Last night, I finally got to start the "H" on Heath's Weasley sweater. Those eight inches of solid stockinette I had to get through before I could start playing with two colors of yarn took days and days, but somehow I'm already up to the cross bar. And it looks decent, unlike my only other attempt at intarsia. I wasn't at all excited about trying it again, but it sounded more fun than duplicate stitch, and this time it hasn't been bad at all.

I love the way the colors work together. I really like the bottom edge. There's an actual name for the edging where you do several rows of stockinette, then a few rows of 1x1 ribbing, then switch back to stockinette, but I can't remember what it is. I probably found it in Knitting on the Edge, or Knitting Over the Edge.

I'm sort of using the pattern here, but I'm modifying things as I go because my yarn isn't the same gauge and I didn't trust plain stockinette not to roll right up to the neckline. I'm sure I'll make some other changes by the time I'm done, because that seems to be what I do lately.

I hope I didn't give the wrong impression about my feelings about my yarn stash in yesterday's post -- I really am excited about knitting with most of it. It's the thought of how long it will take me to make even a little itty bitty dent in the exciting stuff (life's too short to worry about the icky yarn) that could start to stress me out. If I let it. And I'm determined not to let it loom over me like a dark raincloud or a scary to-do list.

I've got plans for that yarn! While I was sorting through it yesterday, I dug out some red hemp to use for the shopping bag KAL over at knittingparents and some worsted weight acrylic for a pair of Horcrux socks.

Yarn lies.

At the old house and here, right after we moved in and all of my stuff was still neatly packed away in the corners of the sewing room, I managed to convince myself that I didn't have that much yarn. It was all hiding quietly in its plastic drawers and bins, and in the cupboard under the coffee table, and at the foot of the stairs that lead up to our attic.

I knew where it all was, and I was sure there wasn't too terribly much of it. I went for a pretty long stretch without buying much, then when I got some money that I could justifiably spend on yarn, I did.

I knitted from my stash for the first three months of 2007 with absolutely no cheating and was feeling pretty good about my need for more yarn.

Then I started to clean up the mess in the sewing room. I bought a bunch of those Zip-Lock Big Bags and started sorting yarn into them -- one for sock yarn, one for dishcloth cotton, a really really big one for all of that acrylic I've bought to make sweaters for the kids...

I've got a scary amount of yarn here! And a sneaking suspicion that "What the heck is this and why on earth did I buy it?" isn't the best attitude to have towards my yarn stash. I did figure out why I'd bought a skein of lime green Supersaver and what I'm going to do with it, but for a moment I had myself worried.

Alex's Aqua Acrylic

I didn't expect to have this finished so early in the day yesterday. To be honest, I didn't know for sure if I was going to finish it at all. I've had a horrible attitude toward this project.

Months and months ago, I stumbled across the pattern on the designer's blog and really thought it was cute. I had some stash yarn that would get the right gauge, so I cast on and promptly got myself lost in the increases that were supposedly so easy I wouldn't need to use markers. It sat and sat and sat and I finally got around to frogging and restarting it.

This time, I kept track of myself in the increases, although I would've liked markers. It turned out that I wasn't quite matching my gauge from the previous attempt, so I added increases in hopes that it would still turn out big enough. And I couldn't figure out what the instructions for the front band and ties actually wanted me to do, so I went with my best guess.

Somehow, it all came together in a little cardigan that fits Alex, and that she's been happily wearing ever since I handed it over to her. I'm so glad she liked the color, because I can't stand it!



I do like the idea of a lacy little cardigan with ties, enough to wonder if I could do something bigger for myself with a different lace pattern and prettier yarn...

Since joining the Harry Potter and the Book Seven KAL, I've managed to re-read the first three books and swatch and cast on for a Weasley Sweater for Heath, but I keep going back to this --



The pattern is Tater's Cotton Cardi and the yarn is some Lion Brand Baby Soft I bought a couple of years ago with plans to make a baby bunting. I don't know how I managed to pick aqua for quite so many projects before deciding that I really don't like the color. I'm glad to have finally used most of it up on something, and Alex is happy with the color. So it all works out.

Except it's gotten REALLY boring. The lace section is just the same row over and over and over and I'd really like to be doing something else. There's other stuff waiting to be done, but I keep picking this thing up. The last time I measured, I only needed three more inches. So it will be done soon. I should keep going.



Rachel asked about the geese. I don't think they have a real purpose. Bill went to the feed store to see if the baby ducks were in and came home with these two guys in a cardboard box. I've heard that once they get big geese make good watch-dogs and will raise a racket if someone comes onto the property. That sounds pretty useful to me.

We took them outside for the first time this afternoon and they followed us around and nibbled at the weeds. Geese are way cuter than chicks!

What would you do if you had fifteen minutes of free time? I read that question in a magazine last week and didn't agree with any of the ideas they suggested. I wouldn't take a bubble bath, or write a letter, or sleep in.... I get those things done with the time I've already got.

It finally hit me that if I had fifteen minutes when I could do absolutely anything, I'd do something about the sewing room. All of those mad dashes in to rummage for this or that have taken their toll. I started plotting to dump the kids on their dad and head up there for a while, but it's been a busy week and he just got a new lawn tractor.

