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....

More Quilts

Today it was the quilt show in Halsey. The quilts were draped across the church pews, which was neat. But I'm not sure it was worth the $3 to get in. We saw more quilts hanging in some of the shops we visited earlier this week.



I made this without a pattern, starting with the instructions for a round shawl from the Yarn Harlot's new book and then doing my own thing. It doesn't lay flat, but I'm hoping that's because I miscounted my rows. I really really really want to knit myself a pi shawl, and I've got a couple of ideas for round baby blankets that I'd like to try. One of these days. When I've got time.



And I got a couple more pieces of Birdie done. He'd probably be a quick project if I wasn't living in new mommy time. For me, everything is taking forever and ever and ever...

I don't like any of my WIPs (except maybe the pink socks), and it's extra frustrating because most of them are things I should be able to finish, or at least get back on track, in a couple hours of knitting. Wish I had a couple of hours to spend on it.

We've been on a Quilter's Safari

ten quilt shops in two days with four kids....really cute T-shirts...enough neat eye candy to make my brain numb...gorgeous fabric that I can't wait to make into a quilt...gorgeous fabric I'm not sure exactly what to do with...cheap sock yarn...lots of new ideas for future projects...

I'm exhausted. The kids must be just as tired because they've all been asleep long enough for me to cast on a new dishcloth and get a few inches done.

They Don't Sleep

My babies won't nap. They're sneaky and get their sleep in the car while we're running errands.

But I did manage a few rounds of the pineapple hat last night with all four of the kids crawling on me.

Sometimes a long nap or a good movie can work wonders. Yesterday while the littlest was napping and the big three were watching King Kong for the second time (gotta go out and buy us that one, because even though I think the villagers are the creepiest thing I've seen in a long time, the kids think it's the best thing since Jurassic Park), I plugged in the sewing machine and iron and pulled out my churn dash squares. I was hoping to get one or two of them assembled before Leif woke up.

Do you see this?!



This is all nine completed blocks AND some of the setting squares --- and the baby was still sleeping when I quit for the day because the rest of the family was ready to watch The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm hoping for another long nap this afternoon so I can get the rest of it together. Then I'll have to come up with something for the borders, which may involve a trip to Joann's.

I'm not participating in Use What You Have Month, even though it's a fantastic idea. I've got some money to spend and there are good sales going on at the same time and I just spent almost a year trying to use what I had and feeling guilty every time I did buy yarn or fabric. So this month I'm happily adding to what I have while I can. Any other month, I would've loved this.



I did cast on for the pineapple hat and manage four rounds before stopping for the night. I don't like purling three together once, let alone every fourth stitch! I've avoided stitch patterns in the past because I was intimidated by the instruction to "k1 p1 k1 into the same stitch," but that turned out to be the easy part. It's the purling that's hard. I'm going to keep plodding away and see if it gets any easier.

I was up until 2am working on projects. It would've all worked out very well except for stupid daylight savings time which meant that 2am was really 3am, and by the time you add in waking up to feed the baby, I don't even want to think about how little sleep I'm running on.

The second Julia Hat, this one in Sock it to Me! Esprit, is done. I love the color and texture, but doesn't fit my 7 1/2 pound baby, so there's no way it's going to fit the little guy I was knitting it for. And since it didn't photograph at all well, I'm not going to waste bandwidth on a blurry reddish blob.

Half of the evil awful Walmart Mainstays yarn has finally been transformed into something kind of neat. I bought 2 skeins after someone on one of the lists recommended it, thinking I'd try a baby blanket. This stuff is so scratchy and nasty even I can't convince myself to knit with it. I would've taken it back to the store, but the receipt got thrown out so I buried it in a dark corner of my stash until the hula skirt pattern in New Knits on the Block got me thinking that it could have a use after all. Instead of following the pattern, I made it up as I went along. At the time, that seemed easier than getting out the book. Start to finish, with breaks to hold the baby, it only took about two hours.

Tonight's plan is to cast on for the pineapple baby hat.

Flash Your Stash 2006

It's flash your stash time again!

My sewing room is a total mess. This is how it looked after I spent some time straightening things out. It's been too cold up there to do more than dash in and find what I'm after or shove stuff in the door. But the weather's getting nicer, so when I can take the baby up without freezing his (or my) little toes off, I'll get things put away.





