Whirlwind Thursday

Sorry there was no post last night. I was all ready to post, but the evening got away from me. First, I was on the phone with my brother-in-law Dave catching up on the family gossip and hearing all about his exciting life in New York City. We were also going through a wedding registry and picking out gifts to buy as a group for the cousin who is getting married in May. That took much longer than expected, but was worth it because he's a fun guy and we had a nice chat.

Then, I spent an hour picking out and ordering a new camera. W0ot!!!!11!!!!!1one! We Joe did our taxes last week and found out that we're getting a little money back, so I finally got the go-ahead to replace our perfectly serviceable Canon PowerShot S400 Elph (4 Megapixels). I love the Canon Elphs, but two things were bothering me about ours. First, it's slow. From the time you push down the button to take the picture to the time when the picture actually clicks, it can be one to three seconds. That's forever in wildly-moving preschooler time. Secondly, we're using it to record the childhoods of our children, and technology is moving so quickly - I wanted more Megapixels and higher quality images. What we have is pretty darn good, but I think 7 will be awesome. I ordered the Canon SD-1000 from Best Buy (because their prices were good - don't tell me if you know of a place that has it $50 cheaper right now, I don't want to know.) UPS tracking says it should be here on Monday, plenty of time for me to figure out any changes between the models before the Yarn Harlot event. I've been wanting this camera for a while, so I'm excited to get it and play with it. This one has a setting where you can take bursts of shots, so maybe that will help my chances of getting a good one when they're doing something cute.

Speaking of the Yarn Harlot event, I'd like to mention a few things that I am keenly aware of as I work at the Yarnery and hear all the planning, excitement, and honestly hard work that the managers are doing. First, PLEASE be nice to the poor staff at the Yarnery. They are working hard to make this an awesome time for everyone. It's almost like planning a wedding, there are so many logistics to iron out. It sounds to me like they're doing a great job, though. I think it would be really helpful if people can carpool, and if you did reserve a spot and now know that you can't come, please send the store an e-mail and let them know so someone on the waiting list can have it. The store just sent out an e-mail to the TCKnit Yahoo group, so if you want more up-to-date information, it's all there. One other thing - they're not updating the website right now because the manager with the ability to do that is on a well-deserved vacation that was planned before we knew about the Harlot event. That's life.

Let's move on to the pictures!

Sophie really knows how to enjoy a bowl of applesauce. She was coated in it, and I ended up putting the girls in the tub for their bath in the afternoon instead of after dinner just to get her cleaned up more easily. She was going to need an outfit change either way.



Even after I took the tray away to clean it up, she was looking in the pocket of her bib for fallen blobs to snorf up.



Remember the orange marker stains I was so pissed off about a couple days ago? Well, this is actually the other thing I was doing last night. After all your suggestions and a conversation I had with my Wednesday-morning knitting group, I decided to try a little science experiment and see which stain-removal remedy worked best.

First up was cheap hairspray on the brand-new polo shirt. I saw only limited results with this, even after a good drenching and some fingernail-scrubbing action.



Tide To Go on my pale-pink Old Navy layering t[shirt. This was not a big loss, as it was two seasons old and cost less than $10 in the first place. Still, I wear it regularly. I wanted to keep it that way. This product didn't put a dent in the stain, even after using the point at the end to scrub as described in the directions.



This is the same bottle of rubbing alcohol that I used to remove the Sharpie marker from the brand-new counters and cabinets a while back. I tried it on this shirt of Julie's. The marks were on the back and relatively faint to begin with - just next to the bottom-right corner of the bottle. I was really sad about this shirt because it's from Gymboree and has a super-cute fox on the front, and it goes with a matching skirt. I really want to pass this one on to Sophie.



After I applied the rubbing alcohol, the stain almost disappeared almost immediately. I ran it under super-hot water and scrubbed a little more, and it was gone entirely. The science experiment ended right then, I rinsed out everything else and used the rubbing alcohol on everything, then stuck the whole mess in a sink full of Clorox2 dissolved in hot water. After a soak in that and another run through the washer, everything came out stain-free! There are super-faint water marks on the new pink polo, but it is at least wearable. See?



Thanks for all the ideas and encouragement!

This morning, Sophie took a nap in the crib while Julie was at pre-school, so I got a rare (and brief) coffee break with my computer and the Pomatomus sock. It was nice while it lasted.



This afternoon we went dress shopping. Here's Julie's flower girl dress. I think maybe she liked it just a little.



Um. Look what followed me home from the store tonight.



That's Fleece Artist merino sock yarn. We just got a new shipment in at the store. YUM! I only wish we had had this in when I started my sample socks. Le sigh.

One more thing before I go spend a little quality time on the couch with Pomatomus...I keep seeing this sweater in magazine ads and catalogs, and I want to knit something like it very badly. Except I hate knitting with cotton, and I have too many projects in the lineup already to even consider it. I don't want to risk copyright infringement on the photo, so I'm just going to link to this catalog page, and you can see it halfway down on the left - the v-neck t-shirt with the lace. What I'd really like to do is design my own version of that but in a lightweight wool and long sleeves. It'd have to be more of a cool weather top, but I'd be okay with that. I'm cutting the picture out and pasting it in my ideas book!

Ta!

Still Blissed Out and now Pissed Off

Yesterday was a beautiful day in our neighborhood. Some people even claim that it got up to 80 degrees outside. It was definitely park weather.









