One Crazy Fiber Lady

I appreciate the commiseration for the less than ideal living situation and reminder that this too is going to end.  Soon too.  I’m putting a note in with my rent check next week, giving them my notice that I’m going to move.  That will make it all real, won’t it?  I came home last night to no TV.  Not entirely sure what happened, must check near the garage tonight as I was too darn tired to deal with it last night.  I did make sure to unplug the ReplayTV until I figure it out as the damn thing was trying to record something last night and getting nothing but blue screen.  Just what I’d need it to do, replace all the Big Comfy Couch episodes with blue screen.  Wouldn’t my life be complete then?

I met my sister and two of her other bridesmaids at David’s Bridal last night.  With twins in tow, we all tried on a variety of colors and skirt designs to pick out the faves.  This is the winner.  Sadly the picture of the top doesn’t convey the gorgeous back to it.  It is a pretty dress and as bridesmaid dresses go, awfully good   Unfortunately the whole dress shopping had the twins out rather late.  I didn’t get them into the car to go home until 1/2 hour after their bedtime.  They both conked in the car.  Kat never woke up, even as I took off her shoes and coat.  I plunked her in bed and she stayed down until she turned up next to my bed at 5:30 this morning.  Alex showed up there at 12:30.  At least he wasn’t restless and went straight to sleep.  How we’ve gone from the occasional time in mom’s bed when really sick to a nightly (early morning) routine is beyond me.  I care more about how to break this before waiting for them to grow out of it.  I wonder if I can crate them at night.  Kidding!  It wouldn’t be so bad if they followed normal bed etiquette and kept their heads on the pillow and feet towards the end of the bed.  Nooooo.  I woke this morning with three legs draped across me with a fourth foot poking me in the back.  We did vaguely resemble a puppy pile.

I didn’t knit very much yesterday, understandably as I was a bit tired.  I’m still hoping that I can get Klaralund off the needles tonight, but not if I have to #$% around with the cable wire for most of the evening.  I do have to relate an event that happened which should be noted in the record books.  I went down to Seaport Yarn with a coworker, who needed needles for that MUST START project (yarn arrived the day before ,  and, are you ready for this, DIDN’T BUY ANYTHING.  Can you believe it?  Not even a skein of sock yarn! Not so much as a stitch marker.  I did fondle some Rowan crack Kidsilk Haze in a very yummy orangish color, but was strong and put it back.  There are a couple of projects I want to finish off, need to get the WIP list back under control before I cast on anything else.  Deb’s Lace Neckwarmer or the Orenberg inspired Mountain Stream Scarf are both serious contenders in the crack usage department. But then again, I have CONES of KSHlike yarn from Silk City Fibers just sitting in the twins’ room in 4 different colors.    Oh, did I mention I joined another KAL?  The Sampler Stole Along the Eunny formed, like I do so well at KALs.  Nope, haven’t started it, but I do have the yarn for it sitting in stash.  Would be a perfect use of the J&S cobweb that I bought back during the Shetland Lace workshop. 

Anyway, I’m tired and just rambling now, so I’ll call it a day….

Craft on!

I am one tired camper today.  After a most excellent hour of ‘House’ last night, I turned in early.  Good thing too.  Alex was up on and off crying from 12:15AM until almost 3 when he finally fell back to sleep and stayed that way, in my bed of course.  Naturally Kat was up at 6:15 crying.  Oh there was a short period around 1ish when Alex had drifted off and I was unable to go to sleep as THE NOISE UPSTAIRS was intolerable.  The bedroom above mine has no carpeting on the hardwood floor. Grandma lives in that room.  Grandma seems a bit hyper from anytime I’ve ever come in contact with her.  She WOULD NOT STOP MOVING around last night with those squeaky arsed floorboards and the sliding closet doors.  I finally stood on my bed and banged on the ceiling.  Bitty stopped moving about then.  Damnit, I shouldn’t have to do that.  I can’t wait to move, packing be damned.

Ooops, sorry about that.  Tired spewing.  Feel better now though.  I took advantage of the gift certificate I got having bought diapers from Amazon and picked up a new book.  Surprise.  A knitting book.  Which you can see here with the second sleeve from Klaralund.  I made it to the first garter section last night so I’m halfway done with it.  Will be nice to see this one done finally.  Anyway, I picked up Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Knitting in the Old Way to add to my collection of knitting technique rather than pattern books.  It should fit in nicely with EZ’s Knitting Without Tears and  and Jackie Fee’s Sweater Workshop, not to mention Righetti’s Sweater Design in Plain English.  Anyone get the sense that I’m about to break off from the confines of the printed patterns?  I started reading the book last night and came oh-so-close to just letting the ReplayTV grab House and continue with the reading. 

