Hat!

I finished the hat today, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. It hasn't been blocked yet, and I still need to type up the pattern changes, but both the sample and the patterns should be at the Yarnery by the middle of next week (it would be earlier, but I'm teaching on Tuesday night, and it seems silly to make an extra trip to St. Paul to get the stuff there four days sooner.)

Joe makes a much better model than I do - trust me, I started off wearing it and he took the pictures, they were hideous. I love the way Joe always looks like he's in pain when I make him wear something handknit.



And from the back:



Joe has a relatively tiny head for an adult, and I have a good-sized noggin, so I'm pretty sure the one adult size will fit most.

In review, this hat is a shop model for the Yarnery, out of Claudia Handpaint sock yarn. It's also a prototype for my new adult version of the baby hat pattern that has been so popular this spring. Both patterns will be available at the store, and if you are not local, but want the pattern, you can e-mail me and we can work out a deal - basically, $6.00 either by Paypal or personal check will get you a hard copy in the mail.

In response to a couple reader questions -

Why would I rewind yarn that is already in skeins before dyeing it? I'm doing self-striping sock yarn, and the way I do it is to wind it into very long skeins and dye stripe-length sections. There's an entry or two about it somewhere in my archives in the last couple months.

There are no plans for a class for this hat at the store. We offered the baby hat as a class a year or two ago, and it didn't get enough people signed up to fly. To be honest, I think my pattern is clear enough and the knit easy enough that most people can do it on their own.

Speaking of classes at the store, though, the Knitty Lace Socks class starts on Thursday June 21, and has enough students to go for sure, but there are still four places available. If you were thinking about signing up to do either Pomatomus or Baudelaire, now's your chance! Also, some of the new Claudia solids at the store would be perfect for either of these patterns.

Connie mentioned the book "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert Munsch. It's funny you should ask about that book, because we happen to have it, and Julie happened to pull it out of the book shelf all by herself yesterday and has been reading it all day today. We like this princess book. She's a tough chick, but Julie is still trying to understand why Prince Ronald is a jerk.

Now, it's time to go make up with the blankie. I think I'll start off weaving in some ends.

Long Weekend Ketchup

Sorry for the disappearing act over the weekend. We were busy having fun, for the most part. Here's what I just downloaded from the camera:

We finished the puzzle on Saturday night. That was fun, and now I feel like I've had enough of that for another year or two.



Sunday we loaded the girls up in the bike trailer and went for a ride. We live only a few blocks from a very nice trail that heads toward the city, and a chain of glacial lakes with nice trails, playgrounds, beaches and snack bars. We rode about four miles to Lake Calhoun, where we got off and ate a little picnic lunch.



We let the girls play on the playground for a while, and most of my time there was spent following Sophie around and watching her play with the sand. This was the view:



I'm afraid to describe it in specific words because I don't want the pervs to find it, but it was so cute I couldn't help snapping a picture.

That evening we headed over to Joe's cousin's house for a barbecue with their family. They have a very nice playset in their back yard, and the girls played well together while the grownups enjoyed a beer. That's Katelyn on the tire swing with Julie.



For one reason or another, Sophie hasn't been barefoot in the sandbox until yesterday, when I impulsively pulled off her Robeez and let her sink her bare toes in the sand. She loved it.



I've been plugging away at the hat and it looked like this yesterday afternoon. I was just starting the decreases at the top.



Sophie agreed to model it briefly.



Last night we hosted a little barbecue at our house. I made ribs and they were awesome, as usual. Julie loves ribs as much as Joe and I do, and we ate the leftovers for lunch today. The kid can clean a bone better than I can!



This afternoon we were hanging out across the street with our neighbors for a little while. Jason was playing with the girls and helping keep Sophie from running out into the street. She kept walking down their path and trying to cross the street back to our yard. So Jason picked her up and carried her back to the front steps. The little stinker loved it.





When we were getting ready to go, I told Sophie to wave bye-bye to Jason, and instead she did this:



She reached out to hug him, and wouldn't let go. Jason is a sweet kid, and apparently Sophie is a good judge of character.

The hat is waiting for me in the kitchen. The decreases for the top-of-hat shaping are a little fiddly, and I'm taking my time to get it just the way I want it and write it up as I go along. The thing I struggle with most as a designer is getting what I did written down before I forget how I did it. I was hoping to finish the thing tonight, but Sophie had a hard time going to bed and time is short.



Also, look what came in the mail today! Fifteen more blank skeins of sock yarn. I couldn't help winding one up right away for reskeining immediately.

Blankie, and Yummy Hat, Friday

It's that time again - time to face the music on the blankie progress. I swear, I'm in the black hole for this project. It is obvious that new squares are being completed, but I've also been right around the 2/3 complete mark for what feels like forever. At least I can tell there is more than there was because there is a desperate need for the weaving in of ends. I'm sorry, but I refuse to count the squares this week. I don't know exactly how it averaged out, and I don't want to know. I know that I put all the time into it that I had.

I know that the thing is beautiful and that I can't take my eyes off of it when it is in the room. I know that it is constantly tumbling out of its basket because it it too big, and I know that I am still in love with this project, as neverending as it seems. I know that it's impossible to see all this from the simple picture of it laid flat on the floor. I also know that it makes me laugh when I go back and look at the pictures in the tutorial. They are like blankie baby pictures. Now it's just an unruly teenager.









Okay, and now here is the source of my underlying guilty pleasure:



It's the cuff for my new sample hat. The ribbing is simple enough, pretty much mindless knitting. There are some subtle bits of beauty here, above and beyond that of the gorgeous wool. I love tubular cast-ons, and every time I work one, especially over 2X2 ribbing, it feels like a bit of magic. Also, there is a round of plain knit halfway down the cuff meant to provide a clean line for turning it. I love inserting tiny details like this in my work, and I love including their explanations in my patterns for added value. It is nice to be doing something more than my zillionth mitered square.



