The Heathen Housewife

It’s been a busy week or so on the front steps of our little house in the suburbs. We’ve had several happy deliveries show up – some expected, some not. I shared the Pomfret score and the surprise candy with you yesterday, and today I’ll show you some more goodies.

But first, I want to say hello to people who may be coming over from other places that have linked to me this week. The Yarn Harlot, who included me in her post on her visit to St. Paul and pointed everyone here to look at the videos – thanks, Stephanie! I’m really glad you and so many others have enjoyed them.

I know there have been other sites linking here in relation to the event as well, so welcome to any visitors and feel free to hang around and see what else I get up to. I mostly like to talk about my knitting, my girls, and food. Not necessarily in that order.

Oh, and also welcome to anyone coming over from Whip Up. I’ve long admired this blog, and always enjoy seeing what kinds of crafts the team there manages to find and highlight. When I got the message from Kathreen letting me know that I’d be on Whip Up, I was thrilled and could hardly believe it. But there’s blankie in all its glory. And anyone coming over looking for more details may want to just click on the “All About Blankie” button in the right-hand column.

Also, I want to respond to a couple of reader comments. Several people have asked me about the purple sweater I was wearing at Yarnover the other day. Sorry, it’s not a handknit. It’s from Eddie Bauer. I bought it online last fall, and unfortunately it’s not available there any more as far as I could tell. I love this sweater and have worn it a lot over the winter. Maybe I’ll have to knit up an “inspired-by sweater” and write up a pattern some time.

Oh, and thank you to the people who commented on my mention about Joe doing his own ironing. You reminded me not to take him for granted. I am incredibly lucky to have a husband like Joe. He does at least his share of chores around the house. I don’t iron at all, really. I hate ironing, and plan my wardrobe to avoided it almost entirely. He knew that since we were dating, and when his dad (who used to own a dry cleaners’ store) stopped doing his ironing for him, Joe took on the task. He does a much better job than I would do anyway. He cleans the litter boxes and helps clean up the kitchen after dinner too. Yay, Joe!

So speaking of Joe and mail, Joe is out in the living room right now playing with his Wii, which he just got back in the mail today. Something was wrong with it – something about the way it displayed some games or something. So he had to send it off to be fixed, and he was very happy to get his new toy back.

I finally got my Moo cards in the mail on Friday. Too late for the Harlot event, but in time for Yarnover. I ordered two sets – one with pictures of the girls on the front and our family information on the back. They will be perfect for handing to parents of the girls’ friends when we want to plan play dates. The pictures of the girls will help jog busy moms’ memories of who we are and why they have our contact information. And the other set is all blankie close-ups, for when I’m talking to knitters. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. They are nice thick, glossy cardstock and feel nice in the hand.

Editing to add a clarification about the cards – by contact information I mean our family name and my e-mail address. I left it at that with room for me to handwrite in our phone number if I choose because I feel like e-mail is the least invasive way to reach us. Even so, people could still look up the rest of our info in the phone book, but for that matter so could any of my readers (and some, unfortunately, have!) I’m well aware of security considerations, and y’all are going to have to trust that I take precautions – number one being that my kids don’t leave my sight, and that I’m good about actually paying attention to what they’re doing when we’re out of the house. There are only so many layers of paranoia one can track, after all.

I also got a shipment of books from Amazon last week. It’s kind of an eclectic little pile. I’d had Barbara Abbey’s Knitting Lace in my wish list for a while, and made up my mind to go ahead and buy it when I was looking for lace trims for those socks a few weeks ago. This book has a huge collection of lace trims, as well as doilies and a detailed section on making lace and designing lace garments. Some day I will be able to design my own lace patterns, and not just copy them out of books!

I’m not exactly sure how I ended up buying a book on spinning. Except that I’ve had an ongoing conversation with myself for years now about how I don’t want to spin – no, I really don’t want to spin – no, I have too much knitting already, so look the other way quick. But I keep seeing all this awesome spinning and fiber in the blogs, and at least I feel like I wish I understood more of what they’re talking about. And when I saw that Priscilla Gibson-Roberts had a book on Spinning in the Old Way, I had to add it to the cart. I love the book “Knitting in the Old Way” – in fact, if I had to pick only one knitting book to look at for the rest of my life, that would probably be it. I haven’t really cracked the cover of this one yet.

