One Crazy Fiber Lady

Project details:

Yarn: Opal Rainforest Flamingo
Pattern: My Own Basic over 44 Sts
Needles US2 – Metal DPNs

Started: 8/4/05
First sock finished: 8/5
Second started: 8/9
Second finished: 8/10

I do so love toddler socks.  I love casting on when I head for work one morning and finishing it heading home from work the next night.  How cool is that?  I’m still giggly over getting the stripes to just about match.  It is more than good enough for government work if you ask me!

I’m going to call it a night.  I got a bonus night without the short people.  My father volunteered to keep them overnight again this week.  Sweet.   I’ll be back to working on Birchington tomorrow during my commute.   Eris isn’t quite commuter friendly at the moment.  Though….  I do have to carry a decent sized shopping bag to the office tomorrow to bring in the new keyboard that I bought for myself.  I’ve been getting hand and/or wrist pain from the various flavors of keyboards that the helpdesk has offered up.  I had had a great keyboard, but seem to remember losing that one when I got the new computer.  Goofy me forgot all about my tactile preferences when it comes to keyboards.  Heck, I liked the old one so much, I bought the same model off eBay for home usage.  (Typing on that bad boy now.)  So what did I do?  Bought another one off eBay for the office.  Nah, the charts and complicated cabling are not train friendly.  Birchington it is until I finish Eris’ collar.  Wow, only two projects on the needles.  Amazing! 

Craft on!

While I haven’t come up with a solution for reading others blogs with the new web monitoring software in place on the office systems, I am trying out the practicality of emailing in posts. I’m not sure if that is like phoning it in, but better than nothing, right? So this is a test of the remote blogging system. If it fails, heck, only I will know that it failed. It if succeeds, I’ll be able to post like no ones business… except with reduced photographs, or maybe photographs as separate posts. But are you tuning in to see the pretty pictures or read the poorly written words? This inquiring mind would like to know!

Hopefully I’ll have a craft update later when I’ve finished Kat’s sock on the train home tonight I’m well into the foot now. I’m still giddy over how well I was able to match up the yarn repeats from the first sock. I’m tired though. I stayed up far too late last night by first playing on the computer and trying to catch up on emails. I then took my shower and curled up in bed with a book, the new HP. Until recently, I’d been reading at most a chapter before the end of day exhaustion caught up to me. Not last night. I read almost 100 pages before I looked at the clock and got a good shock. It was midnight. Do I need to mention that Alex didn’t sleep well last night and was up crying at 2:30. I’m pooped today.

Anyway…

Craft on.

I sat in horror watching the television reports that terrible February day.  I’m sure it comes as no surprise that this acknowledged and outted Trekker was very happy to see the shuttle program resume.  Space is a dangerous workplace but the exploration is a calling.  I cheered as Discovery escaped the planet once again.  I wanted to wait for the full celebration until her safe return.  I tell you there was a victory pump, a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes as she touched down.  Safely.  Welcome home Discovery.

I had a bit of a snafu at the daycare center this morning.  The teacher who was supposed to open at 7:30 completely forgot about it.  I arrived at 7:55 to find a crowd of parents outside with their kids.  Lots of phone calls and folks driving about, I was able to head for work at 8:20, only 15 minutes late.  Late enough to miss the train though.  I opted for the 8:32 bus rather than waiting around for the 9:08 train as I wouldn’t get to work quite as late.  Besides, while the bus isn’t my first choice, in a pinch it does offer up bonus knitting time, especially if traffic was bad. I cast on the second sock for Kat this morning.  Unlike my pair, I actually tried to start the yarn in about the same place.  Instead of 4 rows off for mine, I’m off by stitches, if that.  Take a good gander in the photo.  Cruddy colors.  Mea culpa.  I’ll explain that a bit later.  By the time I got the office, I was two rounds short of the heel flap.  I turned the heel on the train tonight.

My office has/will install web monitoring software.  They’ve also set a computer usage policy.  Sigh.  What that boils down to is less fun internet time at the office.  I doubt that I’m going to be posting every night, unless of course, I can figure out the posting by email thing.  I could always add photos later.  Not like I always post a photo either.  Email response is going to be even spottier than it already is. (My apologies to anyone expecting an email from me now.  I had a deadline today to make and I spent last night rearranging kitchen cabinets as the new melmac has been arriving.)  Seriously, the last thing I want to do after spending a day in front of the computer is to come home and do it again at night.  I also won’t get to read as many blogs as I currently do.  Surfing is not exactly productive.  I’m sure there will be some understanding that a break is needed every now and again.  If not, I’ll take up smoking again and take advantage of the breaks that offered!  Yeah, not likely.  I’ve made it 4.5 years, I’m not starting again… though I could in a heartbeat.  Now might be the time to train myself to do away with the sleeping thing.  Yeah.  Think of how much more I could accomplish if I gained back those 7 hours! All good things.. right?

