Ack!

The order of Knitblogs ring has changed! I can't find anyone! Panic setting in!

Ok, it's not that bad, but it is a little disconcerting. It's like someone came into the house, rearranged the furniture (leaving a few new pieces in the process), and left again.

I've been through two days of retail chaos. Nothing like the first two days after Thanksgiving to get the hysteria level notched up to high. Everyone kept coming into my office, where I gallantly womaned the phones, saying: "I can't get through the aisles out there!" I took it upon myself to remind them that that was a *good* thing and hopefully it ment that we might actually be getting bonuses at the end of the year. (Actually, I'm not holding my breath on that one)

My car rides have been a chance for me to come up with some design ideas. Now I've just got to find the chance to write/draw/chart some stuff out. Maybe tomorrow, after sleeping in and a nap!

Thanksgiving Thoughts

I've knitting to do, family to hang out with, and newly downloaded Paint Shop Pro 7 to play with, so I give this to you now, just in case I don't get to it later:

TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING, BUT I JUST COULDN'T SLEEP
I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS, I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.

THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED - THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE
BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT

TOSSING AND TURNING WITH ANTICIPATION
THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.

SO, I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR
AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE, FULL OF GOODIES GALORE.

I GOBBLED UP TURKEY AND BUTTERED POTATOES,
PICKLES AND CARROTS, BEANS AND TOMATOES.

I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,
'TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN, I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.

I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING, FLOATING INTO THE SKY
WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFUL OF PIE.

BUT, I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES....
HAPPY EATING TO ALL - PASS THE CRANBERRIES, PLEASE.


MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY, MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.
MAY YOUR POTATOES 'N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP,
MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,
MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OF YOUR THIGHS.

Have a great day!

(I can't claim credit, it came from an email from one of my many SIL's)

Wow

Theresa made me Aortal! How cool is that? (I'm suprised that you're not blinded through your monitors by my grin!)

*My* No Hole Technique

Alison asked how I avoid the holes when I'm doing short row wraps on my sock heels. I think what I do is a mix of things that I picked up here and there that works for me.

First: I slide my wrapped stitch from my left hand needle to my right hand needle.

Second: I lift the two wraps up and over the "working" stitch, creating three seperate stitches.

Third: I slide the "working" stitch and the first wrap back to the left hand needle without twisting them so they look like an upsidedown 'U'.

Fourth: I slide the second wrap stitch back to the left hand needle, but I twist the stitch so it wraps around the needle.

Fifth: I knit all three stitches together through the back of the loops.

Clear as mud, yes? As I said, it may not be the classic method, but it works for me! :)

Umm, remember how I said that I wasn't going to work with the yarn that was delivered to me at work until after the holidays?

Nevermind.

I have a nasty case of 'Startitis' right now. Tony has agreed that there is no hope for me, for a cure is not known. Now I just wish that I could catch 'Finishitis' so at least I'd have some balance!

Sometimes I Have to Remind Myself...

That just because I don't agree with things that someone says, even if they make me angry, that doesn't mean that there isn't something that I can't learn from that person. Some days I have to remind myself of that more often than others.

Turn and Turn Again

Almost got the heel of my sock turned the other night then I decided that I hated the way that it was coming out, so I ended up ripping back to the start of the heel and doing it again. I was much happier with the way it came out the second time. I don't get why some people have such a hard time doing short row wrapped heels, make such a bit deal about it. It can be time consuming, yes; but I like the results.

I got yarn in the mail at work yesterday! WooHoo! S.E.X. at work, gotta love it! I'm planning a major Fair Isle project for myself for after the holidays. Now I just have to convince myself that there is absolutely no, no, NO reason to even think about starting until then! Right?

Yawn

I feel like I should have something to say, but I don't. I got to spend a very nice couple of hours knitting yesterday, feeling somewhat guilty all the while that someone elses babysitter was looking after my kid too. I'm thinking that I should have offered her something for her time. But I got a good half dozen plus rounds done on Project X. Which, at 240 stitches per round, ain't hay. It just seems like I haven't gotten far because I am working in the round, rather than back and forth.

And I had a coworker call me crazy today because I was even considering steeking (once I explained to her what it was). "Well that's dumb. Just work back and forth on the front and back when you get to the arm holes." *sigh* Everybody knows what I'm doing better that I do...