And finally, I bought The Creative Family by Amanda Soule, whose blog I read regularly. She is always showing awesome projects that she does with her kids, and seems so gentle and capable a parent, I had to check out her tricks. I need all the tricks I can get. I’ve only had a few moments to glance through this one so far, but I’m pretty sure there is some stuff in there we can try now, and more that we will grow into.

And finally, another surprise gift came today that absolutely gobsmacked me. It’s a beautiful little sock-project bag from my loyal reader and commenter Michelle a.k.a. SwissKnits! She made it herself, and sent it as a thank-you gift for the needles she won in a contest here a while back. So unbelievably sweet – thank you Michelle!

I love this bag so much, and had to wonder whether she would be making them to sell. The answer is no, they’re just for friends, which made me feel even more special. I may have to start another sock project just so I can use the bag!

And now I must go fold a giant mountain of clean laundry – maybe if I fold fast I’ll have time for a few more rows of the snowflake scarf before bed. I’m only twelve rows away from finishing the body, so maybe by tomorrow night I’ll be knitting the border. Which could mean a blocking post as early as Thursday or Friday if all the stars align and Sophie agrees to actually go to sleep at her bed time tomorrow.

I know I’ve mentioned my love for Ravelry here more than once, but I have another nice little Ravelry-related story to share with you. It’s a perfect example of just how great Ravelry is, and why we should all love it to death and support them and enter in all our knitting information that we can. Pretty much all the links in this post are to various pages on Ravelry, so my apologies if you don’t have an account yet – go sign up for one and you’ll have it in a few weeks, tops.

A few weeks ago, Laura Mate sent me a Ravelry message. She explained that she had some Sir Galli by Muench but was just a few skeins short of the sweater she wants to knit. She had found my stash listing for the three skeins I had left over from the shawl I made a couple years ago, and figured it couldn’t hurt to ask if I was willing to part with it.

Well, the back story on that yarn is that my best friend from college, who my daughter Julie is named after, died of ovarian cancer in July of 2005 after a four-year fight. She had learned to knit after she got sick, and had planned several projects that she never got around to. I inherited most of her yarn, and one of the projects was a shawl for her sister, Jenny, which I ended up making. The FO post for that one is here.

So those last three skeins left over were probably never going to get used – I don’t really love knitting with 100% silk, and there were only three skeins left – but I didn’t feel like I could throw them away or donate them to charity. Or at least, I hadn’t gotten around to donating them yet. But when Laura asked me nicely for them, and told me that she had ten balls of the same dye lot waiting to be knit up, well it was like fate. I was grateful to Ravelry for connecting us, and grateful to her for taking this yarn and putting it to good use. Plus, after all the yarn people have given me over the last few years, I knew I couldn’t accept any money for it – I got her address and off it went. It felt great, and then I pretty much forgot about it.

A week later, I was poking around Raverly again, looking at the long discontinued yarn that I’m slightly obsessed with (Pomfret by Brunswick). I noticed that Wei-Wei had five skeins of it in a lovely Blackberry Heather shade. This is somewhat unusual because it’s not often that you find so many intact skeins of the same color and dye lot of this yarn together after twenty years out of make, but when you do it’s usually in some not-very-fabulous color.

Five skeins is not quite enough to make a sweater out of – I have some old Brunswick patterns, and they say that for a cardigan in my size I’ll need about nine skeins – but that purple-y heather will go great with some of the colors I already have and I will (eventually) make a sweater out of it.

It turns out that Wei-Wei had inherited the yarn, and had no immediate plans to use it, so she was happy to sell it to me for a very reasonable price. I think she may have felt the same way about it as I did about the Sir Galli – perhaps happy to see it go to a good home where it might get used. She asked a ridiculously low price for it – I may have had a slightly better idea of its value after having purchased a few several more than my share of skeins on e-bay in the last few years – so I sent her a bit more than what she asked and still felt a little guilty but not THAT guilty when she messaged me back that it was in the mail.

It arrived on Saturday while I was out at Yarnover, and it is just as gorgeous as I had hoped.