I've moved on past the cuff and into the main body of the hat. It is gorgeous, the color combination. It looks almost edible, like spicy chocolate. You will have to wait at least till tomorrow to catch a glimpse.

I'll leave you with two cute-kid pictures. Sophie fell asleep in the stroller on the way to the park. There really is nothing more beautiful than a resting baby.



Julie was wide awake, and walking balance beam on the railroad tie borders, among many other things.

Oops!

I got a little e-mail today from my boss (also named Shelly - great name, great lady, slightly confusing when we're both at the store.) It seems I've been spreading misinformation. I just can't keep up with what's going on at the store as well as I would like, especially when I'm in between classes. I'm sure she won't mind my posting her words:

I just read your blog and wanted to give you our latest thoughts on Koigu.
We haven't closed the door on them yet. We are giving them another chance to see if they improve on their shipping times. We currently have two orders in to them. One is supposed to ship this week and the other in July.

We brought Claudia in as a good alternative to fill in when Koigu is picked over. If Koigu's shipping doesn't improve we may switch totally to Claudia but the final decision hasn't been made.

This makes me very happy. I love Koigu, and it made me very sad to think that the Yarnery wasn't going to carry it any longer. Everyone there loves Koigu too, it's just a tough situation when they have a whole wall devoted to it, and often can't keep it stocked because it takes something like nine months for the Koigu people to fill an order - understandable when it's only a few people dyeing the yarn and it's so darn popular! I think it makes great sense to carry both the Koigu and the Claudia - they certainly do complement each other - and hopefully it will be a win-win situation all around. Thanks for the info, Shelly!

For Elizabeth who asked, the multi-orange/pink/brown colorway is John B. and in case anyone wonders about the other, solid color, it's name is simply Chocolate. I've made a little progress on the hat, and I was planning on taking a picture for tonight's post, but I can hardly keep my eyes open, so you'll have to wait for tomorrow night.

Also, I sometimes hate posting things about the girls on the blog because I often get way too much advice, usually inappropriate for my family situation because although everyone's trying to be helpful, they don't know all of the details. I was actually pleased when I read Betsy's comment about showing Julie the scary video again after we'd talked about it. I thought it was a great idea, and was all prepared to sit with her through it this afternoon. But when I broached the subject, Julie was adamant that she did NOT want to see that DVD again. She didn't even want to see any of the Sesame Street ones today. I made sure to talk to her about it as it came up and reassure her that everything was okay. It's a library loaner, and we'll be returning it tomorrow, so she's probably not going to see it again any time soon. I'm okay with that, but thanks for the perspective, Betsy!

Oh, and thanks to Bonnie for pointing out that the blankie tutorial links were broken. They're fixed now!

I don't know why I'm so tired tonight, but I'm going to bed!

Two Vignettes and a New Project

Scene One

This morning, we were in a rush to get out the door, as is usual on mornings when we have anywhere to go. Of course, Sophie decided to fill her diaper with a big juicy load right before we had to leave, and I am so grateful that she's finally pooping regularly and without major trauma again that I can't complain. In the five minutes while we were upstairs changing both her diaper and her outfit, Julie managed to get herself in a little trouble.

Julie knows that she is not allowed to play with my shoes. She likes to walk around in them sometimes, and that scares the crap out of me because I'm afraid she's going to trip and hurt herself. That wasn't the problem this morning. She's been tying knots in all kinds of string-type things lately - she figured out how to do it, and the new skill hasn't gotten old yet. She's constantly tying things to each other and to various objects. It's frustrating because I either have to cut the string or spend a lot more time untying the knots than she spent tying them.

In this case, she came walking into the kitchen holding my tennis shoes, tied to each other with a wad of knots. Just as I was trying to get us out the door along with all the various crap we needed to take, only about 20 minutes later than we should have left in the first place. I'm not proud of it, but I started to blow up. I started to speak loudly at her "Julie, you know you're not supposed to play with my shoes and I'm tired of you putting knots in every string you get your hands on. I'm really angry right now." and then something clicked..."What you need is something that it's okay for you to tie knots in."

I spent another five minutes grabbing some card stock and punching holes in it, then digging some yarn out of the stash to go with it. Instant lacing cards, and they're disposable, so unlike the very nice plastic ones that we bought her for Christmas, if she ties it up beyond repair I don't have to care. It was a brief moment of parenting enlightenment. I try to be a good mom, but it doesn't always come intuitively for me, so when a good idea strikes I have to celebrate it.

Scene Two

Here are the girls sitting down for their afternoon ration of TV exposure. Little Sophie gets very excited when she sees Big Bird and Elmo. Yes, it's scary.



Sophie didn't sit in front of the TV for long. She was tired and crabby after a day out with friends and then running errands. We came into the office so she could nurse while I caught up on blog reading, and then suddenly I heard Julie cry out and turn off the TV. She was obviously scared by something, and disturbed by it enough that she didn't want to watch her Sesame Street Big Bird's Story Time DVD any more. It took me a couple of minutes to get it out of her, but apparently Humpty Dumpty's accident was a little too graphic for her sensibilities.

The DVD is a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes acted out by the Sesame Street crew, and I wasn't watching the section in question, but apparently it involved Kermit the Frog, and apparently Humpty was hurt pretty badly. We processed it over and over through dinner time and on into story time before bed. I won't be surprised if we talk about it all day tomorrow as well, and I sure as hell won't be showing her *that* DVD again any time soon.

New Project

The Yarnery just got a new shipment of Claudia Handpaint in this week, and it is beautiful stuff. Because they're not going to carry the Koigu any more, I offered to knit a shop sample of my slip-stitch baby hat in the Claudia, and my boss took me up on the offer. Our errand this afternoon was over to the store where I oogled the new wall of yarn and eventually picked out these two lovelies:



This is gorgeous stuff. It's very similar to the Koigu, with about the same yardage and a slightly lower price. I started the hat tonight, and this time I'm making one in an adult size. Several people have asked for a bigger size, and I've just been waiting for a little motivational push to get around to writing it up. I'm hoping to have the new sample hat and the adult sized pattern in the store by early next week. Poor blankie is getting pushed aside yet again - but just for a few days.