As a reminder and in response to some questions from wonderful readers, those socks are from the Pomatomus pattern, free on Knitty.com. Emily asked if it is incredibly difficult to memorize. I have to admit that I'm not all that great at memorizing lace patterns. I have it printed out and use a sticky note just above the row I'm knitting to keep track of where I am. Even so, it's easy to read the knitting on this one. I think if I were to knit both socks in a row (and I may actually do that, but I'm not sure yet) I would surely have the pattern in my head without even trying before I finished the second one.

Someone mentioned that socks don't fit her very well because of fat ankles, so maybe it's not worth knitting them for herself any more. Nonsense! Knitting your own socks can mean getting them to fit perfectly. If you're knitting socks from the top down, you just need to cast on some extra stitches at the top, then decrease them as you head down to the ankle. Voila! Suddenly you have happy socks. Only, I don't know how well that strategy would work with Pomatomus since the stitch pattern is continuous all the way around and it would be hard to sneak in the shaping without breaking it up.

Oh, and since that outing the sock has grown a bit. Will try to get a decent picture tomorrow!

Oops - almost forgot to add the pissed off part! I was working my way through the mountain of laundry once more, and pulled a big load out of the dryer to discover that there was an open marker in one of Julie's pockets. Every single piece of clothing in that load had orange stains on it. ARGH! Including two brand-new polo shirts I was planning to wear all summer. And a bunch of other good clothes that we wear every day, many of which were Julie's that I was counting on handing down to Sophie. Oh, I was angry! At myself and Joe for not checking her pockets, and at Julie for sticking the marker in there in the first place. But, what's done is done. At least we're at the end of the winter season and I won't have to immediately replace the ruined winter clothes, or dress her in orange spots for months to come. Still.

Bliss

I think this sock may be just about the most beautiful thing I've ever knit. Even though it is only partially finished, the crisp stitch pattern and the almost-solid Koigu with its subtle depth of color just makes me want to cry when I look at it. Of course I failed to get naturally-lit pictures of it today, so you only get to see a crappy snapshot.



This image doesn't come close to portraying the true color. It's a darker, richer blue with subtle color variation. I've only completed to repeats of the pattern chart, and I think I will need to do two more in order to be satisfied with the cuff length. I've been knitting it on my faithful Pony Pearl dpns, but it's on the Addi circular at the moment because I just tried it on to make sure it fit over my heel. It does - snugly - and you should all thank the powers of the universe that I have spared you the sight of it on my leg this time around. I'm still trying to blink it out of my eyes!

I had a really good day at the store today. It was my last session of a beginning knitting class, and I was sad to see this one end. Nice people all around, and everyone picked it up pretty well, even the one woman who kept psyching herself out! The staff is all a'buzz about the impending Harlot visit. We are expecting a huge crowd, and the reservations for the 400-person hall have filled up. They're putting people on a waiting list now. I was talking to the manager about all of their plans for door prizes and keeping things organized and happy, and it sounds like the night is going to RAWK! Yes, even though it is a bunch of knitters gathering to listen to a woman tell jokes about knitting. It's going to be crazy fun.

While I'm putting up pictures, here is one of the girls playing in the sand table yesterday. Sophie had that wide-mouth smile of amazement going for about half an hour as she discovered first tactile wonder of sand scrunching and sifting through her fat little hands, then the thrill of scattering handfuls of it in various ways and watching it fall.



Here's another You-Tube video - Sophie honking with laughter as she plays peekaboo behind and through her clear plastic sippy cup during breakfast yesterday.

Friday Night Stream of Conscious

Baking cookies and digging into Pomotomos. This has a different feel by far from Baudelaire. I'm reserving judgement so far. Pictures tomorrow, maybe.

The girls and I spent the afternoon outside at our friends' house. The friends who are the same ages as my girls and are the sweetest little peas that ever there were. Time flies so quickly when you are outside and in good company, especially when we have spent so many months mostly indoors. It was in the 60's today, and there are only scattered hard icy spots of snow now where the piles were five feet tall a week ago. Balmy!

Poor Joe may be stuck indoors with the girls tomorrow, as it's supposed to rain off and on, I've heard. I'll be off teaching my class - the last Saturday one for the season.

FO Baudelaire!

I have several items of good news tonight, one of which is the completion of the Baudelaire sock. But let's back up to yesterday afternoon. When we pulled in the garage from our afternoon outing, Sophie was sound asleep



and Julie was wide awake.



Yes, that's a very blurry picture, but Julie just wasn't standing still, so it's an accurate representation. While Julie played, I made my best attempt at taking an artistic knitting-blog picture. See the tiny little buds sprouting out on the ugly bush in my yard?



I was so close to finished, and I fully intended to post about it last night, but I just got too caught up in the knitting and before I knew it, it was quarter after midnight and Sophie was crying, so I gave up on that idea and headed to bed.

I did manage to finish off the last bit during stolen moments today, and now we have this:



And here is is posing with tonight's purchase while I was at the store teaching my class. It still needs blocking to tame the bind-off edge at the cuff, but I am very happy with the results.



In other good news, I got a package in the mail today from my reader-friend Cindy. I had mailed her the other two skeins of this yarn that I originally purchased a few years ago thinking of making a little sweater for Julie. That sweater never materialized, and I had given two of the skeins to Cindy to make socks for her daughter. Karly has tiny feet, so I knew she had quite a bit left over. It turned out that I needed a bit more than two skeins for this pair of socks, and Cindy was generous enough to send her leftovers back to me. It's the yarn that keeps on giving! Thanks, Cindy!

