The Heathen Housewife

This is the second post today, and I’m afraid probably not the last. One of my goals with the blog is to stop posting such huge catch-ups and, especially for the knitting content, keep each post to one subject at a time. Ravelry has been a good motivator for this, since I’d like to start linking my posts to my projects in there. So here we have a post wrapping up the Joe’s Felted Clogs 2008 project.

I finished the second, smaller pair, and then ran them through the washer about ten times, with a little hand-scrubbing in between. I had bought some leather soles, so then it was time to sew them on. This is the most hateful part of this project to me. I don’t like to sew – I like to knit. But after an initial learning curve, it went much faster and less painfully than expected. The biggest thing I figured out was to put the pins holding the sole in place horizontally as shown in the picture versus vertically. They stayed in much better and poked me a lot less.

Obviously, my blanket stitch leaves a little to be desired. But from a distance, it looks good enough.

And the finished product looks pretty darn good, if I do say so!

Oh, and a little funny side note – I am not that great of a photographer by any means, but the hardest part of getting a little snapshot taken on this particular day was clearing enough counter space for a clutter-free shot.

The final step was saying goodbye to the old ratty slippers. They were literally falling apart – see the seam that was worn through?

The old soles were worn through the bottom…

Buh-Bye!

I put the new clogs where Joe had left the old ones when he left that morning.

I heard a happy Oh! when he walked in the back door, and then he came into the office room to say hello with them on.

Happy husband = worth the effort.

No, I haven’t been knitting the Monkey socks. But I do have a finished object to report! Actually, I have two finished objects to report, but only one really counts. I finally finished the border on the mitered-square blanket my class started at camp this summer, and it’s blocking right now.

To review, I spent a week up at Camp Unistar over the summer with my family, and I (mostly) paid for our trip with my job there teaching knitting to the campers. The camp is run by and for the Unitarian church, and Unitarians are really into community service, so I planned ahead and brought a bunch of Plymouth Encore in a striping colorway. Any camper who wanted to could knit up a mitered square to go into a baby blanket for charity.

I knit up a couple of squares to start them off, then the rest of the campers pitched in and made enough to complete the project. Then, I was stuck with the “fun” part of sewing it together and knitting on a border. I put this off long enough, and as soon as the December gift knitting was done, I jumped back on it. I have to say it’s a little psychedelic – not quite as beautiful as I’d hoped. But it is nice and warm, and this afternoon as I was knitting on the last few rows of border, Julie told me she wished I’d make her a blanket like it. So it must not be all bad.

I’m going to make a call or two next week to find this blankie a home. I definitely want to give it to a local charity – there are plenty of babies in our area who don’t have enough warm things for our cold winters. I was originally thinking of the Minneapolis crisis nursery, and I think they will be my first call – but I see on their donations page that they don’t want blankets – or maybe they just don’t want *used* blankets. We’ll see. A second option may be the Minnesota Visiting Nurses Agency – I think I remember having donated something to them through the Guild a few years ago, and I know they visit moms with new babies.

In any case, it’s a feel-good finished object, and I feel like I’m finally fulfilling my promise to my campers who worked so hard to help make this blanket for some special baby who needs it.

Oh, and the not-so-feel-good project recently completed…

Here are the clogs I was working on for Joe. It turns out I *did* knit the size bigger than he needs, so I will be whipping up another pair for him right away. Also, I ran them through the dryer in an attempt to get those last unruly spots to go ahead and felt already. You know, every time I’ve made a felted project, it seems there are always one or two little spots that just don’t want to shrink down and give up their stitch definition. That was certainly the case here. I thought the dryer might help get those spots to shrink, but it didn’t. And now they’re dry and lumpy looking. I need to run them through the wash one more time and stuff something in there to keep their shape while they dry. I may keep them for myself around the house, or more likely, I’ll put some soles on them and give them to someone next Christmas. They are quite cozy – I was wearing them around last night.

I have to say, though – as nifty as these clogs are, and as popular as they are among recipients, it’s a pattern that I just don’t really enjoy knitting. It’s too futzy. Not an interesting kind of futzy, like color work or something flashy. No, just futzy of the kind where you’re always counting your stitches, picking up stitches, doing three-needle bind-offs, and sewing up seams. Bleh. Still – worth it if it can make someone you love happy, I suppose.