Stuff. And, uh, Stuff.

I sat down to read a few blogs and try to think up something to say in my own blog tonight. I still don't have a whole lot, but I do have a few random thoughts.

A couple of you wanted to know what bike I bought. It's a Specialized brand. It's this one, in the navy colorway. I'll let you know how I like it more after I've actually ridden it for more than ten minutes at a time. I think we're going to try to go for a bike ride this weekend.

Tonight was the end-of-year picnic for Julie's preschool. It was fun for the kids, and all, but my denial of the fact that this *is* the last week of school for her till September is now shattered. I mean, we love school. We need school. What are we going to do without school for three months? I don't want to think about it.

I've been thinking about what socks to knit for my Sockapalooza pal. She hasn't given me much guidance on what she wants - her only restriction was no pastels. She likes fingering weight wool/nylon, which makes me happy because that's what I like to knit and I have a lot of it. The possibilities are endless! I think I have an idea, but I'm not 100% sure. The only thing I am sure of is that I'm not going to knit those ubiquitous monkey socks. Forgive me for what I'm about to say, but although the socks look great on the Knitty article pictures, all the others I've seen in blog-land look like ass. Maybe it's because they're not properly blocked or something, I don't know. But I do know that I have no desire to knit them right now. Sorry for being so mean. I do love Cookie's designs in general, and I'm even planning to teach that class on her lace socks this late summer. The monkeys just aren't doing it for me.

Speaking of that class, someone posted a comment a while back saying they are signed up to take the class and asked a couple of questions about it. I can't remember now whether I ever answered those questions, and I feel really badly for not having responded right away - sometimes e-mails get buried in the in-box and then I loose track of them. If I recall correctly, they were questions about sizing on the Baudelaire and whether the instep was too tight. To be honest, the pair that I knit up didn't have a tight instep, but the ankle was a little problematic. I had to do some adjustments to the pattern, and they fit my foot fine now, but getting them on over the heel is still a bit of a struggle. I have fairly skinny feet and heels, so I think most people might have this problem. That said, it's easily fixed by adjusting for it as you knit. As long as you have a good idea of the wearer's build, it shouldn't be a problem.

Also speaking of my classes at the Yarnery...it's a little weird when I show up to teach a first class these days because I always wonder if any of my students have been reading here, but I don't like to mention the blog in class because I don't want to offend anyone. As in, I try to be fairly non-political and unopinionated as far as non-knitting topics go while I'm teaching a class, and if I go and tell everyone "Hey, go check out my blog!" on the first night of class then some devoutly religious person might show up here, see my blog title, and decide they don't want to be in my class any more. Even though, if you've read here for a while, you know that the title is not meant to be offensive to religious people, it's just owning what I am. But hopefully you get the idea.

The whole issue of blog persona meets real-life Shelly persona continues to boggle me. We're the same person, but if you show up and meet me at an event or something, I may not be as witty and charming and generally focused as I appear in print. One reason for that is if my children are with me, I'm busy trying to keep them from putting stickers on everything they see and/or eating all the crackers and snacks we brought in the bag within the first five minutes of our outing.

What a ramble. I'm off to vegetate and commune with the blankie for a while.

Bike!

When I was maybe nine or ten years old, I had a horrible bike accident. We lived just outside of town on a gravel road, and attached to that gravel road there was a busy, narrow blacktop road with no shoulders. Instead of shoulders, this blacktop road had ditches on either side that were full of pointy pebbles and broken glass.

One evening, I begged my father to take me with him on his bike ride on this road, and he, annoyed at me wanting to tag along, agreed that I could come but only if I managed to keep up with his pace. I was wearing flip-flop sandals, but didn't bother to change into sneakers because I didn't want to be left behind. I hopped on my 10-speed that had been a Christmas gift a year or two earlier and off we rode.

The ride ended when we headed down a hill on this narrow, busy road and I panicked in the rush of the cars and trying to stay right at the edge of the shoulderless road. I hit the brake - the front brake - a little too hard, and went flying topsy-turvy over the handlebars and into the sharp pointy bits in the ditch. There followed a trip to the ER, only after my mother had forced me to take a bath and put on clean clothes because she didn't want to drag her filthy daughter into the hospital where she worked. Once there, I spent a couple hours having grit picked out of my elbows and knees and later that week I ended up having surgery to fix a broken foot (nobody listened to me that night when I told them that what hurt worst was my foot when I had all that bloody shrapnel attracting their attention.)

So, for twenty-odd years, when I think of bicycles, I think of a fairly traumatic experience. I never did get truly comfortable with riding a bike on the street again, although the 10-speed was salvaged and I rode it as needed till it rusted out and literally fell apart early in my college years. Since then, I've been bike-less.

I've thought about getting a bike now and then over the years, but I was never sure that the expense was worth the risk that I might not actually use it - we are urban dwellers, after all, surrounded by busy streets. But then we bought a bike trailer and Joe started taking Julie for rides in it. It looked like such fun! There is a bike trail just a few blocks away from our house that surely would be less scary for someone like me than the open road. Sophie is just about old enough, and a family outing on the bikes seems like a great way to spend a little time together.

Mother's Day came around, and I tried to convince Joe that I needed either a warping board or a niddy-noddy. He said "I already bought you wooden things for winding yarn." (He has a point - I have a lovely hand-turned nostepinne as well as a hand-crafted swift, both gifts from my beloved.) I thought a little more and said "Maybe a bike - it could be for our anniversary too." So, since we were traveling on the actual day, yesterday we went to the bike shop and I picked this out:



It's a nice upright bike with a big fat-ass seat and a gear-shift system that seems pretty intuitive. Best of all, it's got good shocks so that if I make that fatal front-brake error again, I probably won't flip the bike. I'm a little wobbly after all this time off a bike, but riding it around the block a couple times tonight - Joe picked it up from the shop this evening after they did the initial tune-up - I felt like a 10-year-old kid again. Giddy. Silly. Happy.