In best of news, Sophie took her first independent steps last night. We all know she's been cruising the furniture and walls for what seems like forever. Last night as we were getting the girls ready for bed, Joe was playing with the girls and he got Julie to stand a few feet away from him and Sophie. Sophie took her first steps towards Julie, and Joe and I both got to be there to see it. She took a few steps towards me a few minutes later, and none since. But we're going to have another toddler any minute now.

Now, I'm off to start Pomotomus before bed.

Back to Process

So we all knew that the bragging about how this sock was such a quick knit and it was all about the product and la la la carefree knitting...was going to come back and bite me in the hiney. It's not that bad, really. Just that I'm starting to wear out the yarn in this one spot.

Here's what it looked like earlier today. I had four repeats done on the leg and I was cruising right along - I've got the pattern pretty much memorized and I had a few minutes this morning in the car while Julie was in pre-school and Sophie slept. Oh, see that white thing inside the sock? That's not my leg - it's a cheapskate sock-blocker that I made out of foam board for about two bucks. I wanted something to put it on when I display it at the store to help show off the lace a bit better. I may have to make another one a bit wider to stretch the sock out more and open it up.



Then, we came home, and after lunch I decided to try it on just to be sure. It looks nice, and feels nice once you get it on. The only trouble is that the just squeeks past my heel and I was afraid that over time I would end up ripping the things to shreds trying to get them on.



I thought hard for a little while. I took one more picture, this time showing Julie in her purple dress (of course!) in a state of mid-afternoon needing a nap but unwilling to take it.



Then, we all got in the car and I invented an errand for us to run so that both girls fell asleep and I had half an hour in peace to rip the damned thing back to the heel flap, fix the little problem with the cable increase that I mentioned yesterday, and start re-knitting the cuff on a size bigger needles. There was only a tiny bit of pain there as I ripped out this third attempt at the start of the cuff.

This better do the trick! I'm really surprised, on the one hand, that I'm having to take these measures, since I do not have the biggest instep on the planet. I normally knit straightforward short-row heels with no gusset and have no trouble getting them over my heels. On the other hand, I did have trouble getting the "skinny" version over my heels, and although the "fat" version has you add eight stitches, which should create an extra inch of fabric, it also includes a wider cable, which should suck that extra inch of fabric right back in. The bigger needles should make the fabric looser and solve the problem without affecting the wear of the sock. I'll go back down a needle size when I get to the ribbing at the top. At least I'm learning some lessons that I can pass along to my students when I teach the class!

And finally, here's Sophie standing around playing with the toy we call Piano-Dog while I sat around trying on the sock and banging my head against the proverbial wall. I'll give you one guess what I'm going to go do right now!

Slowed Down

Progress on the Baudelaire sock has slowed down a wee bit the last day or so, for several reasons, falling into two categories. Category one is Other Responsibilities - laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, general raising of children. Category tow is Technical Difficulties - the kind that involve knitting, ripping, knitting again, and yes, dear friends, ripping one more time. After turning the heel, the patterning changes to go all the way around the sock, incorporating a couple of cables at the sides. First there was a blunder of the "oops! I screwed up" variety. Then, I was doing fine till I tried the sock on again after a couple repeats and realized that I really should knit the directions for the "large instep" because I could barely squeeze it over my heel. So I ripped back to the top of the heel flap again and followed those directions, mostly with success.

Still, it is a whole new rhythm to learn, and with patterning all the way around the cuff, it made sense to switch from my beloved Pony Pearls to a long Addi Turbo and a Magic Loop type of technique. I've never read the actual Magic Loop directions, but my knitting looks something like this when I employ it.



Knitting the fat-anklelarge instep version of this pattern involves doing an interesting set of increases at the base of the cables, which is kind of cool looking, but somewhat challenging to execute. The one on the left side turned out great:



The one on the right side I am a little less confident of, but I have now ripped this section back three times, and I am not going to rip it back again, so help me. I will knit at least to this point on the second sock before the actual class starts in late summer so that I can teach it with confidence.



Now it's time to knit this puppy straight to the top! I bought yarn for Pomotomus this weekend, and it's beautiful stuff. You'll have to wait at least another day or so to see it. Neener Neener!

Oh, and I got an e-mail from my SP10 hostess asking us to post about our favorite current project. Hi, Shelby! I hope this little update counts. Just to recap, Baudelaire socks from Knitty Summer '06. Koigu P621. This is going to be a shop sample for a class I'm planning for this summer, and when they are done at the shop they will be mine, mine, mine. This is like a perfect-storm project for me - I love socks, I'm on a lace kick, I love the beautiful sproing of Koigu and the pinks and browns of this colorway are not only popular right now, but a current favorite of mine. I'm feeling very happy about knitting right now. Oh, and the SP10 questionnaire is here.

I haven't been posting nearly enough kid pictures lately, so here are a couple quick shots from dinnertime tonight:





Off to knit the socks!

Don't Blink.

Have I ever mentioned how I love small projects? I know I have. Especially when I get a bug up my butt and decide to work exclusively on the small project until it is done. Even better when it is a project that I've been wanting to start for a long time, but have forced myself to wait until fate brings me a legitimate reason to knit it right up. Because then - don't blink, or you'll miss the process and leap straight to product. And what a luscious, yummy yummy product we have climbing off the needles.

I mentioned that I need to knit up those sample socks for the lace sock class I'll be teaching over the summer - mid to late summer, I believe, but the details aren't out yet. Anyway, I cast on for the Baudelaire socks Wednesday night, and just now I finished turning the heel. I know that is not so fast as many people would whip out a sock, but for me it is quite quick, especially considering that there is a wee bit of lace involved. It does help that I'm knitting just the one at a time, instead of alternating between the pair as I usually am wont to do. I really want to have one each of the two patterns knit up and on display in the store before Stephanie's visit. We will have a lot of visitors that night, and it would be good to generate some excitement for the class amongst the internet-savvy crowd who may recognize the patterns as ones that perhaps they've wanted to knit but were afraid to do on their own.