Okay, and that little scenario alone should have been enough – I helped Laura find the yarn she wanted, Wei-Wei helped me hoarde collect some more Pomfret that I neededwanted, it makes a nice little Ravelry-assisted karmic circle. But then Laura had to go and literally put the icing on the cake. Look what showed up in the mail today…

Laura is from Kentucky, where aparently this candy is a tradition. She says she and her mom used to make it every year at Christmas when she was a kid, but that it was so complicated it would only come out right about one time in ten. Sheesh! Now they just buy it from Ruth Hunt Candy – and I don’t blame ‘em. Nine batches of sugary mess for one good batch sounds a little frustrating!

This candy is good and like nothing else I’ve ever tasted. It’s super-crazy-sweet, and it sort of crumbles and melts in your mouth kind of like those old fashioned peppermint sticks, only softer and more crumbly, and sweeter and without the mint. I tried one this afternoon and knew that I would need a cup of coffee for my next one. I just had another one with a cup of decaf, and it was nice. The foil-wrapped bar is the same candy, dipped in chocolate. Not THAT was good. The bitter from the dark chocolate really balances the sweet and makes it yummy.

Laura, you know that was totally unnecessary. I told you to pay it *forward*! But, um, thanks. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

And now, I’m going to try to make some headway on that scarf. I am SO itching to start my Sunrise Circles, which means I better hurry up and finish this scarf before the willpower runs out. I’m working on the last repeat of the main lace pattern now, and then just have to do the row of border at the end.

Harry cat thinks it looks like a big ole lump o’not-much-exciting. I’m camping out in the office room tonight watching a DVD on my computer because Joe has hockey on in the living room while he irons. I am so not into hockey!

It’s just downright crazy that I should get to leave my family and go have fun all by myself twice in one week, but today I did just that. I got up early got myself all prettied up as best I could and got out the door without so much as changing a diaper.

I didn’t even have to drive very far this year, since the venue moved to Hopkins High School, which is just down the road from where I live by about ten minutes. The blankie came along with me, and I walked it over to the Yarnery’s booth in the marketplace, where it pretended to be a table cloth for the day. It got lots of attention, and hopefully generated some interest in the class I’ll be teaching on it in May – on the 6th and 13th.

But back to Yarnover – it was crowded, and the main hallways were full of people shopping the marketplace booths, and I kept running into old friends and acquaintances who I don’t see very often any more since I rarely make it to Guild meetings these days. I made it in to hear the keynote speech by Joan Schrouder, then had just enough time to find my classroom to drop off my junk before it was time to track down Franklin of the Panopticon and the 1,000 Knitters Project.

I signed up to sit for a little shoot with Franklin as soon as I found out he was coming, and I don’t know what I was expecting, really, but the short little meeting by far exceeded my expectations. Franklin had a way of immediately putting me at ease – he was friendly and just had sort of a calm, centered energy kind of like you’d expect someone of the Zen Buddist persuasion to have. And I’m not just saying that – I know it sounds all esoteric and whatever, but that’s really how it felt.

So I introduced myself, and when I said “Hi, I’m Shelly Kang.” He asked why that sounded familiar, so I mentioned my blog name and yeeep! He knew who I was. And then I sat and knit on the scarf, and he took my picture and asked me about my blog name. By the time I finished my brief explanation, he was done. And then of course I fell into gushing mode and told him how much I love his blog and Delores and Harry and the gang, and then I got myself right out the door before I could embarrass myself any further.

Okay and then as I was walking back to my classroom, I realized that dammit I’d forgotten to get a picture of me with him. So I sat through the first part of my class alternately paying attention to what I was doing and mentally kicking myself. And then I calmed down, and by the first break I decided what the heck – I’ll go back up there and ask politely and I have no pride, so what is there to lose?

Not much, apparently. He was totally cool. Thanks, Franklin!

And back in the classroom with Joan Schrouder, who not only was the keynote speaker but also the teacher whose set-in sleeves class I took for the day.