While we were at the bike shop, we looked for a helmet small enough for Sophie. They didn't have one there, but Joe found one at another store today.



I see some biking in our near future.

Oh, and the puzzle continues to take form...

Puzzled

Hi, everyone! I'm sorry to hear some of you are still having trouble accessing my blog. Let me just point out one more time (and don't be surprised if I tell you again later - I want to keep this PSA at the top of the blog for people coming back to the party late). I moved my web site to a bigger, faster server over the weekend. This is good for everyone - faster load times Yay!

While I was moving my files, I decided to go ahead and clean up the file structure, so the location of the blog and the feed files has changed slightly. Now, to access my blog main page just go to www.shellykang.com. The feed has changed to http://www.shellykang.com/atom.xml - if it's not coming up automatically for you in your feed reader, then just delete my feed from your reader, then add it back in the way you would normally add a new feed (this varies from reader to reader and browser to browser, so I'm not going to try to explain it in more detail.)

For those really interested in the technical details, I went with DreamHost as my service provider, and the reason for the file cleanup was to get rid of the old frames file structure that I used to use pre-blog to organize my picture-pages site. When I originally set up the blog, I didn't realize that it was going to replace the picture pages so I kept the frames, but they make navigating and linking harder, so once we get past this hurdle, life will be much better!


Now for some real content for your Sunday morning enjoyment, two pictures from yesterday:

Joe working on the puzzle I bought at a garage sale last week for 50 cents. Julie has been into puzzles lately and is mostly working on 100-piece puzzles. This one is a 1,000 piece and too complicated for her right now, but Joe and I seem to have caught the puzzle bug. He seems happy putting together the detailed picture part where he can refer to the box and figure out where the piece belongs. I seem a little obsessed with getting the harder solid-blue sky part figured out before I can move on. Both of us have a hard time peeling ourselves away from the thing once it sucks us in.



We had a little backyard picnic lunch yesterday and it ended with Julie helping feed Sophie some of the last bits of her Chipotle burrito bowl. It was incredibly cute.



Please let me know if you have additional problems with the blog after trying what I explained above. I do want to make it work better so you will all keep coming back.

Blankie Friday

Okay, before we get to Blankie Friday, I have to say I really hope you all are still out there. I think the blog is mostly back to normal now. I think the RSS feed should be working again - it's at http://www.shellykang.com/atom.xml now, so yes you will have to change your bloglines or other reader subscription. The easiest way to do that is usually to just delete the old copy out of your reader, then add the subscription back on. I know, I'm testing your blog-love. It's all for the sake of faster loads and fewer whiney husband moments (when the server got bogged down, it wasn't pleasant.) Let me know if you continue to notice other problems. I know I need to fix my profile picture and there are probably some pictures in older posts that have gone missing.

Enough with that business, though! I know you want the low-down on the blankie. It's a little pitiful, but remember I was away from home for a week and the luggage was huge enough as it was - there was no way I could take it with me. I have only one of the bigger squares to report:



Remember this sock yarn? I think every sock knitter in the universe has knit a sock with this yarn at some point in their career. It's one of the early Regia self-striping colorways, and I think I received chunks of it from at least 10 different people. Some of the larger chunks went to my friend Connie, who knit them into socks for CIC. There have also been one or two smaller squares out of this yarn in the blankie already, but I couldn't complete the thing without including a larger square out of this yarn. This coming week will be a Week of the Blankie. At least three squares per day. Really.

In the mean time, when I came home from vacation the Creative Activities Rules and Premiums booklet for the Minnesota State Fair was in my mailbox (well, actually in the giant pile in my foyer, where our house sitter had left it.) I love poring over the knitting categories and considering what I've knit so far in the year or may yet knit that will fit in the various sections. The blankie is my only big hope this year, although I may yet make a pair or two of leggings for the girls that might be fun to enter. Looking at the three afghan-type categories, it looks like mine will have to go into either "318 Afghan, made in strips or modules" or "319 Bedspread, min size 3801 sq. in." The categories can be a bit confusing sometimes. My blankie can't go in the other two categories because it is going to be around 4400 square inches blocked, and while it certainly is modular, I wonder whether lot 318 is meant for modules that are sewn together rather than knit one off the others. When I think of the bedspread category, I think of those giant lace things that win the Sweepstakes prizes, and I certainly don't want to go up against those. Luckily, I have months and months to consider.

Let's look at some cute kid pictures:



I took the girls to Eden Prairie Center to get their hair cut the other day, and for once we had a decent experience in the play area there. Sophie has really decided that she's into this whole walking thing, and she toddled and climbed all over the place. Here she is looking down from the top of the play structure through one of the slides.

Today we took a trip to the Mall of America with Joe's cousin and her kids. They all had fun playing in Legoland - that's Julie and Katelyn in the foreground, and Sarah and Joe's other cousin Natalie on the yellow bench in the background. Natalie just graduated from college and is a real-life ballerina, a fact that impresses Julie to no end as she claims she's going to be a ballerina when she grows up.



Sophie got in on the Lego action a bit, and I was watching her like a hawk as she grabbed all those tiny pieces. Only a couple got slobbered on.



She was more interested in toddling off towards the amusement park. She kept walking over towards the ride with the swings hanging down from the tree, and pointing like crazing as she gasped with excitement. This is such a fun age. She is really exploring her personality, learning to communicate and express her own desires and interests. She is such a happy kid most of the time and is constantly making me smile and laugh.



Bad picture, but this is Julie holding hands with Auntie Natalie as we walked through the food court to get some lunch. I just loved the way Julie glommed right on to Natalie and grabbed her hand even though we haven't gotten to see much of her while she was away at college.



And that's the end! I still have a little knitting time left tonight, I think I have another square or two left in me before bed.