Here it is so far, modeled under the Ott lamp on my ghoulishly pale lily white foot. Under best of circumstances, it can be hard to see lace stitch patterns on handpainted yarn, but try to photograph it with artificial light and with camera skills like mine and this is what you end up wtih.





Oops! Don't say I didn't warn you about that blindingly white skin. I hope you'll be able to see clearly once again in a few minutes.

While you're still blinking, maybe I can quick run the sad little blankie picture by you without too much comment. Blankie is sulking in its basket, feeling quite unloved as I've gone off to work with the luxury sock yarn in full skeins for a bit. I promise, sweetheart, I'll be back in a bit.



And since I know you're going to ask, that's a shadow box in the background, one that I've had since I was about six years old. In it are all kinds of trinkets and mementos from my childhood. I don't have much left from my childhood, but most of what's in there is associated with the rare happy memories - Easter baskets, Christmas stockings, visits from the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile... Underneath the basket is a picture frame I bought months ago and still haven't gotten around to filling and putting up.

Anyway, dear readers, it is well past my bedtime yet again. I must get some sleep - these late nights combined with hours of baby screaming starting in the wee hours and the cold that never ends are wearing me down. I'm here for you, who run to the computer on Saturday mornings with bated breath waiting for a glimpse of the blankie. Mwa!

Damned Junkies! Exciting Socks!

I have had worse days than today. Yes, far, far worse. In fact, for the most part today wasn't all that bad. The girls were good. Knitting group was fine. The time passed quickly. All except for the itchy, watery eyes, the runny nose, the sinus pressure so bad that my teeth hurt, and the froggy-croak voice.

I finally broke down after dinner and ran to Walgreen's for some Sudafed. I'd rather not take any drugs while nursing if I can help it, but I figured enough is enough, and I'd like to try to clear my head out a bit and heal up my voice before I have to teach a knitting class tomorrow night.

So anyway, I walk into Walgreen's and stand there staring at the cold medicine shelf for a good five minutes before I realize that I am looking not at boxes of medicine but at cards directing me to the pharmacy where the medicine is stored behind the counter. This was my first time purchasing any pseudoephedrine products since Minnesota enacted a law requiring that these drugs be kept in the pharmacy and that people have to hand over their drivers' license to get at them. It's so freakin' Big Brother. On the one hand, I understand that it is important to at least try to cut off the supply to the jerks who cook it up into Meth. On the other hand, it pisses me off that I have to stand in line at the prescription counter and undergo scrutiny in order to get a bit of perfectly-legal relief. Damned Junkies!

No offense to any actual, real-life Junkies who may be reading this blog. I know that you're real people with real problems and that maybe you're trying to work yourself out of the hole. I don't hate you on a personal level, just wish we could all make it better.

What a ranting ramble. Okay, back to knitting business. I finished the second sleeve last night. Yippee! I just need to block the sleeves now - probably not tonight as I want some couch time before bed - and then I can do the rest by hand. Except for the steek part, for which I will need to pull out the sewing machine. There is one more little experiment that I want to do on the knitting machine before I put it away, and then I can clean up the giant mess that is my office room.

Also, I'm very excited after talking with my manager at the yarn store this afternoon. One of the classes I will offer this summer is Lace Socks. Students can choose between two of Cookie's free patterns from Knitty. The famous Pomatomus, and the also beautiful Baudelaire. This means that I need to quickly knit up samples of both - at least one sock of each pattern right away, and I can finish the mates a little later. Looking around my office room - and I know I've just been showing off all that sock yarn I own - I have only one yarn that will work for this purpose at the moment. I have two skeins of Koigu KPPM in a scarlet colorway that will do fine for either pattern. Every single other sock yarn that I own is either self-striping or one that we don't carry at the store. If I'm knitting a sample for the store, the customers have to be able to buy the yarn at the store - that's a no-brainer. So, poor me, I get to buy some more yarn! Whee! Don't you feel sorry for me now? I'm really excited about this class and I hope enough people sign up for it to work out. I love lace, and I love socks, so it's bound to be fun!

Oh, and secret confession time. I listened to a really crummy romance novel by the author with initials D.S. - I don't really want people hitting here after googling for her. I also am listening to the last few books in the horror-genre author S.K.'s Drk Twr series. Hopefully that's not too cryptic for you. I read the first few books in that series as they came out, and while they are certainly not intellectual or impressive, they make for good background noise while churning away at the knitting machine.

I think the cold medicine is kicking in. Must go knit and wind yarn!

Crotchety McCrankyPants Here

In answer to a question:

No, Dear Readers, I will not e-mail you personally with information about the blankie pattern. The reason why is that there are links over on the right if you scroll down to a TUTORIAL that I went to the trouble to make for you SIX MONTHS ago. Go read it. Argh.

Apologizing:

I'm sorry, I've had another less than stellar day. It started off with a decision not to send Julie to pre-school this morning because at 8:00 both girls were still sleeping, and I decided that we could all use as much rest as we could get given the fact that we are sick. Sophie's fever has broken, but she is still snotty, raspy and crabby just like me. Julie seems to be a fair bit better, which gives me hope that one day Sophie and I will improve as well. Poor Sophie has been miserable all day long, and nothing I have tried has seemed to help. Little bugger is teething like all get-out too. Has anyone ever heard of a baby getting all four of their first molars *before* they've gotten their canines and even one of the second-front teeth? Bugger.