Joan was wearing a vest that is really a partially unfinished Kauni cardigan sweater. In the picture she’s holding a circular needle that’s attached to the sweater where she’s picking up stitches for a sleeve. It’s going to be a super-pretty sweater. And Joan is a smart, free-thinking, self-effacing knitter with lots of tricks up her sleeves, which she graciously shares. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that the class was about sleeves picked up and knitted down – I was looking for more help with the version that are knit flat as a separate piece and then sewn together. But they really are all the same thing, and as much as I didn’t learn any more about sleeve shaping than I already knew, I did get some great tips here and there about tangentially related things that I thought were cool.

The bottom of that sweater she’s wearing? It’s garter stitch, of the purl-when-you-can variety, and instead of stopping it on a single line, she did it gradually so that the hem won’t have a tendency to flip. She also has an idea about securing steeks with localized felting instead of crochet chains or sewing machines that I found intriguing – she suggested scrubbing it with a toothbrush, I think when I try it I’ll just use a felting needle. I almost want to paw through the stash and start my own Kauni rightnow just so I can try out those two things. Soon. Not now.

Other highlights of my day included chatting with the Rainey Sisters again. I had asked Susan to bring along her Sunrise Circle cardigan so I could look at some of the modifications she did to the pattern. I’m planning to start one of my own as soon as I finish the snowflake scarf, and Susan even let me try hers on for size. Those two women, they are so smart! And it’s really neat to see two sisters like them hanging out together. It was so cute watching them decide together over the course of the day how many and which ones of a certain designer’s kits they needed to have. I don’t want to say too much, and I don’t know what the final verdict turned out to be, but every time I walked by the marketplace they were at a different point in the deliberations.

I also managed to secure my place in the 24th Annual Minnesota Knitters’ Days camp in October. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Three days away from my family, taking classes from Candace Eisner-Strick and surrounded by other enthusiastic knitters. I’ve been to camp with this group a couple other times – once before Julie was born and once as a day-only student a couple years ago. It’s going to be fun. I couldn’t find anything about this camp on the web, and it may very well be full now, but Sheryl who runs it keeps a waiting list, and if you want more information, you can e-mail me and I’ll put you in touch with her.

I did shop around over the course of the day, and while there were a lot of nice, appealing yarns I managed to keep my wallet pretty well under control – I have a lot of nice, appealing yarns here at home. I did have to buy a new circular needle for my class since I’d only brought straights with me (so incredibly ironical because I don’t *like* straights in the first place, but that’s what I thought I was supposed to be using). And I fell down in one other thing…

I’ve wanted to try knitting one of these little amulet bags for a long time, and I’ve heard that they’re pretty quick. This kit will make two, and I figure maybe my MIL would like one as a Christmas gift. She can be impossible to buy for.

And finally, just as I was headed out to my car at the end of the day, Annie (Ravelry link) stopped me to say hello and show me her new little blankie project.

She was really sweet and enthusiastic and it was so exciting to run into a project of my own design out in the wild. So thanks, Annie, and happy knitting.

And that’s about it. Time to work on the Snowflake scarf for a while before bed. I’m really hoping to have the thing done maybe even in the next week. So I can start Sunrise Circle guilt-free.

I had a great time tonight. I had way more fun than should be allowed, and now I’m exhausted and sitting here wondering how Stephanie can cope with not only being the center of all the attention after night after night of events like this, but also being away from home and moving from city to city every day for weeks straight. But she handled it gracefully as ever. I’m getting ahead of myself.

The weather tonight was just plain crappy. When I headed out from St. Louis Park, it was sloggy-cold and rainy, and by the time I came home after 11, it was snowing big melty flakes and every horizontal surface was covered in slimy slush. And the roads were teh suck, but again I’m getting ahead of myself.

Trust me, the show was worth braving the weather, which while freaky as can be in mid-April, wasn’t really scary or anything. I know the weather did keep a lot of people home – heck – there were a few people who showed up at the auditorium and decided to leave before the show because they were afraid driving conditions were worsening. Still, we ended up with a pretty good crowd of well over 400, and as far as I could tell, things went quite smoothly.

Here are our fearless hosts, Maura and Shelly, my bosses at the Yarnery. Maura is the one who did the bulk of the organizing work for the event, and although they are both smiling big in the picture, both of these ladies were running around busy and in demand for most of the evening. They really did their best to make it as good of an experience as possible for everyone there.