Today is one of those days when I could really use a cigarette! (Nope, I won't)

OK, I'm going to stop bitching and go do some knitting. I'll turn the heel on the first funky stripe sock tonight, so I'll feel like I accomplshed something today.

Great American Smokeout!

A subject near and dear to my heart. I quit smoking almost six years ago now, and I have done easier things (giving birth comes to mind); but I did it!
And if I did it, so can you. Won't you please give it a try? And if you want someone to hold your hand, and slap it if necessary, I will gladly be there for you!

Going Knitting!

Hooray! Today I get to go hang out with a couple of fellow knitters! And with the offer of free babysitting, how can one say "No, not today, Thank You". It would take a much stronger soul that I, I assure you.

It also helps that we have kids around the same age, so they amuse each other.

What a perfect way to spend a gray day.

See me in French! (Cool!)

Irina wore her Kokopelli sweater to preschool today. When I picked her up one of her teachers went absolutely ga-ga over it! Turns out that she's a Kokopelli addict, had him on three silver rings and everything. When she found out that I made the sweater she asked if I could make one for her. I did tell her that it wouldn't be cheap. She was like "40? 50 dollars?" I said "More like $200."

"Oh, I'd pay that for a hand made sweater."

Hmmm, we'll see if she's serious.

I'm trying another new commenting system (agaaaaaain!) Hopefully this one will work more often than not.

Rough day today

Have I ever mentioned that dealing with depression sucks? It do. I'm coping with the day by hanging out, knitting, and watching theWeather Channel . (Am I the only freak of nature who can watch it for hours on end?)

I'm almost done with 3.5 inches of k1, p1, in the round, on size 4 needles for 176 stitches. I'm majorly procrastinating putting the sleeves on the snowflake sweater, but I plan on getting it done this week. Really. I do.

Things That Really Tick Me Off

I received this email today as part of a group mailing from a friend. I have reprinted it here with her permission

Dear ones...

This has been a doozy of a couple of days. My son has
made me so very proud of him...herewith the tale:

Steve has worked for Whole Foods (an upscale, socially
responsible, healthy food store) for a couple of
years. He's been one of their "prepared foods"
managers - the guy who runs the deli and manages the
crew of folks who bring you healthy and delicious
taste treats. And life has been pretty good for him -
he has been looking forward to year-end and the rather
large bonus to be paid to all employees because of a
profitable year.

About six months' ago he was "written up" and
"reprimanded" for feeding a homeless person. You see,
prepared foods have a "holding time" and then must be
disposed of. He was getting rid of the food (putting
it in a dumpster) when this guy came up to him and
said he was hungry. Steve did the obvious. He gave
him food. And was "written up".

On Wednesday, there was a repeat of this scenario...he
was dumping food (unsellable but very edible) and a
homeless person came up and said he was hungry. Steve
gave him food. And this time he was fired...for
violating company policy.

The disparity between Whole Foods' policy of "social
responsibility" and the obscenity of throwing food
away in the face of hunger is unbelievable.

I am hoping he follows up, both with the Whole Foods
regional office and with one of the local newspapers.
It's completely up to him, of course, as to what
course he will take with the situation.

He can always get a pretty good job as a cook (he has
run small restaurants and done short order cooking
before coming to Whole Foods)...and meantime, I am
very, very proud of him.

mj
proud mom

This man was penalized for having a good heart and having the courage to do what was right. If this has bothered you as much as it has me, go to Whole Foods and let them know!!! Check with the Whole Foods and Bread & Circus stores in your area and find out what their policies are. If they can afford to throw food away, they can feed a homeless person. There is no excuse.

What Type Of Retro Gal Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Working on the Next Generation

I took a quick trip to the lys yesterday to pick up a size of circular needle that I did not have (Yes, they do exist). While I was there I picked up a pair of short wood needles for the small girl. We had had a short knitting lesson the other day and trying to use long needles was very hard for her. When I came home she was very excited to have her very own knitting needles and started "knitting" right away! (OK, so she's just stabbing the ball of yarn over and over again with the needles, it's a start!)

When she woke up this morning she came and crawled into bed with us for an hour. (Is there anything better than snuggling up to a warm kid?) I woke up to hear her saying: "I have to get up Daddy. I want to go work on my knitting."