Knitting news:

I did manage to successfully knit a sleeve on the sweater last night. Even though the rows zoom away so quickly on the machine, it still took a couple hours. Pretty much the entire sleeve involves increases or decreases every few rows, which definitely slows things down. The good news is that I am climbing my way up the machine-knitting learning curve and made quite a few less mistakes last night than I did when knitting the back(s) and the front(s) last week. One more sleeve, hopefully tonight, and then it's all about the couch and the Netflix movies that have been collecting dust. In the mean time, I've been listening to audio books, which definitely helps pass the time in front of the knitting machine. I'm almost embarrassed to admit what I've been listening to. I will just say that it's brain candy - I can't focus on anything in depth and do the machine at the same time.

Must go make dinner. I'm heating up some left over beef stroganoff that's been in the freezer since Sophie's birthday party, and we will all eat it and enjoy it, dammit!

Front and Back

I just got the front and back of that darned sweater blocked out tonight. I'm going to do a little math and start the sleeves, probably tonight. Someone asked if it is possible on a machine to rip back just part of the garment and start from where the mistake was. Yes, it's not even all that hard to do such a thing. You can rip back either one row at a time or take the garment off the machine and rip back inches.

In the case of the sweater front, I went ahead and ripped the whole thing out - not just because of the single dark blue line, which I've now fixed - but because I had made a mistake in the number of stitches I cast on the first time around. If you look at the picture below, you can see I've basted in two lines marking the columns where I'll pick up the button bands. It's going to be a cardigan, but in order to get the stripes to be the right width and to match perfectly, I knit the front in one piece and will be cutting it. On the first sweater front, I hadn't put in as many stitches for the steek selvedge as I would have liked.

I am a bit of a contrarian when it comes to steek width. Most sources that I've read suggest relatively narrow steeks, in the name of avoiding bulk in the front of the sweater. My feeling is that it is better to have a wide steek, then use it as a facing by tacking the rough edge down, allowing the stockinette to curl under enough to hide the edge under itself. This keeps the bulk of the rough edge spread slightly away from the bulk of the pick-up stitches, and I think makes for a happier sweater front. But that's just my feeling on the matter.

The important thing is, I'm done with the two big pieces of this thing, and in a couple more nights will be done with the machine for this project altogether. Then, I can go enjoy some quality time on the couch while I hand knit the ribbing at the bottom, the button band and the neck band. Oh, Joy!





Oh, and we're all still sick here. Sophie woke up with a high fever this morning. I took her to the doctor and he thinks it's just a virus, but she was a pitiful little thing all day long. I'm feeling a little pitiful myself with a headache and a rough throat. I'm hoping it is just a little virus that will clear quickly and not strep. Must go to bed early tonight and get some rest.

Blankie...Sunday

Dear Loyal Readers, sorry for the delay in posts. You've heard the excuses a million times already. Let's get to the good stuff.

I'm not going to bother posting laid-flat pictures or numbers this week. I've been pre-occupied with other projects including that damned blue stripe sweater and raising kids. Instead, I took some fun pictures this morning with the girls.





I hope that will please both the blankie fans and the cute kid fans at least till Friday.

Here are some other photos that have been accumulating on the camera for the last few days:

Sophie love using a marker, and Post-It notes are nice because they don't slide around on the tray.


Julie doodling and cutting with safety scissors.



The two of them were keeping busy while I baked these:

Speaking of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, thanks everyone for their advice on recipes. These turned out really well - they are the recipe from Bob's Red Mill. A casual taster wouldn't know the difference between these and the Tollhouse version. I am a bit of a chocolate chip cookie snob, though, and although I can taste a slight difference, these are good enough to satisfy the craving, and that's pretty darn good. The only problem is that they seem to make everyone who eats them a bit gassy. I still may try one or two more recipes, including the one that loyal reader Andrea suggested (Thanks!)

The other day we were playing upstairs and someone pulled out this sheep puppet from the toy bin. For some reason, it reminded me of Franklin's Dolores, and although mine doesn't have the cat's-eye glasses or the constant cigarette hanging from her mouth, I decided to go ahead and pose it with some balls of sock yarn as a little tribute. Only people who read The Panopticon will get the joke. If you don't read Franklin's blog, you should. He's great. And, by the way, yes I do realize that I have a sickness with the sock yarn. This is only the stuff that is already wound in balls.


Here's Sophie drawing again. She loves the Magna-Doodle as well as the Aqua-Doodle, which we keep in the basement.


Finally, if you've made it all the way to the bottom, I'm going to share with you another reason why I haven't been posting. It's because I've been variously annoyed, freaked-out, shocked, and otherwise irritated by what feels like just about everyone with whom I've come into contact this week. To a great extent, it is my own attitude that is causing this phenomenon, but in some cases it is the other people involved. I have been so tempted to tell stories on them, but that would just not be nice. Stories of the variety that start "Oh, my gawd, you will not believe what so-and-so did today." I've been treating poor Joe to a few of them, which helps. But when you're thinking nasty gossipy thoughts, best to keep them close.

Okay, everyone! Carry on! I'm going to try to post some actual progress on the blue-striped monster tomorrow. I'm still trying to get an acceptable front finished, so that I can move on to sleeve island. Yurg!