And here’s my friend Sarah, who also works at the store. She runs the Socks in the Cities KAL, and does a lot of the Yarnery’s web updating stuff. She is hilariously funny and also takes really good pictures.

Angie also works at the store, and you’ll get to see her in the videos further down – she was the mastermind behind all the song lyrics in the pre-show. Genius!

Here’s a crowd pic – this was a little bit before the show started, and the front row is empty here because those seats were reserved for staff, who were all busy running around still at that point;and guests with special needs. By the time the show started, most of the balcony seats had filled as well. Overflow crowds had been predicted, but with the the weather, everyone who showed up for the show got in, so that was good.

Okay, and here’s my friend and coworker Julie, who was sitting next to me during the speech, and didn’t have her camera with her for a picture. Julie, I’ll e-mail you a full-res one soon! Julie was working the event last year and didn’t know who Stephanie was. I remember she kept saying “I don’t get it – what’s the big deal” in a totally nonplussed way. Tonight was different. She kept saying “I’m really excited. I’m a much bigger fan now. Stephanie is so cool.” Julie’s so cute.

Finally the pre-show started, and Mary Lou introduced the Yarnery Family Singers. We’ll get to them in a minute, but first I want to show you something. MaryLou is a pretty tall person – at least, she’s taller than me and I’m 5′10″. But you can see that the podium was just about the right height for her.

Later, when Stephanie came out, it looked like this. I really wanted to jump up and fetch her a step-stool. But I managed to restrain myself. It seemed to unfair -both to Stephanie trying to talk over the thing and to us in the audience who would have liked to see her face a little better.

And Stephanie did her talk, and it was great. The only bad part was that I had stuck my bag full of junk off to the side back stage for safekeeping while I was taking tickets and stuff before the show. So when she came out and I sat down, my sock in progress was way out of reach. I had to sit there in the front row trying not to fidget. Oh, the humanity! Still, it was great, and my facial muscles are indeed sore from the excessive smiling and laughing. I think I need to find a way to get them more exercise – i.e. more laughter on a regular basis.

She told some of the story about her time up in the cabin in the woods, and you should have seen her impression of dangerous attacking deer. At least I was able to see that around the podium. The story was funny on the blog, but hilarious told out loud and in person the way Stephanie talks.

After the talk, there was plenty of time to mill around and chat with all the other knitters. I got to meet Maura, who had bought some of my hand dyed yarn and brought along her socks that she knit up with it. On the left is the coffee-dyed yarn, and on the right is the one I was calling Electric Stripes. It was freaky-weird-cool to get to see the results of those skeins in person, so thanks again for bringing them, Maura!

I got a chance to chat with Susan and Sally for a few minutes – I feel so badly for Sally, who is out of commission knitting-wise for the next several weeks. But at least she has a sweater or two to keep her warm. Both Susan and Sally had on their fabulous sweaters tonight, and although Susan hates having her picture taken, I think they are both quite photogenic. Susan, I’ll e-mail you a copy in the next day or so as well. And by the way, if you don’t read their blog yet, you really should. They do amazing work, are quite prolific, and are great about sharing the details of technique and finishing.

The Blankie was with me, and got lots of attention and petting from various folks, not least of which was the Harlot herself. It was such a pleasure to chat with Stephanie again, and she is incredibly gracious. I actually posed with her and got my book signed early on, but then went back for a second try on the photos because both of us looked pretty freaky in the first version of the picture (me more than her, I’m afraid). It’s amazing how if the person taking your picture is short, you look like you have big double-chins, but if they raise the camera up high, it’s quite slimming.

So that picture is actually at the very end of the night when Stephanie has just talked to a million people, but she’s smiling gamely and even had them take several shots just to be sure. Thanks!

Okay, and saving some of the best for last, the pre-show was pretty amazingly funny. Jess, Angie, Scott and Eric from the Yarnery got together to form the Yarnery Family Singers. They performed several songs spoofing Sound of Music tunes, only with special Harlot lyrics. Following are four short videos showing the songs You have to watch these – they are hilarious!

How Do You Host a Knitter Like the Harlot Part one

How Do you Host a Knitter Like the Harlot Part two

Favorite Things

And here’s the last one – I have to warn you – this one is probably the funniest, but they had the lyrics up on the screen and everyone was singing along, and I couldn’t help myself I started singing along too…except I’m totally tone deaf. Forgive me, it’s bad. Try to ignore the off-key crooning on my part and enjoy the “real” singers up on the stage.