Oh, there is so much going on here. So many things we’ve been doing to get ready for Christmas, and so very much left to be completed. It’s insanity.

Not to mention that we are all sick again. We had just gotten clear of the November cold, when this new super-duper December cold struck. Sophie has it bad, and my poor sweet little thing is clingy and crabby while her little nose runs like a burbling fountain and she coughs herself awake night and day. I know exactly how she feels, because I have it about the same. My head hurts, my chest hurts, my eyes itch, I’m exhausted. Am going directly to bed after I finish this.

But enough of the whineing. We’ve been having lots of fun, too, and that’s what I’m really here to share. In no particular order, except that which they came off the camera…

We’ve been baking like crazy. I think I made six or seven different kinds of cookies. Here’s the day we did sugar cookies. Poor Sophie wasn’t at all happy about being sidelined in the high chair. Julie was frustrated because she wanted to do all the cutting and dough-rolling, but it was almost too sticky for me to handle, so he was relegated to the sprinkles duty. They turned out fine.

I sent cookie care-packages out yesterday to my uncle in Japan (who, it turns out, due to my late sending, his plans to leave town on Christmas, and a Japanese postal holiday on the 22nd, is likely to receive three-week-old stale cookies when he finally returns. Oh well). I also sent a package to my BIL Dave and to my future SIL Jinnie. I think they will receive theirs relatively fresh, and hopefully will especially enjoy the oatmeal-raisin ones that I made on Dave’s request (and I loathe oatmeal-raisin cookies, so it truly was an act of love – oatmeal chocolate chip are devine, but oatmeal-raisin are evil – even though I love raisins in my porridge. Go figure.) And Jinnie is getting some brownies, along with all the more festive varieties. I really must remember to take a picture of the plate I plan to put together for serving on Christmas. There are still a ton of cookies in the freezer.

We’ve been doing our little Playmobile advent calendar every night, and I know it’s nowhere near as exciting as all the hand-crafted ones I’ve seen in blogland, but the girls are enjoying it, and to be honest I think Joe and I are too. I’ll have to remember to take a picture of the finished scene after Christmas.

The girls and I went to see the Nutcracker display at Macy’s downtown last Thursday. They enjoyed it, and the crowd was not too bad, so we walked through twice. Sophie was already coming down with the cold-from-hell at that point, although I didn’t realize just how bad it was going to turn out to be.

Here’s Julie’s class performing on Thursday night. Julie is in the red dress, sitting on her teacher’s lap off to the left. The kids were incredibly cute, and quite well-trained for a bunch of four-year-olds. I really wish Julie had been willing to get up and do it with them. She and Joe had a little tiff right as we were headed over there, so she was grumpy and uncooperative. Oh well.

Here she is after the performance, following her little friend Ben around like a shadow…

And eating cookies…

Why, oh why, did they feel the need to ply our children with Hawaiian Punch and store-bought sugar cookies right before bedtime? Idonotknow.

Friday we saw our favorite little playdate friends and I was able to deliver their new mittens:

In case I didn’t cover the details in my earlier posts on these, they are Malabrigo knitted in the round on size 5’s, then felted. It’s my own concoction, not written up, loosely based on my friend Jean Christensen’s Felted Gauntlet Mittens pattern available at the Yarnery – her version has a more interesting cuff.

Little H and big M seemed happy with their gifts. H wore hers around the house for a while, and I hear that she showed them to her “papa” as soon as he came home as well. I’m happy.

And here are the mindless socks I’ve been working on for the last several weeks. I didn’t want to show them here because they were for my friend J’s birthday present. She knew she was getting socks, but I wanted the colors to be a surprise.

This is the Regia Galaxy yarn in colorway 1553 that I bought during the shop hop a couple months ago. It was fun to watch the colors do their thing. I used my own toe-up short-row heel and toe pattern on size 0 needles. I’m pretty sure she was pleased too as she put them on right away and kept them on for the rest of the day. I love knitting for people who appreciate my work, and actually put it to good use.

And now that the pretty gifties are done, these ugly things are back out of the pile, on hand for mindless-knitting emergencies…

Really, the socks don’t look too bad once they’re knit up, it’s just the yarn is not so lovely to look at while I’m knitting it, and it’s all very boring. Give me some stripes or swirls for the mindless knitting, I say! Still, they will make good warm socks that go with a lot in my wardrobe. So I’m going to finish them up and then move on to something super-fun!