Secret Pal 10 Questionnaire

I think I mentioned that I signed up for Secret Pal 10, but just in case I didn't mention it - hey! I signed up for SP10. SP9 was so much fun - I had a great time picking out gifts for my giftee-pal, and I got so much awesome stuff from my gifter-pal, and it was nice to finally be in on all the fun floating around the blogosphere. The only catch is that I already have *so much* yarn and knitting-related stuff, it is just a little insane to be signing up to get more as gifts. Well, let's ignore that little catch for the moment and get down to business.

I was supposed to have filled out this little questionnaire last month, and since they're getting ready to hand out our new pal assignments, I figure I better get this up right away so that my new pal can find better gifts for me. I filled out a very similar questionnaire for SP9, and many of the answers are still the same. They are so identical, in fact, that I am cutting an pasting where appropriate. Here we go.

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I love most animal-fiber type yarns. Especially if they are smooth, soft, sproing-y or a combination of all the above. I avoid all man-made fibers with the exception of nylon in sock yarns and the occasional use of Plymouth Encore for baby items. I do not like bumpy or furry yarn, although I still want to try some Kidsilk Haze one of these days. Cascade 220 is a bread-and-butter for me, and I have quite a cache of a long-discontinued yarn called Pomfret by Brunswick that I love so much I pull it out only for special items like my own daughters' baby blankets. I think the softest yarn I've ever knit with was Malabrigo, and I loved handling it so much it almost made me cry, but the hat and mittens I made out of it have pilled severely with very little use, so I don't know what to think.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I keep my double-points and circulars in a 3" three-ring binder filled with pencil pouches labeled with the respective sizes. The needles are all in their original packaging inside the pouches. I suppose I'm a little bit anal-retentive about keeping these organized, but I just loathe digging around looking for the right needle when I want it. I don't use single-point needles for the most part, but somehow I've ended up with a bit of a collection of the things. They sit in a Ball jar way up on top of a book case, sort of for decoration. I also have a small pouch in which I keep my odds and ends, the stuff that travels along in the knitting bag. A friend of mine makes them out of recycled kimono fabric.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I've been knitting since the fall of 2000, so I guess six years. A very nice lady, who I now consider a good friend, but whom at the time I knew only through another friend, sat me down with a group of women in her living room one evening and taught us how to cast on, knit and purl. I had no idea at the time what a great knitter Jean is, but I was incredibly grateful that someone was finally teaching me a skill I had wanted all my life. After that night, I practiced on my own and picked up lots by collecting books and picking the brains of every knitter I meet. I would say my skill level is advanced.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Yes, I have an Amazon wish list. Just enter Shelly Kang.

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)
I generally avoid scented products. My father was super-sensitive to perfumes and hated them so much, I wasn't even allowed to bring fashion magazines into the house because of the smelly advertisements. I guess because I wasn't exposed to them much growing up, scents generally irritate me after not very long, too.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
I love sweets. I love chocolate most of all. Dark chocolate especially.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I don't spin. Spinning looks incredibly appealing to me, but I have too much knitting to do as it is. I figure I'll try spinning when I run out of overflowing knitting projects. I do a little bit of scrapbooking when nobody is looking, but I try to keep that really simple and am neither up on nor interested in the latest trends. I've dabbled in lots of other media here and there, but never with the passion I have for knitting. I'm always looking for little kits or activities to do with Julie, as well.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I think maybe I am an old fogey when it comes to music. Or boring at the very least. To be honest, I just don't get that in to music. Joe is incredibly into music, and I sponge off him when I want something. I'll drop a few names, but they're all over the map. Old REM, Bob Marley, The Eagles, Simon and Garfunkle, Cat Stevens, The Beastie Boys, Al Green, Bjork...I like generally happy music, easily accessible stuff, I'm afraid. Most of the time these days I'm listening to kid's music, but I try to compromise by finding stuff that I can stand like Jerry Garcia and Dave Grisman's Not for Kids Only, or No! by They Might be Giants. Of course, we end up listening to a lot of Raffi and Sesame Street as well. To be honest, I'd rather be listening to a book on tape. Yes, I can do CDs and MP3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I think I look best in pinks and some shades of green. And blue goes with everything. I look horrible in yellow and black.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I'm a wife and mom to two girls, three and a half and one. Julie is in size 5T clothes, Sophie is in 12-18 months clothes. We have two cats, Daisy and Harry.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes, Yes, Yes, Not Really. My winter coat is dark olive green.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
I do a little bit of everything, always have a pair or three of socks on the needles, and I do a lot of things for my girls. Coming up in the lineup are a lace shawl and a Bohus sweater for myself one of these days.

13. What are you knitting right now?
The blankie, a lace scarf, and a pair of Opal socks. We shall not speak of the other projects lurking half-finished in the stash.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I use circular and double-points. Addi Turbos are the perfect circulars, and Pony Pearls the perfect double-points.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
Yes and yes.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
There's a sweater in there that I started a couple of years ago and set aside out of frustration. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and may go back to it. It would be beautiful when it's finished. I tend to be pretty honest with myself and if I'm not going to finish it, out it goes.

18. What is your favorite holiday?
I like Christmas quite a bit, even though I'm not a christian.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Knitting paraphrenalia..books, needles, magazines, yarn... I have quite a few bags of various shapes and sizes too, and I have to restrain myself when it comes to baskets.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
What a difficult question! I have so many things, it is hard for me to come up with something more, especially since I spend so much of my energy keeping myself from wanting it all. I'm sort of enchanted by some of the KidSilk Haze shawls that I've seen in the blogosphere, and I do tend to linger over the lace books at Schoolhouse Press. I subscribe to Interweave, Vogue and Knitters, and get Cast On with my TKGA membership too.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
There aren't many I can think of that I haven't tried already. I love trying new ways of doing things, though, and it makes me really happy to learn arcane techniques that most people don't know about. I haven't tried some of those cool twisty cast-ons and edgings from eastern european traditions, like what Nancy Bush decribes. Must do that one day.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Oh, yes. Socks socks socks. Always with the socks. I wear size 11 women's shoes - 9" around the widest part of my foot, 10" tippy toe to back of heel. I like the cuffs on my socks to equal the length of the foot, which is a little longer than most people make 'em.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd)
January 25.