Pictures

Okay, so maybe there are a few things that are still not quite right. I'll fix that as I have time today. While I was porting over, I fussed around with the blog's file structure - I got rid of some unnecessary stuff - but now I guess everyone may have to re-ad me to their bloglines or whatever blog reader you're using. Sorry about that, and I hope people don't give up on me! The blog should be right at the root of www.shellykang.com now instead of at www.shellykang.com/Blog if that makes any sense. Sorry for the confusion! I'm working on it!

It worked!?

I think I actually managed to get all the settings changed in the ten different places I had to change settings. Blogger seems to be publishing to the correct site, Outlook seems to be sending and receiving, blah blah blah. I’d ask people to let me know if they’re having issues, but if people are having issues, they’re probably not reading this! In any case, I would love to know if people notice any changes in load times over the next few weeks. If you’re really interested, go back to that Travelogue entry and see how fast the photos load. Thanks for sticking with me!

 

(Oh, and I’m posting this entry via e-mail – from now on, I’ll know how to post from the Sidekick if this works.)

Heads Up!

Hey, everyone! Two blog posts in one day! And before 5 p.m. even! I don't know how many people this will reach before the switchover, but if all the stars align properly tonight, I'm going to be migrating the blog to a new server. A server that is not located here in our house behind the very-narrow DSL bandwith bottleneck from which we suffer so. Don't understand that last sentence? Let me try again.

I'm going to do a little something tonight that should hopefully speed up the loading times of this here blog. The only catch is that it may take a day or maybe even two for the Internet to figure out where I've gone. So look for a Blankie Friday post tomorrow, and if you don't see it, try hitting refresh on your browser and/or clearing out your cache and hitting refresh again.

Oh, and wish me luck, because my skillz are so rusty and I'm not going to get anywhere if that baby doesn't stop teething and go to sleep, dammit! Last night I was out with the knitting girls, and when I came home just before midnight, I could hear Sophie whining in her crib on the monitor. I assumed Joe was up there with her and went about putting some things away and doing a little personal business before heading up to bed about 15 minutes later. I went into the nursery to relieve Joe, and *he wasn't there*. So I scooped Sophie up and gave her a huge hug, apologized to her, and took her to our bed, where Joe was sleeping soundly. Poor guy felt pretty badly when I brought it to his attention, and Sophie was no worse for the wear.

Tagged!

Hey, this is the first time anyone has ever tagged me to do a meme! I'm not sure if I should be pleased that someone has finally thought of me, or frustrated that I now have to think up eight random things about myself. I think the former more than the latter. Thanks, Susan!

Rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts about themselves.

2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their 8 random things and post the rules.

3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and post their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. My favorite food ever is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and vanilla ice cream. And it has to be the spongy kind of cake.

2. My favorite flowers are daisies.

3. I am 5'9" tall, but I usually tell people I am 5'10" because I believed that to be true for so long until I was measured again a few years ago.

4. I have a degree in Computer Science, and I worked for a few years as a computer programmer until I burned out at the 70-hour-a-week job.

5. I grew up in Columbia, MO and went to Hickman High School, home of the fighting Kewpies. (As in Kewpie dolls. No shit.)

6. When I was a kid, I had a Springer Spaniel named Sammy, and I still miss him sometimes. (My mother gave him away after my parents divorced). Some day, when the cats are gone, I hope we get another dog, only my dream dog is an Old English Sheep Dog because I love how floppy and happy they look.

7. Someone of authority and in a position of insight told me yesterday that I'm doing all the right things as a parent, and I really needed to hear it.

8. I can't wait to order more yarn for dyeing, and I feel a little guilty about that because there are so many other projects that need my attention. And speaking of which, if you really want to know why those socks are called rainbow barf, scroll through the posts from the last month. I've explained it at least twice now. You can just do a search using Edit-Find in This Page and type in barf to get to the references.

There! Thinking up random things about myself is really hard. So now I've got to tag eight more suckers. Let's see... my darling husband (who probably won't do it), Jen (please forgive me for linking you), Beth, Knittymama, Connie, Rox, Kelle, and Flan.

Knitting Catchup

It amazes me how quickly an evening can get eaten up when you have a baby up and crying (again) with the teething and the gas. Add that to a huge stack of papers and crap to be dug through on the desk, and a mess all over the house in general and you get nothing fun done till 11:40 at night. I'm going to fill you all in on the knitting for the last week and then I'm off to bed with no down time at all tonight. I've been up too late the last two nights and I want to be functional tomorrow.

So anyway, let's start off with the Rainbow Barf. Guess what? They're finished!



All that traffic in L.A. really sucks, but it meant lots of knitting time for me as Joe did all the driving. The socks are modeled here on the new-to-me sock blockers I received from Andrea last week. She had a bunch of vintage ones and was willing to share for the price of postage. Sweet!

After knitting these up, I've had second thoughts about possibly dyeing this yarn again. I think I just may dye up some more but fix the problem where the pinks and browns got more rows than the rest. I really love the color play with the shifting colors, and I think they would look even better with one row per color as originally planned. We'll see.

Also completed are the little footie socks I started for Julie out of the sample yarn I dyed up in that class at Yarnover a few weeks ago.



You can see in this picture that I tried two different ways of spreading the color around when I was doing the dyeing. The one in the foreground is more willy-nilly, the one in the background is more structured. Julie was just happy they were done, and insisted on sleeping in them at bed time tonight.



All these finished socks mean one thing - newly emptied needles!



I need to cast on the second pink-and-brown sock, and then I'll have two more sets free to start my sockapalooza socks. I still haven't decided what I'm doing with that, but I want it to be something good.

Speaking of exchanges, my first SP10 package arrived while I was gone, and it is a doozy! Look how pretty the packaging was...



Until I ripped into it like a five-year-old at Christmas. The part that I'm most excited about is the Bamboo sock yarn. I've been wanting to try this for some time now - it's just going to be hard to let it mature in the stash for a while till I get a couple other sock-type projects going. I am *not* going to use this for Sockapalooza because I want to try wearing them myself! Also in the package were a pumice stone, a crafty foamies kit for Julie, and the book Favorite Socks. I'm feeling thoroughly spoiled. Thanks, Secret Pal!