I still have one more knitting project that I’d hoped to complete before Christmas – Joe’s clogs. I’ve only done one of the soles so far, but they don’t take all that much knitting. We’ll see how far I can get in my “spare” moments this week. Ha!

We did finish the holiday cards tonight. It felt like a little sweat shop sitting there writing them all out – I always have the bigger stack for some reason (there are quite valid reasons for this, don’t worry) but Joe did all the sealing and return-address stamping. He’s smiling because he had just been hiding his face behind the card to tease me, not because he actually enjoys writing cards out.

D’oh! I was going to either scan or take a photo of our card so you could see it better – must do that for next time. I’m really happy with how it turned out this year. If you look closely you can get an idea – it’s just the picture of the girls sitting in the leaves from our pumpkin-hunting day in October, but the layout we picked from Tiny Prints complemented it really well. I also really liked the card stock it’s printed on. It’s a postcard-style single sheet, but instead of photo stock, it’s printed on nice card stock, which was much easier to write on and felt much classier than the photo version – all at about the same price.

The girls and I have been doing a lot of little crafty things – we ate up a good hour or two yesterday making long paper chains to hang on the tree and along the wall in the living room. Julie really liked that, and Sophie was so miserable she sat meekly in my lap and watched.

We’ve also been putting together some of those cheezy foam ornament kits, but this tree one turned out pretty cute. All three of the trees came from one kit. I have to admit, I finally buckled and bought a hot glue gun, which made the gluing parts much easier. But now I feel a little trashy.

Julie was in charge of the one on the right ,and did all kinds of interesting things with her stickers. Take a good look at the star on top.

And now, my friends in the computer, it is time for bed! I’m exhausted, and I’m betting Sophie will be up complaining at least once tonight. I needs me some sleep!

Guess What?! I feel like a knitting machine. Only a hand knitting machine, not an actual knitting machine. I mean, I’m being all metaphorical and stuff, not talking about the two knitting machines stored under the bed a few feet away. Can you tell that it is late and I should be headed to bed right now? Oh, but it is, and I should.

But down to business. Look what is blocking on the bed behind me just a few feet away:

Some of the cutest, happiest little pants that anyone ever did see, that’s what. I can’t believe how fast these knit up or how cute they turned out. They would be even cuter on a new baby, but instead they will be going to live at the Yarnery in a few days. I hope lots of other people think they are cute and buy the pattern. I think I am going to go ahead and make it available this week. Don’t worry, dear test knitters, the offer still stands – but after having knit one pair in almost every size, I think I have my math right, and I’ve revised the wording a few times so I’m pretty happy with that. I’ll still be able to swap out the copies at the store if someone has great suggestions on the instructions, but I feel pretty good about this one. Yay!

Everything else here is going well. I cast on about a million socks before that sock class on Saturday, which went smashingly well. I love my classes at the store lately – I’ve been so lucky with awesome students knockonwood. So now I’m knitting away on some little socks for Julie in an attempt to keep up with my class and have a sample ready for a heel flap and one for a turning for the next class. Julie’s been asking for more socks and who am I to say no?

I’m also staring down some of the UFOs scattered around the room and trying to decide which one gets some attention soonest. The charity blankie that we all worked on up at Unistar this summer is making the strongest case, and it wouldn’t take all that much to finish it up and ship it out to some family who could really use it. I think I’m going to make some time for that this week. The sock yarn blankie – you know – THE blankie – is still at the store on display, but when it comes home, it’s getting center stage now that the weather is cooler and I’ve had a nice little break from it. I’m going to finish that sucker this winter.

Anyway, there’s one other thing I’ve been wanting to mention, and while I’m looking around the room, I’m staring it down too, so here goes. And update on the yarn dyeing business…So far, I’ve sold quite a bit of that giant pile of hand dye I worked on all summer. I appreciate every order, and I’ve been running to the post office pretty much within 24 hours of getting the e-mail saying someone has clicked the checkout button. It’s so much fun sending my little skeins of fuzzy joy off to new homes!

One thing continues to puzzle me every time I glance at the pile, though. Remember when I was test-dyeing little skeins and I knit up that messy sample and everybody loved the orange and brown yarn that I said I didn’t “get”? I swear at least five people said “make that yarn and I’ll buy it!”

