Knitting

Random Baby Surprise Jacket

When my friend Adrienne announced at the beginning of summer that she would be knitting a Baby Surprise Jacket for one of her college professors, I knew I just had to make one too. I don’t know why. I’m not having a baby. I figured I could just put it in a box and save if for if we ever decide to have another one, or if anyone I know has a baby. And then I got tendonitis again, and I almost put this project on semi-permanent hibernation. But, as soon as my arm was feeling better, the noodle-cooking siren song that is the BSJ drew me right back in and I finished it.

[ravelry]

Now, onward.

Knitting

Rethinking Holiday Knitting

I have knitted holiday gifts for my close family members (5 people all together, since I don’t count the kids or my hubs) every year since I started knitting in 2003. As far as I know, these gifts were well received and appreciated. But this year, my heart just isn’t in it. I’m having a tendonitis flare-up and I realized that I’m just not a fast enough knitter to knit for everyone I know and still be able to knit the things I want for myself. Besides, how many cozies (head, neck, hand, foot) do people need?

A very good friend suggested that each year I pick one family member to knit for and I think this is a pretty darn good solution. It will give me a much needed break from Santa’s workshop, and it will make those items I’ve made before even more dear. So, this year, I pared my to-knit-for list down to one. And it is an enormous relief.

grumble · Thursday.

Dear John Stewart:

OMG, you guys! I went to see the Daily Show today! It was the first day out I’ve had sans kids in a very very long time (thanks, hubs! You’re the best ever!) and it was a lot of fun. They must have the hardest working staff in television. They put on such a great show. There is one thing I would like John Stewart (and his security staff) to know, however. No self-respecting knitter would ever (EVER) use her (or his!) needles as a shiv. I mean seriously. It would get blood all over the wool. Just a little FYI. You know.

cute kids · life

Deep Thoughts

I had the following thoughtful conversation with my 4-year-old when we got home from running errands today:

Him: Mommy, do dogs get old and die?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do people get old and die?
Me: Yes.
Him: People use food to grow up, so I don’t want to eat food and grow old and die.
Me: *sigh*  E4, you need to eat food to live. Do you want to live?
Him: Yes.
Me: Then you need to eat food.
Him: Do mommies get old and die?
Me: Yes, but I’m not going to get old and die for a long long long long time.
Him: Do kids get new mommies when their mommies die?
Me: No, honey. You only get one mommy.
Him: But what would happen to me?
Me: Oh honey. If I died, daddy would take care of you. And aunt Rachel, and Grandma Uma, and Bumpa, and Grandma Suzanne and PopPop Justin. Lots and lots of people love you as much as mommy and daddy love you, so I don’t want you to worry about that, okay?
Him: Okay.
Me: Now, do you want to eat something?
Him: Okay.

It’s hard being a parent sometimes.

Knitting · life · Spinning · Tour de Fleece · yarn

Catching you up

Sometimes you go so long without making a blog post that re-entry is awkward and difficult without an “I’m sorry I haven’t blogged” sort of statement. Generally I try to avoid those because, hey, blogging is a hobby and sometimes I have time for it, and sometimes I don’t. Suffice it to say that not only was July a very busy month, but I have also spread myself rather thin in the social media sphere. I have two blogs, a ravelry, a tumblr, a twitter, and a Facebook and trying to figure out how to integrate them all (or even in part) has been tricky. I mean, I don’t want the tumblr (or the Ravelry) to replace blogging and I don’t want the twitter to replace Facebook. I want them all to sort of support each other. But I haven’t quite managed to solve that puzzle yet. [sigh]

So, what have I been up to, besides not blogging, raveling, tumblring, twittering on occasion, and Facebooking? My last couple of weeks, let me show you them.

1. The Tour de Fleece got finished:

It was seriously fun and I am definitely going to do it again next year.

2. There was a Webs excursion:

I didn’t get much this time. I was mostly along for the ride with a friend who was buying yarn for her holiday knitting.

3. There has been knitting progress:

(click each photo to be taken to the Ravelry project page)

And that’s it, you’re all pretty much caught up now. How has your summer been so far? Keeping busy?

random · Spinning · Tour de Fleece

More Random Stuff

1. The Tour de Fleece is still going and I am still spinning. I made a nice fat hank of Corriedale yarn and started on the Romney fleece.

2. Corriedale is nice to spin, but I still prefer BFL.

(oh how I miss the Kanye Interrupts meme.)

3. There are 6 lbs. of the Romney fleece. I’ve spun exactly 2 ounces and I am already sick of it.

4. You cannot spin at the beach. At least, I haven’t figured out a way to do it. Perhaps w/ a drop spindle, but I don’t fancy sand in my fiber, so no.