Doesn't look like much, does it? There's a ton of cheap acrylic, enough sock yarn for 35 pairs of adult socks (yeah, I bought more), and a few skeins of nicer stuff that are in a sad little pile because I stole the plastic drawers they were carefully stored in so that the quilting stuff in the dining room would look like it was put away. I'll get new drawers for the yarn one of these days.

I feel like I should go knit something...

A little bit at a time, I'm managing to get things done.

I finished two more quilt squares...



Even I can't ignore the problems with the bottom left hand block, so as soon as I can get the baby to sleep without me holding him, I've got a date with my seam ripper. Once I get it all put together, it'll be just the right size to tuck into Leif's car seat.

I finished the pink baby blanket...



The pattern is Janice's Easiest Ever Lacy Blanket. I used a skein of Caron Simply Soft, cast on 91 stitches, and knit until I was almost out of yarn. It would have been done a lot sooner if someone hadn't kept yanking it off the needles.

And I'm slowly getting some embroidery done...



The quilt pattern is in Favorite Applique and Embroidery Quilts by Betty Alderman. I'd been sort of wanting to try some redwork, but hadn't found the perfect pattern yet. This is beyond perfect! I love that it's blue...I love the pictures, especially the birthday cake and the cute little house...I've done crazy quilt blocks like this before, they're easy...

I can't wait to get the embroidery done so I can start putting the blocks together!

on the trail of my chickens...

I think I might have remembered which library book the chicken quilt was in. If they aren't in Scrap Frenzy (which I won't know for sure until I pick it up at the library next week) they were in another book I had checked out at the same time. Wonder how long the babies will let me stand there and flip through quilting books before people start giving me dirty looks?

What happened to my chickens?

I've been playing around with Butterfly at the Crossroads, a pattern from The quilter's recipe book : all the ingredients you need to create over 100 fabulous quilts, working on four blocks, each in different yellow and red prints. The finished quilt should come out about the right size to tuck into the car seat.

It didn't hit me until I had almost all of the cutting done that the red fabric was my chicken fabric. I've got a vivid memory of standing there in the fabric store and picking out just the right red and black prints for my chickens. What I can't remember is what the pattern looked like, what it was called, or whether it was in a magazine or a library book. I can't even remember if my chickens were going to be appliqued or paper-pieced.

Even though I like the way these yellow and red blocks are turning out, I feel a little sad about sacrificing my chickens. There might be enough fabric left for them, but I won't know until I find the pattern...this is going to haunt me, I can tell....

Acrylic!

I went to the OB for my six week checkup today and while I was in town with only one baby, I dashed into the LYS. I swear, even with a list of planned purchases that includes things I know they carry, I can't manage to spend money in that place!

I wanted 3 skeins of Fixation. They don't carry it.

I wanted the Wonderful Wallaby pattern. They carry it, but were sold out.

I wanted a skein of Cotton Fleece. They had two left on the shelf, one in the pale yellow color I'd been imagining. But it looked dirty and even though I'm sure the dark stuff was just fluff from a neighboring skein and would come off okay, $7.25 is more than I'm willing to spend on yarn that isn't pretty and clean.

They didn't even have the pattern for the really cute little girl cardigan that was laid out next to the cash register. Which I guess is okay, because it didn't come in Alex's size.

Walmart, on the other hand, was very easy to buy yarn at. I was only going to pick up five skeins of dark green Caron Simply Soft, if they had it. I've already made two trips to the store near our place (where there is an empty wire bin and they expect to get some eventually) and was starting to think I'd have to try all three of the Salem stores before I found any. Salem store #1 didn't have a single skein, but they did have it in Barn Red, which is even better. They also had a vivid yellow that will make a great pineapple hat, and I had to get two skeins of contrasting blue for the Cozy Diamond Wrap from Modular Knits.

I wasn't paying attention to the difficulty levels while I nursed Leif in the parking lot and flipped through the library books I'd picked up on the way to the doctor. It's probably a good thing I didn't look at Wrap Style, or I might've wound up bringing home a lot more. Like the 3200 yards of worsted weight it would take to knit Cashmere Crossings. Yikes! I love it, but that's a lot of yarn, which means a lot of knitting...