So I did. I made a pile of what ended up being called “Brick House”. And it’s all still sitting right here. I sure hope someone decides they really want it, because I feel kind of sorry for it. You can still go visit it and its friends over at my etsy shop.

It is such a relief to finally be done with these little pants. I finished Julie’s pair Monday night.

That’s a heck of a lot of mindless stockinette stitch! If you look closely at the top of the bigger pair, you can see the wider, brighter blue stripes that I used to stretch out the remaining self-striping yarn I’d dyed. And it worked out pretty well.

Tuesday morning it was plenty cool weather for wool leggings, and the girls were excited to put them on. Too bad Julie had an “accident” about two minutes after she got dressed. It was freaky – she hasn’t done that in months. Still, there was one very cute, very willing model all dressed up with no place to go…

This particular moment just about burst my heart. She was taking my picture while I took hers! It worked out well to keep her standing across the room far enough away for me to get a full-length picture.

In non-knitting news, Julie decided it was time for a major image change.

So far it’s been much easier to comb out in the mornings, and that was pretty much the whole point of the exercise.

Back to the knitting for a moment. Almost as soon as I finished Julie’s pants, I hurried up and cast on two more little legs for that shop sample pair.

I’m still trying to decide whether I like the magic loop enough to keep doing it. Luckily, I’m making the newborn size, so they’re knitting up fast. I’ve already whipped up several more inches since the picture was taken this morning.

I also cast on for a new little pair of mittens. This pair is not for Julie or Sophie. It’s for some child in St. Paul that I’ll never meet. The Yarnery is sponsoring “The Mitten Fairy” by collecting mittens through November 16. Then they will donate the mittens to St. Paul public schools to be distributed to kids who come to school without mittens.

When I heard about this effort, it appealed to me enough to actually follow through. Dropping off and picking up Julie at pre-school last year, I saw a lot of little kids with naked hands even on the coldest of days. Every time I saw that, I thought about how I’d like to make those kids some mittens like Julie’s, but of course you can’t do that mom-to-mom. This way, I get to fulfill that fantasy, but in a much better way. So I’m knitting up a pair of mittens, and I’ll drop ‘em off at the store when I’m there next week. You can look for them on the display next time you’re at the store, and feel free to knit a pair of any size to donate too.

And back to the kids…here’s what Sophie wore today.

I put this little sweater, a hand-me-down from Julie, on her for the first time, and it just happened to perfectly match some jeans I bought last year at a garage sale. I’m so lucky to have two girls so I can get more use out of the super-cute hand knits.

And finally, the girls had their first appointment with the dentist this morning. They have the most awesome waiting room I’ve ever seen…

The girls loved this little play house, and on top of that, they had halfway decent books for us to read too. The ladies in the back room were really nice, too. Sophie had a great time sitting in the big chair, checking out the equipment, and having her teeth counted. Julie – well, Julie had a more difficult time. But we were all patient, and eventually, she agreed to open her mouth for a peek when I sat her down in my lap. Maybe we’ll get to the x-rays and the cleaning next time.

Yesterday I finally finished this pair of socks – socks that I started back in March. I worked up the first one as a sample for the class I taught earlier in the summer, and once the class was over, the pressure was off to finish the socks and that last few inches just didn’t happen. What finally motivated me to get these off the needles is a little embarrassing…I wanted to enter them in Ravelry, but I didn’t want to own up to another unfinished object. I’m not saying there aren’t a whole lot more UFOs in my stash, and maybe some of them will end up on my projects list in Ravelry before they’re finished, but for now I at least get to add one more completed item.

The pictures, unfortunately, suck because it’s been raining outside.

But I really love these socks. The Koigu is so soft and springy, the stitch pattern so beautiful. For once, I resisted the handpaint yarns and stuck with the solid color that I know works best with lace.

The other thing I wanted to share last night was the results from the class I just finished teaching at the store. My students rocked! I love it when I get a good group, and these ladies were a ton of fun. On top of that, they all did really well, and this is the set of hats they came up with.

I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the cookies, too.

Anyway, it’s been too long since we had a video, so I’m sharing two new ones with you tonight. Julie was having fun in the back yard the other day.

Remember these bouncy balls from when we were kids? I loved the bouncing balls, and I love watching Julie bouncing around.

