Knitting Helps

I have been moody lately. I have been cranky lately. I haven't been knitting lately. Wonder why it took me so long to make the connection...

Knitting is calming and soothing and makes me feel better. Even when it's a baby hat that lasts all of fifteen minutes before I realize that the cute little I-cord top knot is going to be on the inside because I did something wrong. Or a worsted weight acrylic shawl that I'm not sure I'm doing right because mine looks nothing like the picture. I may keep going to see how it looks after a few more repeats or post a question to the list I found it on. Or frog it and make the baby blanket I was going to use that yarn for.

The important thing is that knitting made me feel better.



And last night, I cast on new socks. These are working. These are going to get finished. I'm going to protect them so they don't meet the same sad fate as the Pretty Comfy socks or the Opal socks and get their needles ripped out by a small person who doesn't realize how mean to his mommy he's being. I should probably put in a safety line to protect them from me.

The pattern is Traveller Socks. I'm using dpns instead of the Magic Loop and my usual toe instead of the one in the pattern. I've added to the stitch count so it'll fit my feet. I guess about the only thing I am using is the suggested yarn weight and the cable. I really really like this cable. There's stuff twisting and shifting every other row and I've never done anything that has me purling from the cable needle. It's fun.

I can't wait until the kids are in bed so I can play with it some more. That's at least ten hours from now. Unless I can get them to nap.

If I loved my sewing room before, I can't come up with the words to describe how I feel about it now. Ever since my parents brought over the steamer trunk and doll house and cedar chest last week, I've been fighting the urge to jump up and down screaming "it's mine mine mine mine mine!" I thought it would be bursting at the seams once I finally got everything in there, but there's room to spare and I've still got the bed, which I need for nursing the baby and blocking stuff on.



I've been waiting twenty years to get the steamer trunk. It's been mine since I was in junior high, but it's been in Mom and Dad's attic the whole time. The only reason I've finally got it now is because they sold the house and had to move it. It's probably close to a hundred years old, and it's been in the family since it was new, which makes it even more of a treasure. I think I'm going to keep lace weight and sock yarn in the drawers, which aren't very sturdy.



Grandpa made the doll house for me when I was three. Now it's full of yarn. The cedar chest belonged to my other set of grandparents and was on its way to Good Will or a garage sale. It's kind of ugly, but I wasn't about to turn down a free cedar chest.

At 5am this morning, I was curled up on the couch in the front room (my oldest woke me up at 4:30 because she had a tummy ache, so I was up anyway) trying to figure out how to do buttonhole stitch. By the time I got to the second teacup, it was starting to look fairly presentable.



I got all three teacups outlined before the rest of the family needed me to do much of anything. And, while the babies were napping this afternoon, I took apart my sewing machine and cleaned it, which solved the nasty tension problems I've been having. That's a huge weight off my shoulders because even though I knew I could take it in to the sewing machine store, I still had the awful looming dread that it would never work right again and I'd have to use my nine year old's machine.

Now I've just got the three teapots to outline, and a whole lot of little tiny squares to piece together.

It's a Start

Now I've got to find some black embroidery floss to outline the applique with and finish cutting the 210 little bitty squares to make the borders.

It's been a productive two days!



I finally finished the pineapple hat, which felt like a lot more work than a baby hat should be. Those 200+ purl 3 togethers just about did me in. But the color and texture are great. I'd make the leaves shorter if I did it again, which I don't really want to, but Alex would wear one and I've got enough yellow yarn left over. Wonder how many purl 3 togethers there'd be if I sized it up for a 9 year old...

I put the new baby swing together last night, which ate up most of my knitting time and was an even worse pain than the pineapple. But is totally worth it because the little baby boy who must be held by mommy at all times LIKES it!!!! I got rid of the old swing when we were moving so I could justify buying one of the nice new ones they've got now, then somehow forgot that there was such a thing. I am SO excited about this swing and the possibility that I'll have enough time to pee or make lunch without him crying.



And, as of about 12:45am, Chaos is done and came out a lot better than I thought it would. I cast on earlier this year, when I was finally out of the hospital and could get my hands on the color yarn I wanted and some dice. The random cables kept me entertained and happy until I realized that the front and back weren't the length they needed to make the button band at the shoulder. (A row gauge problem?) I'm not a fan of buttons on baby sweaters anyway, and I was so sure I couldn't make it work that I shoved it into a drawer and have been ignoring it ever since. Tonight, I undid the neck shaping, knit four more rows of the cable pattern, and turned it into a sort of boatneck thing. Maybe not the best choice for a baby who can squirm out of his cute little sleepers like Houdini, but an impractical sweater's more useful than an unfinished one.

At the Bird Feeder

We're getting used to lots of cute little fellas snacking at our bird feeders, but Heath was surprised when he got up this morning and found this one! I think his new name is Airforce.

The pattern is "Birdie" from Handknits for Kids by Lucinda Guy. I used leftover Caron Simply Soft for the main color and some ancient Caron Wintuk for the belly and beak. I started him because I thought he'd give me a chance to practice my finishing skills, but by the time I got the last little bird piece done, I gave in to bad lighting and impatience and the difficulty of seeing backstitching on dark blue yarn and he's probably the worst finishing I've ever done. But the kids like him. And did I mention that he's done?

Now on to the pineapple hat....