My next big sweater project (ignore all the other ones I’ve announced, purchased the yarn for and just put on the pile) is one I’m going to design.  Deb and I have been chatting about it for a bit now.  I’m planning on

• a cardigan
• done in the round
• neck down
• with steeks (now that I have them under my belt)
• Cascade 200 – probably a mix of the quatro and a coordinating solid
• Fibonacci sequence stripes

I think between EZ, MR and JF, I could probably accomplish this with minimal tearing of the hair.  Deb and I are off to Modern Yarn a week from Saturday to celebrate our Olympic medals.  I’m going to indulge in some Cascade stash enhancement and see if I can grab me some yarn for this project.  That’s the plan anyway

The new toy, according to UPS Tracking, is out for delivery.  Tonight though involves an early dinner and then off to David’s Bridals to order my bridesmaids dress for my sister’s wedding.  The wedding is in June and a couple of us girls are hitting the shop to order tonight.  It seems either the color she wanted (mystic purple) I or the style top she wanted are being discontinued so we need to order NOW.  My few remaining memory cells are useless right now so details tomorrow.  Maybe.

Craft on.

Edited to add this heads up for those who can take advantage of it:

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I seriously think someone could have lied to me yesterday about the whole "this too shall pass" thing.  Geez.  The short people were pretty good last night and amazingly, Kat dressed herself while waiting for me to change her brother this morning.  She picked out her clothes (not a first but at least they matched today) and stripped off her jammies.  I did have to orient her shirt properly and help her get her second leg into the pants, but she did the rest (except shoes).  When the heck did she get big enough to do that?! 

I managed to get the monkeys in bed just in time to catch the start of ’24′.  Two hours of ’24′.  Two excellent hours of the show.  At the end of the two hours?  Two full bobbins of plied yarn.  Sara is surveying my work for consistency and otherwise acceptibility.  Amazingly the one in front, the larger one mind you, is more of the BL/Wensleydale from the Lendrum, took 45 minutes to finish.  The other is the peachy mix from the Tina and took almost 75 minutes to ply.  You can’t see the color variations in the tensel/merino ply right now.  I’m hoping that when I have it skeined up, I can get a good shot under either the Ott light or {gulp} the actual sun so you can see its goodness. 

Nope, didn’t skein it, but will shortly as I have a new toy scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  A skein winder accessory for the Majacraft wheel!  Wee.  It attaches in place of the flyer and will turn when the wheel is treadled. 

Majacraft Wheelskeiner: this will fit onto the flyer shaft of
all Majacraft wheels and makes it very convenient to skein your spun
yarn from the bobbin. It also allows for variable skein sizes.

How cool is that?  Now I’m doubly glad I picked up that Suzie Pro last fall.  Darn neat-o attachment.  UPS tracking predicts delivery tomorrow.

Umm that whole focus thing?  Nevermind   I barely did any knitting yesterday besides about an inch on the sleeve at lunch.  I was busy reading.  I finished Stephen King’s latest, Cell.  Awesome book.  It had serious shades of The Stand (which is my favorite of his) and is his best in a while.  Now that its done, I can go back and do some knitting.  Darn Klaralund should have been finished already.  Pokey thing.

Craft on!

While I might have learned over the course of the Olympics, that if I focused, I could finish a project rather quickly.  Do you think that lesson has sunken in?  Don’t fool yourself   While I have been working on Klaralund, and did finish the first sleep and the second is well underway, it hasn’t been the only attention getter.

First let me preface by saying that I spent a good portion fo the weekend doing pre-moving sorting and pitching.  I freecycled a buttload of kids clothing and managed to sort out that bin of older yarn in the stash.  (Sorry nothing is worthy of a stash sale and went en masse to a freecycler.)  I’m happy that I no longer have 2 years worth of outgrown clothes cluttering up the kids’ closet.  I’ve also gotten their spring 2T and next sized clothes gathered in a spot as well.  The yarn bin now houses the entire stock of Patons Classic Merino, which btw is far larger than I expected it to be.  These are good things.   

While I was busy being a worker bee, cleaning and sorting, the midget destruction squad was busy elsewhere.  I would emerge from the bedroom with a bag of clothes to find they had emptied the bowl of Science Diet Feline Growth formula kitten chow all over the kitchen floor.  I have to question their ability to understand spoken english as in "Don’t Touch." doesn’t seem to make much sense to them.  Sigh.  Alex managed to get into both my foundation makeup (shut up, I own some even if I never wear it) and some spikey hair gel after being told umpteen times not to touch stuff on mommy’s dresser.  Double sigh.  This too shall pass, right?

