I have an excuse !

Yes, yes, it's been two and a half months (thereabouts) since my last post. But in my defense, really crappy things have been happening in those two and a half months and I just didn't have it in me to post anything without sounding whiny.

Thing 1 - My aunt died unexpectedly of heart failure right at the beginning of March. She was my mother's sister and I hadn't spoken to her in about a year because of some things that went on during our last family vacation/rafting trip.

I've had some conflicting feelings. Several people, when I tried to talk about what I was feeling sort of brushed it off and said that it wasn't important and that I should forget it and just stop being angry at her. It's not that easy to just stop being angry though. I gave it a lot of thought and decided that my feelings are still valid. She actually did what I got angry about and the fact that she died doesn't change that.

I loved my aunt. She was a wonderful, thoughtful and caring person. She was also a self-centered, manipulative pain in the behind. I'm sure that I will stop being angry at her eventually and I'm sorry that she died before I got that chance. In the meantime though, I've decided that it is possible to miss her and be mad at her at the same time.

Thing 2 - About a week or so after my aunt died, I got hit by a car. Some woman made a left without checking that pesky crosswalk thing while I was coming home from the train. It could have been a lot worse, I only ended up in the hospital overnight, but I have some torn cartilage in my knee and a small fracture in one of the vertebrae in my spine. Not dangerous, just painful. Apparently it's healing well, but I'm still not allowed to go to yoga or hiking. It's not looking like there's going to be any backpacking or rafting going on this summer. Which is sort of annoying.

That's it. That's where I've been for the past couple of months. It's sucked, but it's getting better. I've been knitting. I've actually finished things, but you can't see any of them because, also, my computer crashed so I lost all my pictures and haven't reloaded them yet.

Yeah. Pathetic.

The Shoemaker's Child goes Barefoot

As a knitter, I feel that I should be much better prepared for the cold than I actually am. The problem is that most of the things I knit go to other people. On the occasions that I do (try to) knit something for myself, something always comes up and whatever I was making for myself gets dropped. Somebody has a baby, or a shower or a birthday, or they spring Christmas on me again, or, let's face it, I have a short attention span. Some new yarn or pattern will come along, being all soft and pretty and enticing and I'll follow right along after it. I have no shame.

This is why I don't have a matching hat/scarf/glove set. Right now, I'm wearing a scarf that I crocheted several years ago that I lost the matching hat for, (and which, incidentally, has a hole in it), a hat that doesn't match anything that I think my mother bought for me when I was in college, probably at K-mart, and a pair of mittens that I made fairly early on in my knitting career. They came out about two sizes too big for my hands, and were knitted somewhat loosely, so they did absolutely nothing to keep out the wind or keep my hands warm. They languished in a drawer with other mismatched accessories until we moved about two years ago. When I was unpacking, they managed to end up in the laundry. I spotted them as they were going into the washing machine and I started to pull them out, but then just said "what the hell?" and threw them in to see what would happen. It wasn't like I could ruin them. Well, they shrank and felted and they're now about the warmest mittens I've ever owned. So, I wear them, despite the fact that they have nothing whatsoever to do colorwise with my hat and scarf.

I am working on a hat and scarf set. I found both patterns on Ravelry. The hat pattern is called Greenery, and may be the best cabled hat pattern I've ever worked on. The cables start right up out of the ribbing and the crown decreases don't mess with the cables. It pleases my sense of symmetry. My sister in law got one for Christmas and I liked it so much I made another one for myself.

The scarf is called Persephone. The cables don't really match the hat, but I think there's enough similarity that they'll work together. The designer of this scarf is, quite frankly, insane. Brilliant, but seriously, nuts. There isn't a single right side row on this scarf that doesn't have some sort of cross on it. You never just go for a few rows until your next cross like most (non-insane) cable patterns. It's loads of fun to knit, but you have to SERIOUSLY be paying attention. I can't wait to try some more of her designs.

The scarf has actually stalled a bit at the moment, as Baby Knitting has taken precedence (see... told you) but I'll try to get it done soon and hopefully be able to wear the set this winter. I don't know what I'll do for mittens, though.

Get Them While They're Young

My cousin's ten year old was doing something at church with my mother on Saturday and Sunday, so she came to spend Saturday night at our house. I honestly couldn't figure out what in the world we were going to do to entertain this kid. Well, I didn't need to worry, because not too long after dinner she asked me what might have been the most wonderful question I've ever heard.