And finally, a little non-knitting content. You knew it had to happen. We finally turned Sophie's car seat around to face forwards. The pediatrician recommended keeping her backwards for as long as possible, so we did till Joe re-installed the car seats after our trip. She is 15 months old, after all! Anyway, it provides a better view of sleeping car-baby.

Travelogue

Alright, here's the story of our trip to L.A. I have to apologize for those with slow internet connections, this post is extremely photo-heavy. Also, there is really no knitting content in this post at all - it's all about family and vacation, so if you're here for the knitting, c'mon back tomorrow night for the major knitting update!

We started off on Tuesday morning at the MPL/STP airport. Here we are waiting for the tram to take us from the parking ramp to the terminal. Let's stop for a moment and admire my amazing stacking and hauling abilities. We had a huge pile of luggage, and there were no carts at the parking ramps, so I carried Sophie in the sling, Julie walked and pulled her case, and I pulled the rolling case while holding Julie's free hand. Somehow, it worked out just fine.



When we arrived, we headed to our hotel in Glendale. The sky was dominated by a giant smoke cloud from the brush fires in Griffith Park. It was hard to get a clear picture from the car, but it was brown and roiling.



The next morning we came out to the parking lot and found all the cars coated with ash from the fire.



We spent most of Wednesday at the Natural History museum, where Sophie enjoyed pushing the stroller around more than she did riding in it.



Julie enjoyed playing archaeologist in the dinosaur dig.



They had a butterfly house, and Julie enjoyed checking the bugs out. I have to say, the butterfly house at the State Fair last year was a bit more impressive. There weren't all that many varieties in this one, but it was still a fun way to burn some time.



Back at the hotel, and we took a little dip in the teeny-tiny pool. We chose to stay in a less-expensive hotel the first three nights and a nicer hotel where the wedding reception was held the last two nights. This was an Econolodge, and it wasn't horrible. Nothing fancy, but at least it was pretty clean and there were no creepy people hanging around. The girls were excited to have their swimming suits on and be in the water, although it was in the shade and the temperature was only mid-seventies, so we didn't linger very long.



Thursday we did a few little shopping stops, including a big fancy kids' bookstore. In between, we found a park playground and let the girls play for an hour or so, and ate a picnic lunch. Julie's food allergies make eating at restaurants a challenge, and our simple meal out at the park was better than another fast food meal.

We ended our day at the Giant Robot store and met Joe's online friend Martin for dinner at the GR Eats restaurant. Martin is one of the editors of Giant Robot magazine.



Sophie's prize for the day was an Ugly Doll by the name of Big Toe.



We ended up eating breakfast three days straight at the IHOP nearby. Greasy breakfast is a great occasional treat, but by day three you start to wish for a nice bowl of cereal and toast at home. At least it was filling, and they had food Julie could eat. This trip, I set a lifetime record for myself of eating pancakes four days in a row.





Friday we hit the beach - the Santa Monica pier.



We usually don't put money in these kiddie rides, but we were on vacation, and there was a whole collection of them at the arcade, so Julie and Sophie got to ride several of them.



We also played Skeeball and some other games while we were there.





It was another relatively cool day, and another picnic lunch on the beach this time made everyone happy.



There were people out in the water swimming, but they were crazy. It was freezing! Sophie enjoyed her first ocean experience, brief as it was.



We checked into the much-fancier Hilton, cleaned up, and rushed over to the church for the rehearsal.



There was much standing around waiting and very little actual rehearsing for the kids.



There were three flower girls and a ring bearer, all very cute.



By the time rehearsal was over, the girls were just about losing it, and we decided to skip the rehearsal dinner and head back to the hotel for room service. It was late and everyone was tired, but a giant hamburger and a plate full of onion rings made my evening.



Julie chose to sit at the fancy desk to eat her hot dog and fries. We splurged and let her have ice cream for dessert. One of the unfortunate things about traveling with little kids in one room is that when they go to bed, we pretty much have to go to bed too. At least we got plenty of rest, and we have vowed that next time we travel we will get a suite so we can put the kids to bed and retreat to the adjoining room.



Saturday morning we met Joe's parents and brother at the restaurant in their hotel. Sophie was happy to see her Grandma.



And her Uncle Dave.



The fire was under control at Griffith Park, so we went and checked out the Traveltime museum there. They had an awesome model train setup, but it seems they had taken it down and evacuated it in case the fire engulfed the building, so on Saturday morning the workers were busy putting the trains back on the tracks. We still had fun looking at it for about twenty minutes.



Sophie crashed in the sling and slept for almost an hour.



We took a tiny train ride around the park.



And Sophie woke up.



Back to Glendale, and the lunch at a Korean restaurant. We all had NangMyun, a cold noodle soup that is awesome.



Sophie had fun with the noodles too.



Back to the hotel for a quick change, and then to the church for pictures with the bride.



Sophie's been doing a lot of pointing lately. She points at animals and kids and busses and anything she wants us to stop and examine more closely. It is very cute.



My brother-in-law Dave and future sister-in-law Jinny. Aren't they a cute couple? We may be traveling to Korea in a year or so for their wedding.



Me and the dress. Sophie and Joe both enjoyed the plunging neckline.



Julie with Joe's cousin J.K., sister of bride Lindsey.



Gratuitous cute-Sophie picture.



This was before the wedding. I think we were getting the girls to practice their jobs. They did end up making it all the way from the back to the front, although one of them stopped to pick up the dropped petals.



At the reception, the kids were starving and there were no more appetizers. They all swarmed the container of wheat-free cheesy snacks we had brought for Julie, and they were gone in about five minutes.



Sunday morning at the hotel. Sophie is more interested in playing with the crayons - putting them in the box and dumping them back out - than coloring with them. Joe made up for her lack on interest while Julie slept in late.