Anyway, the short people and this whole gotta pack and move in the next month and a half, left me awfully twisted yesterday.  So what do I do when I’m in that state?  Spin!  I pulled out the Lendrum and filled another bobbin of the BL/Wensleydale and am ready to ply it tonight.  Should be good for the first hour of the double ’24′ tonight (woot).  Still not satisfactorily unwound and as it wasn’t bed time yet, I pulled out my Tina and went back to work on that yummy peachy colored Merino I bought in Cummington and spun the last time I got all seirously twisted in December.  The bobbin in the front is a multicolored merino/tensel blend and the back is the solid merino.  I’m ready to ply the first batch tonight as well.

I looked up from my spinning last night and saw Sara comfortably out cold on the couch.  Tongue sticking out.  Situation normal.  She had a big weekend as she went for a checkup on Saturday and got herself a shot or two.  Well behaved, certainly better than the destructo’s strapped into the stroller torturing each other.

Sigh.

Craft on.

I can’t say that I’m entirely happy about this!  The forecast is for 4-7" of that hideous frozen white stuff that falls from the sky.  My Home is in one of those dark blue areas in the northern portion of New Jersey.  Feh.  I’m done whining now.  As some wonderful comments yesterday reminded me, this too shall pass and spring is on its way.  Lets just hope that lamb gets here soon!  There’s a lamb fleece on its way, but that’s besides the point.

BTW, in case no one has noticed it tucked in the sidebar (especially if your a bloglines reader type), I finally got on the bandwagon (better late than never, right?) and did the Frappr map thing.  Please go add yourself to my map, I’d love to get a sense of where everyone is. 

No retail therapy yesterday, though I was tempted.   Oh wait, I take that back.  I didn’t buy any yarn, but I did pick up a few new patterns.  Glutton for punishment that I am, I they are Knitpicks patterns.  Lightning can’t strike twice, can it?  I did sit during lunch and work on my Klara sleeves.  While I like the idea of finishing both sleeves at once and not having to knit a second thing, I don’t like the practice of it.  They progress far too slowly and I spent more time trying to keep the darn yarn untangled, especially this grippy arsed Silk Garden.  I’m a hair away from slipping one sleeve to a holder and finishing them separately.  Anyway, one of the patterns I bought was the Fair Isle socks, with my new love of stranded work, I thought they would be cool.  Surely not as cool as this sweater that Deb sent me the link to, but cool enough.  Following Cathi’s (blogless) advice to cast on something new, combined with the need for the favorite addiT needles
for socks and the impending arrival of the pattern calling for Knitpicks Simply Stripes yarn, the Idle Moments socks were declared DOA this morning.  Mourn not my friends, they never ingratiated themselves into my heart, even enough to pose for a blog picture, and will be reborn in a cool fair isle pattern.  Instead, I present the Blah Buster Sock(s)^TM.  Yarn choice is FINALLY a skein of Trekking (I had amassed 3 without ever trying the stuff) in Color 100.  I started the Turkish Cast on and will obviously work toe-up.  Having caught the express train this morning, combined with making a quick connection both at Secaucus Transfer and Penn Station, I didn’t get overly far with it, but its helping to cheer up this SADD person with a touch of PMS.

Back to coding…

Craft on!

There’s something in the air, there must be, as it has me feeling a bit unsettled recently.  Unsettled really is the only word that seems to fit my mood.  I’m not depressed, I’m not unhappy, I’m just…  I find myself quick to anger, yelling at the kids, the idiot drivers ahead of me, the doofus in the subway turnstile ahead of me for the smallest infractions.  Heck I’m muttering at my prefered browser as it has "issues" with copy/paste that are sending me over the edge.  Is it seasonal?  Am I just tired of wearing a big coat?  Could be.  Am I dreading the whole packing thing?  YoubetchaIAM. I just wish it was all over.  I slept well last night, getting into bed on time, sleeping mostly through the night with only one interruption to calm Kat after nightmare had her screaming at 2:23AM, and no extra early morning wakeup as a cudly boy climbed into bed for a change.  I just don’t know. 

I hate to say it, I have no knitting pictures to show. I’m plugging away on the sleeves for Klara, both at the same time, which is to say, not getting anywhere fast.  But that is usually okay.  Its the journey that matters, right and not the destination. I don’t even have pictures of new yarns to show.  Maybe I need some retail therapy…

I’ve been meaning to show these for a while.  Since the winter started, I’ve gone back to my commuting via NY’s Penn Station, which means I have to transfer trains in the new Secaucus Transfer Station.  The two stations could not be any less alike.  Penn is dark, dreary and depressing.  Secaucus is light, airy and open.  While these pictures are pretty crappy (and I apologize for that, used the whole camera phone thing), I think you can see the difference between the two quite vividly.  (Penn on left, Secaucus on Right)

Penn is nothing if not utilitarian. Secaucus is a soaring expanse of marble and glass.  It is huge and always feels pretty empty.

A tale of two stations.

Craft on.