One thing I didn’t have when I was a kid, and unless you’re from Europe, you probably didn’t either is a running bike. They’re great for helping little kids learn to ride because they work on their balance first before adding in the complication of pedals. When Julie got it for her birthday last year, she begged Joe to “Buy the pedals for it, Daddy!” Now, she’s pretty much mastered it, and I think next spring she’ll be ready for a bike with pedals. Julie on her running bike:

Often, I run into the problem with this blog that I have so much to say that I don’t know where to start. Then, what inevitably, I end up just writing giant posts dumping it all out willy-nilly. Get ready, here comes another one.

I worked on Sophie’s pants quite a bit at camp. We tried them on again today. Let me tell you, it’s hard enough getting her to stand still long enough for me to check the length – getting a picture was pretty much impossible. The waist is high enough in front, but needs a bit more in back. I wish I had done more short rows, but I’m not ripping back. It would be perfect if she were wearing disposable diapers, but with the cloth she needs a lot more room back there.

Speaking of camp…we knitters worked on a community service project while we were there. These squares are going to come together to make a baby blanket to be donated to a local charity – maybe the crisis nursery. I need to figure out exactly how I want to sew them all together, and also how I want to deal with the various sizes. I may re-knit the two really big squares, and there is one smaller one that has a super-tight cast-on. I do have a plan for a nice border, though…it’s going to be cute.

Also while at camp, I finished my Baudelaire socks. They fit wonderfully and feel great on my feet. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to see the cables and lace with the handpaint yarn. I swear, the next time I knit a texture pattern it will be with a solid yarn. Really!

Oh! and I just added this project to Ravelry. It’s only one tiny little step, but I want to start digging in over there. Want to be my friend? My username over there is shellykang. It’s a little embarrassing how little I’ve done over there considering how long I’ve been in.

Left over business from before camp – I want to give a shout-out to a couple of crafters from whom I’ve bought sock project bags in the last month. First, www.messie.etsy.com – her prices are great, her service was fast, and the bags are not only cute but really well made and totally reversible! Go check her out!

Second, I ordered a couple of sock monkey bags from Allena, who was selling them to Sockapaloozers for only $15, with your choice of coordinating monkey fabrics. She was also fast and great to work with. Super cute bags – one for me and one for my ‘palooza pal.

Finally, speaking of Sockapalooza, I have to show off my new socks. They Monkey socks knit from Cherry Tree Hill, and they fit wonderfully!

I love this color, I love the pattern on my feet a lot more than I did seeing it in pictures on other people’s blogs, and I’m SO grateful to my pal Aine for knitting enough repeats of the monkey pattern to cover my giant feet! She also included a cute stitch marker in the package. Thanks, Aine! You rock!

To answer a few questions and comments -

Beth, tune in this Friday – there will be a blankie update!

Suze, don’t be so jealous of Sophie sitting in the sling. She does her share of squirming to get down, although she also likes to ride sometimes. The thing is, my hips start to really hurt after not all that long of carrying her these days. The sling makes it easier on my arms and back, but an extra 20 pounds is an extra 20 pounds!

Someone wanted to know whether koigu would work for the knitted hammock. Um, no. The hammock at camp was knitted several years ago by campers using thick nylon cording and broom handles. It is plain garter stitch. I wasn’t involved in the project, I just admire it. A project like this takes thick, strong, weather-proof fiber. Koigu would take forever to knit, wouldn’t be all that strong for holding people, and would not stand up to outdoor weather. Basically, it’s just a big rectangle. I don’t have a pattern for it, but I think Annie Modesitt wrote one up a few years back.

My Sockapalooza socks have been done for I think almost a week now, but I finally got around to blocking them today, so I took some pictures, and will post this blog entry to the pligg before I pack them up and get them ready to go out August 2. I’ll have to mail them out before the revised mailing week because we’re going to be out of town then.

These are knit with Schaefer Yarns Anne, and there was no colorway name listed on the label. The sock pattern is Waving Lace Socks from Interweave’s Favorite Socks book.

I think they’re pretty enough, and I really hope my pal likes them. In retrospect, I wish I had picked either a different yarn (something more solid and a lighter color) to show off the lace pattern better or a different pattern – maybe simple Jaywalkers – to show off the yarn better.

One last thing to note about this yarn – when I washed it, the colors ran and ran. This is what the sink looked like when they were on their fourth soak. I’ll have to include a note to my pal to beware!

Thanks for looking!