I'm starting to covet cheap (but nice) acrylic. Especially Caron Wintuk, which I've liked for quite a while, and Caron Simply soft, which a friend on one of the lists was just saying wonderful things about. I read her posts without really paying attention. Then I stumbled across a baby sweater I'd knitted with it a couple of years ago and something finally clicked. I've been getting sick of Wool-Ease and here's this stuff that's softer, comes in a lot more colors (at least in the stores around here) and is even a lot cheaper. Yippee!!

I've got sock yarn. I've finally found some needles that seem willing to cooperate with my lace weight. I've got enough acrylic for the projects I want to start right now (not counting the ones I found in the library books last night.)

I'm a happy knitter.

This is neat! Too bad the only feltable green wool I think I have is tied up in a pair of Quinn's socks. I will not frog them, even if it is the perfect shade of green and the socks are too bulky to fit in his new tennis shoes and he doesn't have the slightest bit of interest in anything his mommy knits for him. Tearing apart the kids' clothing so I can cast on for a new project is probably one of those things a good mommy wouldn't do.

I wouldn't take his socks even if I could get the pdf file to open. I'm supposed to be knitting cute little booties and hats and sweaters instead of planning new projects. There are four babies I want to make things for, not including my own two. And they're all growing, so I'd better do their knitting first!

The first baby gift was going well. I'd planned a matching hat, socks, and sweater and had just the right yarn and patterns picked out. There was plenty of time to all finish it before the shower. After a day and a half of knitting, I realized that even though the hat is going to be really cute, it's not nearly girly enough.

So now I'm working on a baby blanket. It's pale pink and the feather and fan pattern I'm using is girly as can be. And I just realized that I left it in the front room with three of my kids-- gotta go!

After reading a post about a Clapotis Dishcloth on the Monthly Dishcloths KAL, I had to set aside Heath's Parade socks just long enough to cast one on. This yarn has been sitting around forever, waiting for just the right pattern.



I love projects that jump onto the needles out of nowhere and are done almost before you know it.

The socks are done too --



Do you see how perfectly those stripes match? I'm glad it happened on its own because there's no way I could have done that on purpose! The heels are some grey Kroy sock yarn that I think I bought to make a baby hat with. The color should work with all four colors of Parade I ordered, which is a relief since the big two suddenly seem to have awfully huge feet and I'm not going to buy a second skein of sock yarn just to make the legs of their socks a couple of inches longer.

It's always Knitpicks stuff....

"Is it Knitpicks stuff? It's always Knitpicks stuff...."

That's what my nine year old asked when I called her to the computer to look at something. It was Knitpicks stuff, because the Knitpicks site makes it so easy to find such neat stuff. I was flipping through their catalog a few days ago and found New Knits on the Block by Vickie Howell, then had to go see if the "view inside pages" link had a picture of the mermaid costume. Now I'm dying to get my hands on the book and see how it's done and what kind of yarn it calls for.

And, like I needed any more reasons to love Knitpicks, the same catalog shows the Lace Up Scarf/Wrap/Afghan that I fell in love with in Alterknits. I can make it for $46.06 -- as opposed to the $300+ that the recommended yarn would cost. That's if I used the Andean Silk. Now that I know it can be done with worsted weight (the pattern calls for multiple strands of stuff) I could use WOTA....or Super Saver! Is it just me, or does it seem a bit weird that the pictures in the Knitpicks catalog show the project much more clearly than the ones in the actual book?

My knitting has not being going well. Quinn got his hands on the Pretty Comfy Socks again, and...all four needles came out and...well...they're not a WIP anymore. I love the way Esprit knits up, but picking up stitches is beyond me.



I don't want to admit how many times I've cast on for the lace wristers. After a lot of counting and fussing, the first one is done except for the seam. I like the way it came out, but I'm not really looking forward to knitting its mate. I'm not sure if the best part of this little project was finally finding a good use for one of the first skeins of "yarn store yarn" I ever splurged on or figuring out how to do a knitted edging.

Frozen Lake started out well. My yarn and needles were playing nicely. I wasn't making stupid mistakes. Then I got to the part about adding full repeats and half repeats and my poor head started spinning. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do, but I want this shawl. Guess I'll have to put in a lifeline and see what I can figure out...