5. We’ve been at the beach a lot. But, evidently it’s jellyfish season and since E4 appears to be allergic to their stings, we might not go back for a while.

6. I’ve started the rewriting process on my NaNo. It’s pretty terrible, but not as terrible as I thought. And I think I know where I’m going to start. I think.

7. I was going to work on it this morning, but I spent too much time making the Kanye Interrupting Sheep image and now I have to do houseworky things. Stoopid never ending houseworky things.

Knitting · Meh. · random · Spinning · Tour de Fleece

Random because that all I’ve got right now

1. My energy levels have been all wonky lately, hence the quietness of The Blog.

2. I am working on it w/ my Doctor, but in the mean time, I’ve been spending a lot of time on tumblr. If you aren’t familiar with tumblr, it’s kind of like a step up from twitter. If twitter is a micro-blog, then tumblr is a mini-blog. I’m still trying to get the hang of it, but ya’ll? I really like it. Check it out. You have to be a tumblr follower of mine to leave a comment (which means you have to have a tumblr account) or you can just subscribe to my tumblr rss feed. Either way is cool, but you know how I love the comments.

3. I was playing around with Plurk for a while, as a possible replacement to Facebook, but not enough none of my FB buddies were similarly motivated to follow me over to Plurk, so I give up. I will focus on Twittering and Tumblring instead.

4. Speaking of Twitter, I gave in. I guess now that it’s not in the news every two seconds, it’s more tolerable. The only problem is I find I get that stupid Fail Whale a lot. Twitter, if you’re going to be the “in” thing, please get some more servers! Which reminds me. I am troubled that it isn’t immediately apparent how Twitter makes money. There aren’t any ads that I can see. So, where are they getting the scratch for that operation? It’s a mystery.

5. PEOPLE!! TOUR DE FLEECE STARTS TODAY!!! Are you participating? I’m on Team Hoar!

My plan, since I am new to Tour De Fleece, is to just spin every day and get through as much of my fiber stash as I can. Granted, I am a new spinner, and my stash is not as enormous as it could be, but I do have a fair amount of fiber. Right now I have some Spunky Eclectic Corriedale on my bobbin. When that’s done I’ll move onto the Romney fleece that I’d had processed a while back. There’s a crapton of that, but if by some miracle I get through it all, I will move onto the alpaca and then the quiviut blend that I picked up at the Sheep and Wool Festival in April. GO TEAM HOAR!

6. I started a new sock:

Hopefully, this sock with this yarn will get finished this time.

7. I finished a scarf for E4.

Yes, it is a fun-fur scarf. Yes, I knitted it against my will. But, before you knock the fun-fur scarf, keep in mind that the whole thing only took up about an hour of knitting time. Maybe less. And, when people see the fun-fur scarf, they think you are a god damned genius.

8. We are dog sitting.

My friend and her family went out to Salt Lake for 3 weeks to visit family. Things are going well on this end. Sandy is a very good dog, but she still finds the cats to be terrifying, stabbity creatures. Doozer is still being kind of a jerk, although Lolly has warmed up to her quite a bit. No pictures of them all together, though. It usually doesn’t end well.

9. I’ve printed my NaNo 2009 for a reread/rewrite. I think this could be a good book, ya’ll. But it needs some work. A lot of work. And when I say “a lot”, I mean a LOT. Interested in being a reader? Leave me a comment. I’d love some feedback on it.

And that is all. The Blog is now updated. How’ve you all been?

Knitting

Another dishrag done.

A little park day knitting with my homeschool meetup group

gave way to a FO tonight

[ravelry].

I need another project. Dishrag? Socks? Or perhaps I should get a start on my holiday gift knitting? Decisions, decisions…

Knitting · Lace

A Lace Knitting Breakthrough

Remember how I was making slow and painstaking progress on the Blue Blossom Shawl and feeling extremely stressed out by it? Well, I finally got a clue and made myself a crapton of very delicate and very sparkly stitch markers.

I placed them at the beginning of each pattern repeat, and then something just clicked. Suddenly I could see where I was in the pattern and if when I made a mistake I could catch it quickly and easily. I blazed through the remaining repeats of the center section in no time at all and am ready to move on to the next section. For future reference: stitch markers = lace knitting succeed!

Whiskers on Wednesday

Whiskers on Wednesday

I was sick on Sunday and Lolly kept me company while my fever ran its course.

I’ve never seen her so relaxed. She’s just one of those cats that looks perpetually alarmed. I wonder if she was waiting for me to keel over so she could take over my spot in the bed…