I think Stephanie really enjoyed the performance from her place backstage, but was also a little freaked out by it. The first thing she said when she came out was something like “I think this has gone a little too far now.” I thought it was brilliant.

Thanks again to Stephanie for coming, for Maura and Shelly at the Yarnery for helping to get her here, to the Yarnery Family singers for being so brilliant and funny, and to all the other fans who were there to watch, rub elbows, pet sweaters, and generally enjoy the spectacle together. I had a blast.

Oh, and the trip home was fun as well. As I walked out to the parking ramp with a couple other knitters at the end of the night, I saw thunder-snow for the first time in my life. It was snowing big, wet, melty flakes again, and the ground was inch-deep in slippery slush. And then there were flashes in the sky and one of my companions said “What was that?” and then there was thunder. Car-ay-zay! But really neat. Kind of like the whole evening.

I was going to write this post last night, but Sophie was gassy and took forever to go to sleep, then I was busy doing stuff to get ready, and then Sophie woke up again and I ended up just taking her to bed with me. So I’m writing this on Harlot day. My third Harlot day so far…

Harlot day is a special one, because yes, of course, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is coming to town and will be speaking, and she is crazy-funny. The last two times I listened to her speak, I laughed till my face hurt and my voice was hoarse. But it’s become much more than that in my mind.

When the Yarn Harlot comes to town, people come from miles and miles and hours and hours around. It is a huge gathering of not just knitters but wildly enthusiastic knitters. It is so much fun to meet up with bloggers and Ravelry-ers from near and not so near. It is, as I have found out in the last couple of years, a little nerve-wracking, yet exhilarating, to be met by my loyal readers who know so much about me.

Please – if you see me tonight – try to come up and say hello. And also please don’t be offended if I am busy right at that moment – I expect the time leading up to the speech will be very rush-rush, but there will be lot s of time for chatting after while people wait for their books to be signed. I promise there will be plenty of opportunities for blankie-fondling for those who are interested.

So what have I been up to while I wait for Harlot day to arrive?

Well, I ordered a bunch of Moo cards, but they haven’t arrived yet – there’s a chance that they’ll arrive with today’s post before I leave, but I had to assume that they wouldn’t and printed up the business cards I had on hand at home (for all the people who want to know more about the blankie and need the URL for my web page – it does attract knitters like a magnet, and I ran out of cards at the Knit-Out).

I’ve got a large supply of plain-sock knitting at the ready. I don’t know how much actual mindless-knitting time I’ll have tonight, but I think I’ll be getting more on Saturday, and there are all the sneaky minutes day-to-day around here. I have almost enough mindless knitting set up to feel pretty comfortable. You just never do know when you’re going to need some. I think I’ll have one of the blue striped socks with me tonight.

Oh, and I bought and read the book. It’s very nice – very much what I expected. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I like Stephanie’s books. I really do. I *love* her blog. I buy the books to support the blog. But the books are a lot of fun, too.

What else?

Well, I had to print up a bunch of patterns – the Yarnery will have samples of my baby and adult versions of the quilted slip-stitch hats and the baby pants in their display tonight, and the patterns will be for sale there.

A reader asked if I could bring her some sourdough starter, so I fed Fanny again and split some up into a new container to take along. I’m really going to try to not leave Fanny’s little sisters in the fridge in my rush out the door tonight.

I washed a load of pants so that I would have something clean to wear, and I stood in front of my sock drawer for a few foggy minutes this morning trying to decide which ones were best. I also stood in front of the mirror wishing away the giant zit on my chin. Please try not to look at the zit on my chin, okay?

I double-checked the camera batteries, I’ve been reading the Ravelry forums wishing I were going to be at Pat Thai to meet up with those guys before the event – in case you hadn’t heard, there will be a meet-up starting at 4:30 there. But also I think there will be a blogger/Raveler meet-up point at the theater, so get there in plenty of time to mingle.