Craft on.

[Edited to add....]

How could I forget about this?  Elaine and I are co-hosting an Eris KAL.  Elaine did a fabulous job setting up a forum much the same as the Rogue KAL.  It is here.  Read her equally fabulous posting about the KAL on her blog today, here.  Go read it.  Now, go join the forum and the KAL

I always seem to have a hard time getting started on Monday morning’s post.  I have a hard time knowing where to start.  Today is no easier.  It was a busy, productive and fun weekend.  I have oodles of pictures to choose from and lots to recount.  Maybe I should consider weekend posts.  Yeah. 

Anyway…

Friday was a nice afternoon off, except for the 10000% humidity that we were having.  I was so hot and tired by the time I got home that I really didn’t want to do anything.  I was going to pack up them boxes and get them off, but I just couldn’t force myself to.  I did manage to park on the couch and do some spinning.  Wait for it.  With a spindle!  I pulled out the tiny Hatchtown spindle that I bought in Maryland and the Dark Cherry merino/angora roving from Kim and started spinning a nice laceweight single.  Having tucked the spindle and roving in the nice little spindle bag from Journey Wheel (Cummington Acquisition), I did a fair amount of spinning Friday.

I picked the twins up from daycare a little after 5.  They were so tired and cranky that I put them in for a little before dinner nap.  I went about making dinner, a nice light tuna pasta salad, and figured we’d have a happy family meal.  Best laid plans. 

6:30PM they were still asleep. 
7:00PM too. 
7:30PM I considered waking them, but remembered last weekend doing so and regretting it. 
8:00PM I finally had some dinner myself. 
10:00PM I decided I better get to sleep because they’d be up at 0-Dark:30. 
4:30AM I heard Alex.
6:00AM Alex and I had breakfast
7:30AM Kat finally slept enough.

So much for a quick before dinner nap.  They were rather pleasant, but the day was going to be thoroughly off.  Especially as Alex kept falling asleep in the car, first to Kohls at 8:30 and then to ShopRite for the weekly grocery pick up.  After a mid-morning nap and lunch, how did we spend the afternoon?

We visited Deb and Chappy!  The ankle had recovered sufficiently for us to finally go to Nonna’s Yarn Cafe.  I have to agree with Deb’s scouting report on the store.  It has potential and is a project in progress.  The people are very nice, the store is bright and airy and the cafe in the back is cute.  Deb treated to coffee and the most delicious carrot cake.  Thanks Deb!  A bit much of designer yarn for my tastes, and not nearly enough sock yarn (only a few different colors of Sockotta), I was able to come up with a decent purchase.  More on that later.  We returned to Deb’s house for some romping around with Chappy.  Initially nervous around the noisy creature, by the time we were ready to go, the twins were teaming up on Chappy and chasing him around the deck.  They enjoyed watching him play fetch, as did I!  Check Deb’s description of that process, it is a hoot.

Now, back to the purchase.  I posted on Friday that I was going to put Rogue on hold and do Eris instead in the Araucania.  Things never really seem to work as I plan them.  Would you believe that I didn’t have enough of the darn yarn to do Eris?  Sounds vaguely familiar.  I’m not entirely sure what I will do with all that Araucania, but I’m sure it will ripen in stash for something.  I found the perfect yarn at Nonna’s.  Galway Highland Heather from Plymouth in #747.  I can’t find reference to that color number anywhere but I swear, I read it off the ball band this morning. Its a darkgreen/brown heather that reads differently in different lights.  Hell my camera is picking up colors my eyes have yet to see on it!  I actually swatched like crazy to get the two different stitch gauges that are necessary for this sweater.  The collar has one 5.5st/8 rows and 5st/7row for the body.

I’m using the Denise’s in 7 for the body and my Addi Naturas in a 4 for the collar.  The combination of the gauge and the cabling is making for a pretty dense collar.  I love how it is coming out so far.  The picture of the WIP is on top of Yeti’s cage last yesterday afternoon.  I had either been close or reached the end of the second chart by this point and am now well into the third.  Love it.  Love the deep dark hunter greeny color of the yarn.  It holds up nicely to the cabling and really is a good basic yarn.  I’m going to do the cardigan version of the sweater as I just can’t imagine pulling this thing over, in the 40" size.  The cables, while intricate, are not overly difficult and I really do like them.  I’m ever so glad that I’ve gotten over my fear of cables.  Thank you Irish Hiking Scarf.  Thank you Hatmione!

