return to the empty well for a drink of water. So she was not impressed that I am spending time online doing stuff that relates to knit socks. She has other fine qualities!

Happy Dance

My sockapalooza pal can finally do a happy dance. The third sock made it through the hell that is the Canadian Postal service safely. Now I learned several things

1. The cheaper postage works better and saves money!



2. The reason smart knitters write down what they do for each project is so they know if they need to replicate it. Duh!



3. It feels good to get the task complete even when it takes extra effort.

And I have the satisfaction of knowing that a new friend in the North doesn't have an odd sock hanging out. Those odd socks make me crazy. I can't bring myself to throw them away because when I do the mate always shows up.

I finally got my ravelry invite, but haven't had the time to set up my account or explore the site. I hear there is much socky goodness there, so I can't wait.

The picture is of my friendly neighborhood bear. I discovered that after his attack on my trash can, there were huge claw marks on the can. Spooky!

In knitting I am working on a sock savior pair using the carolis pattern. It will be my first full pair using Cat's book. I made a cute baby carolis just for practise!