Sunday, our final morning in town, and we had one last chance to eat some awesome Korean food (for Joe's parents, pretty much the whole point of going to L.A. is eating as much Korean food as humanly possible, and I don't mind because it is awesome.) Julie enjoyed a bowl of tduck gook with Uncle Dave and Auntie Jinny.



And then we came home. Whew! The lawn needs mowing, and I'm almost done with the laundry, and it feels good to be back in our own little lives.

Tomorrow, I'll have an update on the knitting action in the last week. There are FOs to report!

L.A. Baby!

Hello, dear friends. I'm sorry I left for almost a week without saying what was up, but I'm sure you'll understand.

We left last Tuesday morning for a vacation/family event, and for security reasons, it just wasn't a good idea to broadcast our absence all over the internets. I swear, I had lots of very good plans to post some entries while I was away - I had some all written up and I thought I could post them from my Sidekick. The only thing was that I hadn't actually tested this theory, and I realized only once I was in California that the browser on the phone doesn't handle Blogger's webpage well enough for me to log in and hit publish.

So, I'm sorry to have disappeared without warning, but the good news is that I have lots to share now that I'm back. We had a very nice trip, including the wedding in which Julie was a flower girl and I got to wear my fabulous brown polka-dotted dress that y'all helped me pick out. I have knitting news, mostly involving socks knit while sitting in horrendous L.A. traffic. And I had a pile of packages that came in the mail while I was gone to show off (Hi, Secret Pal! Hi, Andrea!)

We just got back this evening, and I just finished a little grocery shopping and sorting of dirty laundry. It is late and already tomorrow we start our normal weekday routine. I need to get to bed. For now, I will leave you with just one of the 153 photos I took while I was away.



From left to right, "Uncle Dave", his fiance Jinny, Grandpa and Grandma Kang, me and Sophie, Joe, and Julie in front. This was right before Cousin Lindsey's wedding. I'll have many more pictures and details tomorrow night.

It sure feels good to be home!

How I Spent my Weekend

This and about five bajillion loads of laundry. I got a little crazy with the dyes, and once I got started I couldn't stop dyeing everything in sight whether it had been rewound for stripes or not. The second from the left was a bit of an accident. It started off with "Oh, look. I have some extra red dye in this here bottle. I'll just use it up and mix it with some other colors." Then, Joe came through the kitchen and I said "Look, honey. I made some really ugly yarn." The next day I overdyed the whole skein with some pink, and now it looks like, well, maybe just maybe someone would want to knit with it. I think it has a kind of pirate theme look to it. Maybe. The rest I am fairly happy with. We'll see how the striping ones look when they're wound into normal-sized skeins.

All of these specimens may eventually be up for sale if I can figure out how and where to sell them. Because I think I'm addicted to this yarn-dyeing thing, and the only way I can sustain the habit is to sell some of it off. Can you tell I'm enjoying a late-night beer? Ayup. It's way past my bed time, but I'm waiting for the dryer to finish so I can shift the laundry around before I go to bed. G'night!

Blankie Friday and Picture Catchup

Twelve and a half. Considering that we're only talking about six days since last week's blankie post was a day late...that calculates out to about two squares a day. That's not so bad, I guess.











I don't have much other blankie news. It's been pretty much a week of cranking away at it when I can. So let's switch gears and catch up on the other pictures I pulled off my camera tonight.

Sophie has become quite the stair-climber. It's so cute to watch her climbing up determinedly, giggling as I catch up behind her.



This is another of Julie's creations. She likes to rearrange the chairs and pretend it's a train. Chugga chugga choo choo.



The first of Julie's new socks...the cuff is awfully short, but it's all I could get out of half the available yarn. She didn't seem to mind.



Here are the girls at knitting on Wednesday. They're playing with stickers. I usually let them play with a sheet or two of stickers to help keep them occupied while I chat with my friends and maybe knit a round or two. By the time we leave, they're usually covered in them.



Here's Sophie taking a little nap yesterday while Julie was in pre-school. So sweet, so serene.



This morning we had a playdate with our Canadian friends. It turns out that each of us chanced to buy the same pair of matching dresses for each of our girls, and when we discovered this, we hatched a plan to dress them all the same and get together for a photo shoot.

Sophie and H. look almost like twins from the back. Sophie's on the right. Actually, when J. and I are out with the girls in public, we often get people asking how they're all related.



Getting four little girls to sit still and pose for a photo is like herding cats.





We are a little sad, as today was the last time we will see our Canadian friends till after mid-summer. It's not my story to tell, but they are traveling to see family for a couple of months. Totally understandable, and I am happy for them. Very sad for us, as we will desperately miss our time together.

J. had planned a sweet little art project for our big girls to do today - a photo frame collage for us to look at till they come back.



We will use this separation as a good opportunity to let the girls try out the postal system, and I will be counting down the days till our friends come back to what we call home, and hopefully they will grow to believe in as well.

And finally, I couldn't resist. I had to wind up these two skeins of yarn. I really want to start a sock from each of them just to see how the colors pattern up. And, you know, there's no such thing as too many socks on the needles.

Beautiful Day

Whew! We had a much better day today, after what was probably the best night's sleep we've had since Sophie was born last night. I really appreciate all the positive thoughts and comments on yesterday's post. It really was awful yesterday, but I think Sophie had pretty much immediate relief, and things are -moving- a lot better today as well.

Last night, she went right to sleep after her bath and I knit a few squares on the blanket till I was falling asleep sitting up on the couch, so for once I had the sanity to go to bed before midnight. Until Joe came home and told me differently, I thought she had slept straight through till almost six this morning, and then for another hour or so after I took her into our bed. Turns out, she woke up as he was coming to bed later and he spent half an hour getting her back to sleep - I was so tired I slept right through that, which has NEVER happened before.

Still, we all got a good night's sleep. We all felt much better today. It was gorgeous outside, and I was continually amazed that life can be so entirely different on two back-to-back days in the same family, same everything.