My Melting Heart

Warning, this is a sappy little post.

Sophie is always so cute and peaceful when I finally get her to sleep, it makes me sad to put her down in her crib and walk away. She gets so limp and snuggly and generally delicious, I feel like my heart is going to melt down to a little puddle of love. So today I took the camera upstairs and caught the moment, crusty post-lunch cheeks and all.



She does this little thing when I am nursing her to sleep. It won't touch you the way that it touches me, because she is my child and I am the one who gets to experience it every day and have come to anticipate and love it. But I will tell you anyway, and maybe you will understand. I nurse her with one breast until I feel she has finished, then I gently de-latch her. Sometimes, she is asleep enough that she limply parts and so I hold her a few moments more and enjoy her little sleeping self before I put her down. Other times, and this is the cute part, she is too sleepy to cry, but she registers her disapproval by kicking her little feet in a floppy up-and-let-them-drop kind of swing that lets me know she wants some more and so I switch sides and she latches on and we repeat the whole process a few minutes later. I know. You have to be there to get it. But I SO get it, and I don't want to lose that moment to the muddy waters of memory, not any time soon at least.

Speaking of bed time, tonight was my turn to put Julie to bed. Joe and I take turns putting each girl to sleep with their own little routines, and Julie's routine involves stories and cuddles and tucking in and turning off the light. After I finished reading her allotted three stories tonight, I smothered her with hugs and kisses and then I asked her if I could have a kiss back. Julie said "Wait. I'm going to give you a kiss on your back." Then she proceeded to stand up in the bed, lean over and kiss my back (I was still in doggie position from having playfully hugged and kissed her all over her face.) Then, she lay back down and let me tuck her in one last time before I got up and turned off her Hello Kitty lamp and left the room. My girl, she can drive me crazy with her endless questions and her insanely independent streak and her fickle moods. But she does little things like that all the time and they melt my icy little heart.

Socks! and stuff.

As tired as I was, I finished up some socks last night. I could have sworn I had posted about these when I started them, but I can't find it now. These socks have been on the needles for at least a month or two. I have used them as my on-the-go knitting for situations where I am either trying to have a conversation with friends, teaching, or am riding in the car while Joe is driving. I can't knit anything more than plain knit stitch and maintain eye contact without making mistakes, and I tend to get car sick if I look at a chart or my knitting.

Even so, this has been my last choice of projects to work on, so it's been slow going for a simple pair of socks. After I had started them, I asked Joe if he would let me knit them for him. He has a couple pairs of my handknit socks already, but doesn't usually wear them because they're too flashy. He agreed that he might actually wear this pair.

Sorry for the sloppy picture - I don't bother blocking socks if they're just meant to be worn and not given as a gift or sent to the fair. These are Trekking XXL knit on size zero needles in my own toe-up pattern.



Joe putting them on.



Joe pretending to still be putting them on when I didn't think I got a good picture the first time. See the smirk?



Showing them off, being the best good sport he knows how.



I pulled out another skein of yarn for another pair of super-plain socks. I *have* to have absolute mindless knitting available at all times. I'm itching to do a pair of more complicated socks with some of the handpaint I have hanging around, but I need to finish the scarf project first. This self-striping Opal will make for fun on-the-go socks, and will probably be for me.



Backing up a bit, here's a picture of a little project I did over the weekend:



The local thrift-shop charity sends out post cards regularly to let you know when their pick-up trucks will be in the neighborhood. Today was our day, and I did a major cull through my closets for clothes that no longer come close to fitting and I probably wouldn't want to wear even if they did. I put it all out this morning, and it's still sitting there. They must have missed me, and I'd better go drag it all back in as soon as I finish here.

We went out for dinner over the weekend, and I took this picture of Sophie while we were waiting for our food. She was SO excited to get her very own crayon to color with. She even managed to do a bit of scribbling with it, too.



Oh, and here's the current state of that damned blue sweater. I knit the front a couple nights ago and set it aside, happily knowing I only had the sleeves to go. I pulled it back out briefly this evening and took another look.



Crap! Everything about it is fine except for that single dark blue row of stripe. The one right across the chest. That's not going to do, not at all. Back to the frog pond with that one. Argh!

Yeouch!

A little lesson in stupidity for you today. For the last three weeks or so, I've been in moderate pain with an infected big toe on my left foot and have chosen to basically ignore it as I moved through my days doing my thing with my girls. I had a variety of reasons for this, none of them all that great.

1. I was afraid of being seen as a big, whiny baby going to the doctor about a stubbed toe. Or whatever.
2. I was afraid of going to the doctor and finding out that I had some kind of crazy flesh-eating bug that was going to require amputation of the toe and/or eventual death.
3. Getting someone to watch the girls so I can go to the doctor is a royal pain in the ass.
4. Going to the doctor with my girls in tow is a giant royal pain in the ass.
5. I wasn't sure which doctor to go to - urgent care? a podiatrist? witch?
6. Every time I considered making a doctor's appointment of some kind, there was either a child needing my attention or it was after any doctor's office would have been long closed for the evening.
7. Every other fucking time I've ever scheduled a doctor's appointment for something remotely like this, the problem disappears right before I walk in the door and I feel like the whiny baby mentioned above and then rinse, wash, repeat the cycle.