Starting Again.

Even though I was most of the way up the back of Project X I've ripped it out so I can start again. Why? I just decided that I didn't like what I was doing. It didn't feel right. I wasn't enjoying it. And hey, if you're not enjoying it, why continue?

I've already started again. I'm winging it this time. I'm not following a specific pattern, but using a mix of some of the ideas in the Philosophers Wool Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified book. Why? Because I'm crazy enough to think that because I've read the book and can understand the concepts even though I've never tried them before.

Or it could just be because I'm crazy.

Wait a minute!

Christmas is in SIX weeks!!!

How the heck did that happen???

I finally finished knitting the second sleeve of the snowflake sweater last night. It came to me yesterday that I was having such a hard time finishing it because I'm afraid that I screwed up really badly and made it too small. Mind you I'm pretty, reasonably, almost, sorta, not even close to certain that it's going to fit properly.

Oh damn, I really just don't know. I know that there are parts of it that I'm not crazy about (I don't like the arm increases, for instance), but I'm the only one who's ever going to notice them. At least I hope that no one's going to be running around lifting my kid's arm to look at them! For some reason I'm feeling strangely panic-y about this sweater. I think I just need to finish it and be done with it.

Am I being weird?

My hair stayed longer, Irina's got shorter, yarn was picked out, and I paid a whopping overdue fine (which would have been worse but wednesday is half price fine day).

I have to admit that I'm not too crazy about the yarn that Irina picked out, but this is her sweater. Now I'm concerned that I didn't buy enough of the main color, which is the red. I know that there were two more skeins of it left so after I do the back I'll have to judge if I need to go back and get them.

Planning the day...

The short one and I are having our hair cut this afternoon (I am torn between letting my hair grow long again and saying the hell with it and having it all cropped off), so that means she needs to be dumped in the tub and scrubbed this morning. We usually hang out so Irina can play with my girlfriend's son but she sounded like she was on a fairly tight schedule today, so I don't think it's going to be an option.

Then I want to go to a LYS to scope out yarn for Irina's design. I know that yarn that I want to use, but I don't know if the colors will be in stock or if I'm going to have to order them online. Ordering them may be the better choice, but I want to fondle fiber and see the colors next to each other.

After that it's off to the library to return some overdue books (One a Philosopher's Wool one that has me really interested in this steeking thing. Maybe I could do it after all!) The only hassle I have with the library is that they expect you to bring the books back! The nerve of them!

Time to get motivated on the day!

Hey Boston area knitters! Martha is putting together a list of reviews of local/Massachusetts LYS. Check out the list and see if you can help out. I've already put my two cents in (Ok, it seemed more like .85, but that's because I'm wordy.)

I still haven't gotten the sleeve finished; but I am so freakishly ready to start a new project. Irina drew a picture of a sweater that she brought to me and asked me to knit for her! How can I resist? She even colored it in so I'd know what colors to make it.

*sniff* My baby's a budding knitwear designer. Makes a Momma proud!

I only have eight rows left to do on the second sleeve of Irina's snoflakes sweater. So why can't I seem to get it done?

I hereby declare my current redesign done! ('bout damn time) I had a large, screen size picture for the background, but it took forever to load! Now I can go and do some knittng...

I think I'm a frustrated web designer. It's the only excuse I can come up with changing this thing so much.

Comments are missing, I know how to fix it, but I just ain't going to do it right now. BTW, the yarn in the picture was a gift from a friend! Bunny angora! Gotta love it! (Thanks YarnFairy! I Love Ya!)

Ok, I know it's a little hard to read. I'm going to work on tweaking the text colors tomorrow. I though about having the table scroll over the background image (I know I've seen code for it somewhere), but the more that I thought about it the more that I realized that actually bugs the heck out of me on pages that do that. I'm always getting distracted by the background not moving.

Anyhow, I started doing this three hours ago! I did not intend to do all of this tonight, but I got a little carried away...

They're coming to take me away, ha ha, hey hey...

I'm trying something new! :) Please bear with me!

Now if I could only figure out what was going on with my comments...