And I really really appreciate all of your supportive comments. For those of you who wrote suggesting the plums...I'm curious....do you mean fresh plums or dried plums? I may be willing to give these a try on top of the already many things we are doing to help keep Sophie comfortable and in good working order. And trust me, we are doing plenty.

Oh, and about those of you who questioned whether I had enough chocolate with which to self medicate...of COURSE I do! Actually, I ate a bunch of Ben and Jerry's Neopolitan Dynamite and oh my diety it is some of the best ice cream I have ever had. The balance between the lighter, tart-cherry flavor and the uber-rich chocolaty brownie flavor is incredible. I finished the pint and wanted to go straight back to the store for another!

People, I know I need to put up some pictures and get back to the fun stuff. I'm tired and need to do some paperwork and the couch is calling me. Hopefully we'll get back to the goodies tomorrow. Go get yourself a nice bowl of ice cream.

Poo Diaries continued

Warning! There is no knitting in this post. If you don't want to hear about poo, this post is not for you. Just move along and come back tomorrow.






Still here? Okay.

I just had the day from hell.

Sophie has been up screaming in pain for the last three nights in a row, and a couple other nights in the last week or so. I haven't been talking about it constantly, but the poor kid has continued to be constipated for months and months now. I keep dragging her back to the doctor, and they keep taking my $20 copay, shrugging their shoulders and telling me that it'll work out. I am SO so angry at them and at myself for listening to them. I dragged her back in to the doctor this afternoon, and finally this time I scored an appointment with our beloved Nurse Pat. She listened to my story, checked all the regular culprits like ears, and then agreed to take a look at the bum in question.

Guess what? Sophie has an anal fissure. That's a little tear in her poop chute. Ouch! No wonder the kid cries and pulls her hair out every time she feels the urge. It took Pat all of two seconds to see this tear, then another ten seconds for her to show it to me. It was obvious. I started crying immediately and asked her why nobody had looked at her little bum during the five other visits we've had on this matter. Pat couldn't say. But it did spark my ire enough that I pushed the issue and got an abdominal x-ray for Sophie. Turns out not only is she completely, totally full of solid poo, but it's so backed up that she's got a gut full of gas on top of that. No wonder she's screaming in pain.

I walked out of the office with a prescription for some Lydocaine gel to numb her butt while I gave her an enema. We drove over to Target, and while we were waiting for the prescription I gave her some Tylenol to further dull the upcoming pain. Target, of course, didn't have baby enemas so we then had to go to Walgreen's and get a couple of those. By this time, both kids were completely done with sitting in waiting rooms and running errands, so let me tell you I didn't enjoy that last stop one bit.

Home again, pop in a Bob the Builder video for Julie, and Sophie and I spent half an hour in the nursery that I'd much rather forget. Things are somewhat improved, but I'm worried that we may need another enema before it's over. I'm typing this now, while dinner is simmering, so that after dinner once the kids are bathed and in bed I can sit my ass on the couch and zone out with the blankie till I pass out. I have a rocking headache.

Believe me, you are getting the condensed version here and you should be glad. Tomorrow has to be better. It just has to. I'm off to feed my family and get them out of my hair so I can decompress. Don't EVEN mess with me this time, I will bite back.

Amazing Blankie

So, I got an e-mail last week that I flat-out couldn't believe at first. I'm still completely stunned over what I found attached to this e-mail. It is truly amazing. I was so surprised, caught off guard, and I'll admit it, Jealous!

The e-mail was from Joy in Manhattan Beach, California, and she was writing to share with me her newly-completed version of my blankie. Brace yourself.



Joy's blanket is so cool. First of all, it is finished. Finished as in actually useable, unlike mine. Secondly, it is made out of Koigu. Lots of Koigu. Yet it still has stripey miters, which means that she wove in a heck of a lot of ends to get those beautiful stripes. Joy says she does not have an active blog, which explains a little bit about how she found the time to crank out this beauty. I bet if you have questions, she'll respond to them in the comments below.

Alright, here's a call-out. I know there are some other blankies in progress out there. Or, at least, blankies once-started out there. I haven't seen many updates on blankies lately, though, and I'd really like to. If you have a blankie going, or a blankie-inspired project going - please consider putting a post on your blog and sharing the link to it in the comments here. If you don't have a blog, e-mail me a photo and I'll post it here. I want to see what you all have been up to!

As for me, today was a busy day. I watched my friend Jen's two girls this morning, and somehow we all survived without incident. I know, watching four well-behaved kids for a couple of hours doesn't seem like that much of an accomplishment to most people, but to me it felt like one.

Knitting-wise, I've been doing a little bit of everything. A few blankie squares here and there, I finished the first of Julie's new socks (need to get the toe started on #2), started the second Rainbow Barf sock (because I get nervous if I don't have both of a pair going at once), and even had a few minutes the other day to work on my lace scarf that I keep in the car for rare peaceful moments when all the kids fall asleep and I have a little break. I'm also thinking about dyeing up another batch of yarn, but I want to get all that I have wound up into stripe-worthy skeins first.

Alright, I'm off to do about a billion things that need doing.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

I tried to get this up last night, but YouTube was not cooperating. I find this video hilarious, but she is my kid after all.



In case you have a hard time understanding what she's saying:

"I'm playing Disney songs with my magical wand on drums, Mommy!"

"Where are the drums?"

"HERE!"

"Okay, show me how you play the drums."

"Like this with my magical wand"



"I banged 'em."

"Okay, and who are your friends?"

"Uh, Cinderbrella, Ariel, and Finnoccio....and lots of other friends came to sing the Disney songs with me."

That's my girl. I hope to have a decent knitting-related post for you tonight. I spent a couple hours last night winding yarn for self-striping dye jobs. I either need a warping board or a bigger living room. Or a little less fiber-related crazy. Joe walked through as I was winding the second skein and just stared, flabbergasted. I keep telling him that at least my hobby ends up with a nice end product. He's the one who spent a couple hours last night playing a toy guitar while staring at his computer screen.