Between naps and knitting, I had the twins outside for a good part of the weekend.  They spent the afternoon yesterday frolicking in the water:

We hit another milestone this weekend.  Kat threw our first throw yourself on the floor tantrum.  My that was fun.  Figured she would be the first.  Stubborn little independent thing.  She was having a fit over not being allowed to wander around with a PopTart.  I know, mean mom.  I was trying to force her into conformity by eating it while seated at the table.  After congratulating her for being the first to throw herself on the floor, I ignored her and went back to cleaning up Alex.  I’m pretty darn sure this won’t be the last.

Last but not least, we have some finished objects to report.  While I can’t show anything yet, the SSSBG is now complete.  I do want to toss it in the wash (tonight) and get it wrapped and gifted.  I do have pictures taken, just ain’t going to post yet.  Hopefully soon.  I can show this though:

Trellis is finit.

Full project details can be found here.  I’m very pleased with how it came out.  Its a very pleasant little sweater to knit and my first really go with a cabled sweater (Big Sack and Mondo notwithstanding).  I finished seaming and sewed on the little buttons yesterday during morning nap.  I got some odd looks from the neighbors as I laid a towel down on the sidewalk for a sunshiney finished picture for you all.  This will be winging its way to New Orleans shortly for my cousins impending baby boy. 

What’s this?  Have I lost my mind and because of a lack of stuff to photograph, I’m posting an old photo again? 

I started socks for the little monkey girl last night on the train home.  I started reducing for the toe on the PATH train ride in this morning.  Whoa.  Talk about instant gratification in the knitting world!  I love socks for their quickness.  I totally adore toddler socks!  I’m not using any particular pattern beyond my basic one with some math done to scale down for the short blocky monkey feet.  Since I’m pretty much winging it, I have been making notes so I can duplicate it for the second sock. 

While Wednesday night I was on the insomnia side of the weird walking coin, last night I couldn’t stay awake.  I tried.  Hard.  I found myself dozing off on the couch and didn’t have any energy for the SSSBG.  I plan on finishing that this weekend.  I want to get it wrapped and in its recipients hands next week.  This super secret stuff is killing me! 

Other than finishing the thing, I really have no plans this weekend.  Though while I’m finishing things, I should really just finish Trellis once and for all.  The poor thing has bee languishing seemingly forever!  Hopefully the weather man has it right and this stiffly HHH nastiness that has been lingering will move on by tonight.  I’ll probably fill up the twins pool on the front lawn and let them go to it.  My parents took Alexander for a haircut yesterday.  What a huge difference a few minutes with scissors makes.  He looks like such a big boy after a haircut.  We won’t get into how shaggy he’d been looking before the cut.  Hell its been some 4 months, or maybe more, since my last trim.  I’ve had to cancel the last two appointments due to some injury the day before.  I’m scared to make another one! 

I’ve been doing some thinking about the sweaters that I’ve lined up on the queue and the yarns that I’ve purchased for them.  I’ve come to the decision that Rogue is going back into the "someday" pile.  I’m going to do Eris first in the Araucania Natural Wool.  I’ve had ChicKnits LoTech Sweat on the queue since I finished Ribby.  I could use either the Patons Classic Merino I bought way back or the Wool of the Andes.  I don’t think I’ll have that many needs for a hoodie that I really need to make two of them, but you don’t know.  Hmm.. I wonder if I could just put Rogue through a pattern shrinker and make it for Kat-Kat instead.  (Kat-Kat is what me and the rest of the crowd, including her brother, call the monkey girl.  It was only a matter of time before I started typing it.)  That might be a challenge I could take up. I like the cable patterns and Kat-Kat needs a new fall sweater so maybe that should ook its way to the top of the queue.  I have that pretty bright fuschia Jaeger Shetland Aran for sweater.  Its the right guage.  By George, I think it could work!  It also fills my burning need right now to knit with wool.  Ahh wool. 

Thanks to its being non-wool, that Soleil in the bamboo yarn is going to be no more.  I’m not enamored with it.  Will it go into dormancy along with the Big Sack Sweater?  Probably.  Until something else demands I use that yarn for it. Maybe back to the FBS that I pegged it for until that butterscotch yarn turned my head. I’m willing to call that Summer Ribby in the CottonEase a forever UFO.  Talk about languishing!  I can’t remember the last time I worked on it.  I do know I swiped its needles for other projects:  one for Trellis and the other for SSSBG.  I have to admit, I’m not liking the CottonEase so much.  I don’t like its very splitty ways.  If I ever get around to doing a summer ribby in a cotton blend, I’ll get a new yarn for it.  I’ll inventory my stock of CE and put in in the Looking for a Home album (hopefully this weekend) and will post when its there.