Finally, it was clear that this problem was not going to go away on its own, so I bit the bullet and dragged myself into the doctor's office this afternoon, two girls in tow. Turned out it was an ingrown toenail (yuck!) and I got to have a little very minor surgery right there in the office. I can't believe I managed to keep both girls calm and well-behaved for the almost two hours the appointment took start to finish, including the time while I was up on the table having painful things done to my poor toe.

Speaking of pain, today has again proven out that Lidocaine may work great for numbing up some people, but it doesn't work on me. I have to say, even though I was sweating from the effort of staying calm and cheerful through the very painful pain so that Julie wouldn't have a little freak-out, this pain was far less than the pain I felt a year ago when they were sewing up my hoo-hoo and the Lidocaine wasn't doing its job then either.

Anyway, I'm all bandaged up, I've taken a handful of Motrin, and I'm feeling maybe even better at the moment than I did before the little procedure. Which was the end goal, after all. I am, however, extremely tired and will have to go to bed soonish.

I'm going to watch a bit of a DVD (MI-5 season 2) and hopefully finish up a pair of socks - pictures later in the week. By the way - that post about the deep freeze? It was from a few years ago, when the blog was new. I was going to go through and add tags to the archive posts, plus fix a few typos along the way. I still want to to this as time allows, but I don't like the idea of all my old posts showing up on everyone's readers and forcing everyone to look at my drivel from 2004. There has got to be a way!

Blankie Friday

Since yesterday morning, we have gotten another foot or more of snow on the ground here. That's good and bad news in several ways. Most notably bad is that Joe had a lot of work to do, and the poor guy is exhausted. And our crummy old snowblower finally gave up the ghost, which although bad for our bank account as we'll have to buy a new one, is good for poor Joe who has been fighting with it for something like five years now. Oh, and my class at the store was canceled last night, which was disappointing because I was all prepared and excited to go.

There is plenty of good to balance off those small negatives, though. Joe's office closed early yesterday and stayed closed today, so he gets an unexpected long weekend. Today felt a lot like Saturday, only we were all home together instead of me off teaching classes. I got to spend some time outside one-on-one with Julie making snow castles. We tried for snowmen, but the snow still wasn't sticky enough. It was perfect snow for filling up buckets and making bricks out of, though. It's hard to get a good picture of all the white-on-white, but as a girl who grew up in the relative south, it is amazing to me to have this much snow stacked up all over the place. We only have about two feet on the ground on average, but when you clear the streets and the driveways and the walks, it creates these giant piles that are like mountains for little kids to climb on.



I remain thoroughly impressed with the St. Louis Park snow removal crew. They had our streets clear before I even woke up this morning! Also, big snows like this make me really appreciate having a garage. It was so nice not to have to dig our cars out of the mess the way we used to when we lived in an apartment and parked on the street.

I had to share this random cute kid pic. Julie made this headband in school. I'm not sure what it's all about, but it made me laugh like crazy. I remember being a little kid not much bigger than her and making construction-paper headbands as art projects at school. I loved it.


I attempted to make wheat-free chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and ended up with this:


They tasted pretty good, but were butt ugly. I ended up throwing them out because although you can't see it here, they were leaving pools of butter where they sat, and that was just grossing me out. We'll be trying another recipe soon! Suggestions welcome. Remember, though, we can't do wheat or soy.

Finally, what you've all been waiting for, the blankie update. I do have one little administrative admonition first. I think it's awesome when people want to talk about my blanket on their blogs. In fact, I love to see that other people are excited about my little project or to hear that they enjoy reading my blog. So thanks to anyone and everyone who's done that. What I really don't want to see is people putting pictures of my blankie on their blogs. It's not okay to hotlink to my pictures (using an IMG HTML tag). There are two reasons for that. One is that you're then stealing my bandwidth because your readers are downloading pictures from my site. The other is that I'd rather you send your readers over here to take a look at the blankie in the context of my blog. Who knows - some of them might want to learn more about it or stick around and read about all the other blather that goes on here. My pictures are copyrighted. They are mine. I have given permission in the past for people to use them as desktop images on their computers, and I stand by that. I know that people make honest mistakes, and if you've done what I just described, I know that it was with only good intentions. No harm, no foul, just let's try not to let it happen again. Mwa!

This week's total is fourteen squares. It's still way behind my goal, but not all that bad considering how much time I've wasted on knitting and ripping sweater backs.



That's a cat butt at the bottom of the picture. I was trying to honor the requests for visual scale items in the pictures. I'm not putting up a full-res picture tonight because I'm tired and don't want to waste the brain power. You'll have to go back to last week and savor the old ones if you're that desperate. Hey, Erika! Look at the top row there - see the big square and the smaller squares on either side of it? That's all you, baby! Thanks again!

Here's the elusive Harry Cat taking a little stroll across the blankie.


Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I'm teaching two back-to-back classes at the store. I'm subbing in the morning for one of the other teachers and then teaching my own class in the afternoon. I'm looking forward to it, but I feel a little sorry for Joe, who will be home with the girls for hours and hours by himself. I'm sure they'll survive.

Oh! and one last thing! I just watched Little Miss Sunshine the other night. Hilarious! Whoever commented about the tiger hat and the scene with the grandfather - I thought of you when I watched it and laughed myself silly. Thanks. Creepy, but thanks.