Oh! and the doors open at 6, so I’d get there as soon as possible to scope out a seat and the pre-show will start probably at 6:30 or so. I can’t say much about it because my co-workers would kill me if I spoiled the surprise, but I saw a preview at the staff meeting on Sunday and the pre-show is going to rock this year. Talk about your face hurting from laughing so hard!

I better change the subject before I get myself in trouble – hey look! New project on the horizon!

I ripped out the Wooly Stripes sweater that I machine knit last winter and never bothered finishing. I’m going to hand-knit the yarn instead. I swatched and blocked the swatch – to get the required gauge I had to go down to a size four from the recommended seven. So typical for me! Now I am going to force myself to finish the lace scarf before I start the sweater – and that will give me time hopefully to pick at least one very experienced knitter brain who has already worked this project before I cast on – maybe two if I’m lucky – Sally’s in town tonight.

I’ve also been getting ready for Yarnover. I’m taking an all-day class with Joan Schrouder on set-in sleeves, and I did my homework like a good student. I know I hate it when my students show up without their homework even started.

Doesn’t look like much, does it?

Oh! and after the April 1st snow storm, I waited a week and thought to myself “No more winter weather coming now – time to clean up the back entry way. I’d better wash the woolies before I put them away for the summer.”

They needed it – this is the dirty water after the second rinse. Blech!

And so of course – guess what the weather says now? We’ve got another winter storm warning for into the weekend. I’m hoping it won’t interfere too much with folks’ travel plans – as far as I can tell, it’s mostly supposed to fall north of us, and to hit more on Friday than today. There’s Yarnover to worry about on Saturday too, though.

Alright – two more hours till Joe gets home and the fun really starts. I have just a couple more things to do before I’m ready to leave, and I also need to feed the kids lunch and get Sophie down for her nap…

The other nice thing about a Harlot day? Almost as important as all the knitterly fun? It’s a guaranteed chance for me to get Joe to come home early and take over the girls. I will be there, and I will probably be a bit giddy both from all the knitterly company and the wool fumes and the Stephanie-related laughter. But I will be giddy before I even get there from the release of driving away from my house by myself with an evening of grown-up fun before me. Whatever responsibility I have as Yarnery staff tonight will feel like fun after endless days of child-wrangling.

See you tonight if you’re local, and if you can’t be there, look for pictures tomorrow!

Yesterday during my little solo trip to the grocery store, I noticed that the asparagus was looking especially good – nice tiny, thin sticks that would steam up crisp-tender. Joe doesn’t like eating asparagus because of the next-day smell thing, but I kind of like it, and I figured it would be okay paired up with Joe’s favorite of steak and baked potatoes, and I even whipped up a little Hollandaise sauce to serve with it.

Julie pulled the “I don’t want any” trick, followed by my standard “Okay, you don’t have to eat it, I’m just going to put a couple on your plate.” So she ignored it and ate her grilled salmon (Joe gets just steak, the rest of us get half salmon half steak). Then, 2/3 of the way through the meal, she was suddenly dipping her asparagus in her sauce and eating it without comment.

We do our best not to make a big deal about whether or not the kids eat their veggies – we just keep putting them on the plates, and eating them ourselves. I hate it when we’re out somewhere in public or with family and someone makes a big deal about what our kids are eating – yes, they have pretty refined palates compared to most small children, but they don’t know it, and they don’t need to know it.

It’s not easy dealing with the what-feels-like-rejection every time when they refuse the veggies, but last night was the pay-off. Julie sat there and ate four servings of asparagus and then I finally just put the serving plate in front of her and she kept eating till I finally stopped her after a few more servings’ worth. I’m sure next time I serve it she’ll turn up her nose, and I will have to put on the game face and go with the flow.

Today was our first park play-date of the season! The weather was warm – upper 40s or maybe low 50s, and even though there is still snow on the ground we took the opportunity to get out and play after five months stuck mostly in the house.

Sophie kept losing her boots – they’re a little big on her, and Julie’s are a little tight. We’ll have to shop for a couple new pairs in the next few days.

The swings are ever-popular, and the big girls are *almost* big enough to do it on their own.

And then came the real fun…

So often I’m yelling at the girls to “stay out of the water” “Don’t splash in the puddles!” Well, today all bets were off. I told them to go ahead and get a little muddy.