I’m out of the office at 1 today.  I’ll have 3 hours to myself before I have to pick the monkeys up at daycare.  Oh what to do with myself?  Shop?  Excellent idea.  ‘Cept the ankle isn’t thrilled with lots of walking.  I know, I can finally do all that post office stuf that I’ve been meaning to do for ages.  Speaking of which, that Sockotta is winging its way off to Rosemary in a trade for some of her extremely lovely looking Merino-Tencel blend sock yarn.  Yay!  Everyone have a good weekend.  Stay cool in the Northern Hemisphere, stay warm in the Southern

Craft on!

We have a FO!  I might be primarily a process knitter, but oh how I love finishing stuff.  I’m still task oriented by nature and seriously dig being able to check things off on a list.  Well check off these Opal Rainforest Socks.  Stick a fork in them, they are done.

Project details:

Yarn: Opal Rainforest Flamingo
Pattern: My Own Basic over 60 Sts
Needles US2 – Metal DPNs

Started: 7/24/05

First sock finished 7/27
Second finished 8/3

Loved these socks.  Loved finishing them so quickly.  I have considerable yarn left over and will be making little Miss Kat-Kat a pair.  I have one of her shoes in my purse now to measure in case I can’t find the standard toddler shoe size/sock chart that I once upon a time had. 

I had a bonus child-free night last night.  Way back when, before I got smart, I would turn down my parents offer to keep the kids for the night.  Now?  I’m smart.  Sometime during dinner last night it was decided that the kids should stay with my folks.  Wednesday nights are perfect nights for them to sleepover as mom watches them on Thursday.  No need to twist my arm.  After finishing assisting in the assembly of the newest backyard toy that my father bought, a dip in the pool (it was brutally hot/humid), I went home.  Alone.  Odd it was too.  So what did I do on my bonus night off?  Knitted?  Close.  I pieced knitting.  Umm, have I mentioned my dislike for hand-sewing knitted pieces?  Oh I have.  Yeah.  Not one of my favorite things.  I did put in another 2 hours on the Super Secret surprise baby gift and have another 4 or so to go.  I look forward to a day when the SSSBG is done.

What else have I been up to? I noticed that the twins weren’t oh-so-keen on their toddler friendly plastic plates from Ikea while I ate off the not-so-friendly Corelle.  Last weekend during our meals at home, I opted to use the plastic plates myself so we would be more cohesive.  It was around then that I gave thought to how my folks had handled the issue when I was a kid.  Melmac.  Mom had a serious set of Melmac dishes.  While I can’t remember the exact design, I do vaguely remember this plate covered entirely with blue and white flowers.  I googled Melmac after finding that acrylic plate sets really aren’t too available and struck gold on eBay.  After winning a couple of auctions, I will now have a serious supply of melmac at my home shortly   Who knew that it was trendy?!  I was just being practical.  Anyway, I got a crash course in melmac.  At the same time it was a bit of a walk down memory lane.  All those hideous colors from the 50′s to the 70′s.  I finally settled on the least offensive of the bunch and came up with the Royalon Corsage pattern.  Royalon was the melamine division of Royal China.  Cool huh?

These pictures are borrowed from other auctions.  I think its kind of kitschy and look forward to their arrival. 

Hell it kept me from buying yarn   I started documenting my stash late last week and was shocked by how much I have purchased in the last 7 months.  22.5 miles of yarn!  That did not include a considerable amount of sock yarn or any yarn purchased at Maryland.  It was only the yarn that I either blogged or had a receipt for in my email.  Ooookay.  Need to use some of that up.  Now I just have to keep from bidding on all the Royalon Violet Corsage pieces that show up on eBay.  Everyone needs a hobby, right?  And the violet?  Has to be better than that 60′s avocado green.  Shudder.

Craft on!

Has it really been a week since my last post?  That oh so very rarely happens.  I’ve been busy busy busy and sadly blogging took the back seat.  Now to catch up:

Thursday, the twins and I moved back to our home after 2 weeks living with my folks.  I was nervous to say the least.  Compounding the problem, Alexander came home early from daycare running a fever.  No other symptoms.  Just the 101F or so fever.  He can be pretty icky when he’s sick so I wasn’t relishing having him on my own.  While he didn’t sleep so very well, he did when I took him into bed with me.  Naturally, he woke up just as I was finally falling asleep at just shy of 2AM.  As Laurie pointed out, walking oddly has a mixed bag effect on one’s sleeping.  Thursday was one of the insomnia variety nights.  It did give me some bonus knitting time as I know enough to not fight the insomnia for more than 30 minutes without getting out of bed and trying again later.  I watched Crimson Tide on cable and finished the heel/gusset on the second sock.  Cuddling with mama, Alex was able to sleep through the rest of the night.  Oh yeah, I got some sleep too.