"Can I knit?"



I nearly cried.

So, upstairs we went to find a pair of needles, I gave her some of the Sugar & Cream that I have left over from the baby bibs and showed her how to cast on and knit. She caught on in no time and sat on the couch for about two hours working her way through a garter stitch washcloth.
Then she discovered the ball winder.

I will admit that I find the ball winder to be ridiculously fun myself, but Kellsey wound every single piece of yarn that she could get her hands on. I finally had to take it away from her and send her to bed. I won't have to wind a bit of yarn for months.

Matthew Jesse

Unless my brother and sister in law change their minds between now and May, this will be the name of my nephew. The Baby Knitting started right after the Christmas Knitting was (mostly) finished. I'm planning to find out exactly how much knitting I can pile on one baby.

I'm about halfway through the Cabled Blanket from Debbie Bliss Simply Baby. I have to admit that I tend to go back and forth a bit on Debbie Bliss patterns. Some I like, some I really don't. This pattern I like, though. It's pretty simple and I like the look of the garter stitch bit in the cable, which you can't really see in the picture, but I can't seem to get it to come out any clearer.



What I'm really, really loving are these bibs. I've been churning these things out for about a week and a half now and there's no stopping in sight. They're really just garter stitch squares and you would think that I would be ready to jump off a roof by now but I'm just finding them adorable. I'm using Peaches & Cream cotton, which feels nice to work with and comes in such great colors that I'm just not getting bored with them. Also, they're small, so they're great for the train. I may have to think of something else to work on tomorrow though. I've used up all the balls in the stash. (Well, except for some pinky sorts of colors, but I don't want to make my brother's head explode.)

My Very First

It's truly awful, but I'm pretty proud of it. It's my very first ball of hand spun yarn.


I did it on a drop spindle and I think I need a bit more practice. It's totally uneven and kind of fuzzy. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be fuzzy. It's also badly overspun in,, let's just say.... several...places (okay, most of it). But I'm happy because as bad as it is, it's all mine. I'm going to put it in a little baggy and write the date on it and save it. This way, someday far in the future, when I'm hopefully better at this and I'm trying to do something that's totally kicking my behind, I can pull this out and say, "Well, at least its not as bad as this."


My goal is to master the drop spindle and attempt to produce something that I might actually be able to knit something with (this isn't it) before I jump in and get myself a spinning wheel.

I was thinking of something like the classic "Sleeping Beauty" type spinning wheel, but having tried Kelly's wheel at our Sunday afternoon knitting meetup, I think that for the amount of space I have, a more compact portable wheel may be a better choice.

Speaking of which, there was some discussion last week that Panera should be paying us to come in there every week. Between the knitting and the chatting and the spinning wheels we were the main attraction in the place last week.

And I'm back again

The problem when you get really busy and neglect the blog for a few weeks (okay a month) is that so much has gone on in the meantime that the thought of catching everything up becomes overwhelming and you just keep neglecting the blog. It's a vicious cycle.

So, to update - about five days before Christmas I reached the final stage of holiday knitting. I managed to get through Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression fairly quickly. Acceptance took a little longer. Everyone got their hats, but I had to give up on the scarves. My mom and my brother each got one sock. The others are on the way. My sister in law was pretty impressed with the self-striping yarn. I know I always am. My grandmother really liked her socks, but when she opened them - I noticed something odd.

I'm really not certain how I managed to make one foot half the length of the other, but I did, so now Granny is short a sock as well.

Today at our knitting meetup Kelly brought her spinning wheel and I got a quick lesson from her and Helen. I spun a little bit of remarkably crappy yarn and she loaned me her drop spindle so that I can practice with that for a while until I can get my own. It's possible that I may now be hooked.

The Race is On

and the knitting is winning.

With only ten kitting days left until Christmas, I've managed to get one shawl done and the other is pretty close. If I can manage to sit down for a couple of hours with it tomorrow afternoon, I might be able to manage to get it finished. However, I've still got to finish two more hats, three and a half scarves, two pairs of socks and a set of golf club covers. They're mostly relatively small, quick projects, but I also need to do regular housekeeping, laundry, get the Christmas decorations up from the basement and get the house decorated and get food prepared for our Christmas party. And, oh yeah, there's that pesky gainful employment thing that eats up so much of my day.

I was feeling so confident at the beginning of the month. I knew it would come back to kick me in the ass.