And they did! Both of the little ones ended up getting a little wetter than anyone planned or desired, but it was fine – a distracting snack on the way home, and naptime was solid this afternoon.

Tonight bedtime was quick and fairly painless too. We’ve continued to have restless nights all week, though. Tonight before bed I had a little talk with Sophie and told her I’d really appreciate it if she could stay in her own bed tonight. I said “If you wake up in the night tonight, it’s okay to just grab Sheepy and roll over and go back to sleep. Mama’s really tired and could use a good night’s sleep.” I’m going to keep the expectations low, but this tactic has worked in the past, so I’m hoping maybe tonight I’ll get some sleep.

But first I’m going to work on the snowflake scarf for a while. I’m up to seven motifs, and I’m not sure how much farther I should take it.

At least ten, I’m thinking, maybe more. I have plenty of yarn. hmmmm.

Mothers-in-law are not always so easy to love. Anyone who has one can tell you that. Today, though, I am feeling all about the love for my MIL. She came over and played with the girls from 10 till around 3. In that time I was able to:

• Scrub the upstairs bathroom till it is about as clean as I have ever seen it.*
• Vacuum the upstairs carpet (no more crushed cheerios!)**
• Change the sheets
• Dust the bedroom (and there were real, live dust bunnies hiding under the night stands!)
• Take a load of dirty diapers to the basement, get them through two wash cycles and the dryer and back upstairs folded before bedtime.
• Scrub the downstairs bathroom (which is much easier to keep clean)
• Wash the kitchen floor
• Feed everyone lunch
• Go to the grocery store by myself

I can not begin to describe how happy this makes me. To have so many chores out of the way all in one day, to not have them hanging over my head, to not walk through the house and feel lousy every minute for not having the energy to scrub toilets and keep an eye on the girls at the same time, etc. And best of all, I have not had two little girls literally hanging on me all day – despite having worked my tail off today, I actually have a bit of energy left.

Oh, how I wish my MIL would come over like that at least once a month, but I’d take her every week if she’d be willing! But for today I am incredibly grateful and happy. I must try to think of something nice that I can do for her that she would actually like.

I’m off to bask in my own glow and do some knitting.

*We have some mildew issues up there, plus some idiot decided that the grout needed re-grouting, and instead of picking out the old grout first, they just slathered new grout over it – so any time I try to scrub the shower, I end up scrubbing away big chunks of loose grout. I’ve been trying to use non-toxic household cleaners, but the vinegar-water just wasn’t working on the creeping mildew, and so I finally broke down and bought a bottle of the evil mildew-remover stuff, and suddenly what used to look like the shower of a shared bachelor apartment with five roommates now looks like something I can step into in the morning without cringing.

**Sometimes when we sleep in on weekdays and I need to get a shower in even after Joe has left for work, I bring up a little snack for the girls consisting of little bowls of dried cheerios mixed with raisins. They love it when I do that, and the raisins are usually no trouble to spot and pick up off the floor. The cheerios happen to match our carpet exactly, though, and can be harder to pick up before someone steps on them. Also, we don’t buy actual cheerios, which are full of sugar, but instead buy the organic non-sugary version from the local co-op. They taste at least as good as the big-business name-brand ones, but are a little more expensive.

That's what Sophie came to me and said after setting this little scene
up. Now she's reading him a book.

Today Joe's parents were going to take the girls out for the day. So I
could run to an appointment and then have some rare alone time in the
house. Which I was going to spend cleaning. All I wanted to do was scrub
my nasty toilets and vaccume the crushed cheerios out of the carpet –
how's that for a dream?

Well, they came over alright, but Sophie woke up with a fever this
morning after a restless night. No trip to the Maul of America for her
today. At least I made it to my appointment, and may have even snuck off
to a LYS for a few sneaky peeky minutes. But the moment I arrived back
in my filthy house (I was *counting* on some hard-core cleaning today,
dammit!) they beat tracks straight out of here.

Left with two children, one bored and one clingy, and a mama who's
exhausted in the first place and practically dead after another
sleepless night, I decided that a pick-us-up was in order.

Julie decided that the peanut butter-chocolate chip variety was what we
needed, and Sophie was pleasantly surprised when she woke up from her
nap.