I am a sock knitting geek

I enjoy doing toe-up socks. I know that they aren't a lot of peoples favorites, but I like the fit that I can get from it as you can try it on your toes to see how the sock is fitting and stop adding stitches when the sock is the right size.

Currently the method that I have been using to get the stitches on the needles is by using a figure eight cast on, but I hated, swore, and mumbled the whole time I've been doing it. Either I was wrapping the stitches on the needles too tight to be able to put the needle through, or the cast on row was really loose and I just couldn't snug them up enough to make a decent toe.

I don't know why, but when I was working on Irina's socks something clicked. It suddenly dawned on me that it was OK if the stitches were loose because I could look at them from the inside and know exactly which stitches to pull, and in what order, to close the toe. They had order. They had symmetry. They made beautiful sense. I understood the manipulation of the stitches.

I began new socks today. These will be for me. And I love the toes.

I know that my kid has recovered because she's driving me out of my mind!

I've been knitting a hat today. Would you believe that in all the years I've been knitting I've never made a hat? Or mittens? For some reason the compultion/desire just has not been there. But Irina asked me to make one, so who am I to say no? Actually Tony has also dropped the hint that he's going to need a hat, as he lost the one that he was wearing last winter.

Dang. I need chocolate. I wonder if I could raid the Halloween candy without someone seeing me. (Yes, we still have some left)

Don't you hate it when you spend forever looking at a site and it has tons of great links and you want to go back...and realize that you forgot to bookmark it despite your best intentions and can't for the life of you remember what it's called?

Oh. You don't?

(found it. Knitting Pages)

I decided yesterday that it was time to try and get a handle on my stash. (Rather, to find out just how big my stash is) So with the help of my two assistants I pulled it out of its multiple hiding spaces and dumped it all on the bed.

Then I loosely attempted to sort it by weight, but that could have worked better. So I settled for just taking some pictures of it.

Of course it struck me later in the day that that is not all of it! I very distinctly remember having some things that didn't end up on the bed. Hmmm. There are only so many places in this apartment that things could have gone...

And it also begets the question:
If I have so much yarn, Why do I want to go buy more???

A 25 carat diamond? A $3.5 million (that's MILLION) dollar ring??? And how many hungry children could they have fed instead of indulging in this gross display of wickedly bad taste??? I'm disgusted.

(My personal opinion, and if you don't like it Pbthththththththth)

My poor sweet baby was coughing like crazy all night last night. She's hanging out on the couch watching "Hey Arnold" and hopefully will fall back to sleep soon. It's frustrating because we can't get her to take any medicine, which completely baffles us. I mean, when we were kids we had no choice, we took medicine when we were sick. (And it was the really nasty tasting stuff!!!) My sweet girl becomes a screaming demon if we even suggest it. Sigh. Any suggestions?

(ed. Turns out to be croup, poor kiddo. She's feeling much better now!)

We're having an incredibly lazy morning around here. (Morning? It's afternoon now!) I suppose I ought to get dressed at some point...

Well, I knit a sock for Irina yesterday, but screwed it up royally. I'm doing toe up and didn't use enough stitches for the heel. As a result after turning the heel, it ended up looking like something that you'd wear over a high heeled shoe! OOPS! (Irina insisted on wearing it anyway) So I started all over again...At least kid's stuff goes fast!

Feel Better Mommy!!!

Visit the Princess, dammit!

And a shout out going to another Boston area Knitting Blogger! Hello Kenneth!

Have you seen the Dale sweater that Alison is working on over at Blue Blog? Very cool! I'm going to have to see if I can find the pattern, and if it can be made big enough for the short one. (But it involves steeking! EEEEEEK! I'm not that brave!)

I find that I've just been feeling really...sad...over the past few days. I haven't done any knitting (Pick up the needles, do a row and put them down again). Nothing inspires. I may go and root through my sock yarn and see if anything in there wants to be a mindless project.

Ever feel lonely in a crowded room?

I cannot believe what I just found in the trash in our laundry room! (No, I don't make it a point to go through the trash; but this was sitting right on the top and I had to check it out):

A hand loomed, 100% wool sweater from Ireland!
And why did this person toss it (And it literally looked like someone took it off and threw it in the trash! It was inside out and the sleeves were pulled through):

I didn't see the hole until I had it upstairs soaking in the sink, but hey, that it going to so easily fixable!