Because of the all night fever, Alex could not go to daycare on Friday.  While Kat could have gone, she’s weird without her brother.  The last time she was there without him, she would be fine for a bit, then look around and cry.  Okay so that was a year ago, but her keeping an eye on her brother hasn’t changed.  Since Alex was staying home, so was Kat.  Mama got to work from home for a change.  The twins nicely cooperated, taking blissfully long naps so I was able to get plenty accomplished and met my deadline.  By Saturday, the boy was better and the fever was gone.

Did I do any knitting.  You betcha!  I knitted my little heart out on the Super Secret Baby gift. Since it is short people friendly knitting, I opted to really pour it on for the home stretch.  It turned into my commuting knitting, as well as the on the couch before bed knitting.  I finished the last bit of knitting on it last night.  By my estimation, I have another 6 hours of work to go towards piecing and end hiding.  I’m pleased with how it is turning out and hope she’ll be happy with it.  I also think that this will become my standard baby gift as I really do like the project on the whole (except that 6 hours to finish business).  Once done and given, I’ll finally post some pictures and details.  I’ll go so far to say now that it was a cotton/acrylic blend yarn that I knit it out of so it will be wash friendly for the new mom.

Having spent so much time now with cotton, my next project will definitely be WOOL.  It will be one of the two projects I’ve been buying yarn for for a long time now:  Rogue or Clapotis.  I did pull out the newest yarn acquired for Rogue last night and started to swatch for it.  Umm, never did blog this acquisition.. or maybe I did.  It was the Araucania Natural Wool in shade 17.  I think the info for this yarn is just wrong.  I swatched on a size 6US needle and came out with 5st/in.  Now Rogue needs 4.5 and the 4.5 in the yarn description is why I bought the stuff.  Could I up the needle size to get the requisite 4.5?  Sure.  But I think the fabric would be far too loose, especially for what looks like a substantial sweater with cables.  I’m not convinced that this is the right yarn for the job.  It might work nicely for Jenna’s new sweater, but I do so want Rogue first.  I pulled out the skeins of Wool of the Andes in that brick red that I bought and will swatch that tonight.  If that still doesn’t work, I have the blue Jaeger Shetland Aran that I used to make the sweater for Alex.  If memory serves, I bought two packs of the blue for the very purpose of using the second for Rogue.  I checked the gauge on Alex’s hoodie last night and I did indeed get a 4.5 st/in on that.

The sock made a reappearance during this morning’s commute.  This morning I returned to the train for my ride in.  I wanted to see how the ankle (which is improving very nicely thank you!) would hold up to the 2 block walk from the PATH station to the office.  It did beautifully.  Nary a twinge.  Yesterday’s busing was a bit less than enjoyable.  On the trip in I got to share my seat with a rather large woman who took the bit of seat I wasn’t using.  Oh yeah, she had excessive amounts of perfume on as well.  Ugh.  The ride home, while spacious, was HOT.  It was 90+F yesterday and the bus had NO AIR CONDITIONING.  Add to that I didn’t get my favorite seat where i could see out the windshield.  I got stuck behind the driver.  There’s this huge solid shield behind the driver.  Gave me some serious claustrophobia on top of the queasy carsick feeling.  Blech.  Driver didn’t quite hear my "Stop Requested" ding and overshot my stop.  Oh well.  Less knitting time, but I’ll have no queasy and other cars to choose if there’s no AC.  The sock?  I’m an inch short of starting to reduce for the toe.  I’ll have to go back to Birchington, but I so wanted to feel the stretch of wool.  Ahhhhh.  Like coming home.  Yup, wool snob I am.

I finally unpacked my new dual ratio Hitchhiker and did a smidge of spinning.  Nice to have a left footed wheel to use while the right ankle heels.  I do so like the wheel and look forward to really getting to play with it some more.  The twins actually took a serious fascination in it and so seriously tried to treadle it. Some fits were had as I tried to put it away.  Maybe when the baby gift is done, I can get some decent spinning time again.  Poor neglected hobby.  Up there with my started and ignored X-Stitch, eh?

As I have no pictures of knitting to show (and the photos I took of the twins at the park were so poorly lit), I leave you with my two four legged boys enjoying a late afternoon sunspot on Saturday.  This is the kind of relationship I was hoping for when I got Baron.

Craft on.