Then we got the geese. The kids want to look at the geese. The geese are penned up just outside my sewing room door. This works! While the kids were watching Sponge Bob and Loco Moco, I dealt with the boxes that Bill shoved into my sewing room to make room for the geese. I can't complain too much -- most of it was mine and really did belong in the sewing room. But I still think I should be the only one who gets to dump stuff in there!

The big kids watched the geese, Leif watched the big kids through the door, and I got to work. The yarn that was on the bed and floor is sorted into those new monster size zipper bags. I hauled the vacuum cleaner out there and sucked up all of the little dead bugs that were all over the windowsill and the bits of broken leaves that I've tracked in over the past year and a half. I made the bed with the chenille spread I've been meaning to put on it. I've got plans to hack it up and make things with it, but for now it's covering the bed. I found a new blade for my rotary cutter and the walking foot for my sewing machine. And some fabric I'll hopefully post about soon.

I'm still plotting how to get those fifteen minutes, but now I'll get to spend it enjoying my little haven.

little distractions

There were thoughts in my head when I went to bed last night, and thoughts when I got up this morning and turned on the computer and then three kids came in and jumped on me and the creative bloggy thoughts all went away. Do everyone else's kids do this to them, or is it just me?

When Alex was a newborn, my entire brain would shut down if she started to cry. Which wasn't much of a problem, because she only cried when she actually needed a meal or a diaper or a cuddle. Heath cried for reasons no one was ever able to figure out -- I still think it must've had something to do with the alignment of the planets because no one could yell that long or that loud without some cause. So I learned to function with a little person screaming at me. For a while.

Now, all it takes is a poorly timed "Mom?" and I totally lose track of which two fabrics I'd just decided would be perfect for the quilt I'm planning. Or what I was going to type, or what I'd walked into the room to find.... I'm starting to worry that the house could be on fire, someone would ask me a question, and I'd forget that we were supposed to leave. But it's probably not that bad yet.

I did have plans to go out this morning, but after hauling the kids all over creation last night and Friday and I don't know how many days in a row before that, I couldn't face even a couple of hours out in the world. So we stayed home and the kids watched a couple of DVDs while I worked on my quilt.




It'll look cuter once the five little monkeys are appliqued on it. I hope.

This quilt does not want to exist. I've cut the fabric wrong -- seven or eight times so far. I've sewed pieces together backwards and then not realized it until I trimmed the seams and it was too late to fix accurately. I've cut the fabric exactly the way the directions told me to and then had it not match up with the other pieces of fabric. But I'm going to finish this thing and I'm not going to go back for more fabric to do it with. If that means extra seams running across the edge of a couple of blocks so I could make the fabric I cut too narrow wide enough to cut those blocks from, I'm fine with it.

I've got four more of the monkey wrench blocks to make, and I think I've got just enough bits of the blue and red to make them work. Not sure what colors I'm going to use for the corners, but I'll find something. It needs some black.

This whole thing has me feeling all happy and productive, especially since I've got an entire evening stretched out in front of me. I could finish those four blocks, or work on the boring part of Alex's cardian, or cast on for something new because I've suddenly got a second set of Denise needles!

Friday Mom and I (and the kids, because they're always where I am) went up to Portland to spend my birthday money and stopped at the little quilt shop that belongs to the same company who runs Knitpicks. There were a few neat odds and ends of yarn for $1 a skein and sitting right there on the shelf was a set of Denise needles with a $15 price sticker on the front. I seriously expected it to be just an empty case, but there was a complete set of needles inside.

I'm still trying to figure out what it was doing there for that price. Obviously it was lost and unwanted and needed to come home with me.

Elann has a new shawl. I want it, despite the fact that I've got yarn for about a dozen other pretty shawls I'm not currently knitting and despite the fact that it would be way too huge for me and I'd have to figure out the math to size it down and would wind up with extra yarn I didn't know what to do with.

But aren't those colors pretty? Wouldn't it be great to snuggle up in on the couch or long car trips? Please, someone enable me and tell me it's a great idea!

I got myself through the past month by promising to treat myself with some new yarn as a reward for going in and getting the nasty dental work done instead of cancelling the appointment and seeing how long I could pretend I didn't notice that hole in my tooth where my filling had fallen out. I spent two and a half hours in the chair. My mouth still aches three days later -- and since it didn't hurt before I went in I am not a happy camper. I absolutely deserve some yarn right now, and if I still love it this much tomorrow, I think I'll go ahead and order it.

I made it through the first three months of knitting from my stash without cheating, then I bought a cheap quilting kit and a skein of yarn and now I'm rethinking the whole thing because I know I'm never going to make it through another six months.

My original reason for knitting from my stash turned out not to be true, so I'm going back to the diet-yarn-diet. After our trip up to Fabric Depot and Knitten Kitten tomorrow!

There's something in the air and I think it's wool.

Yesterday, I met a wonderful lady named Terry who gave me eight pounds of raw fleece (I found her through a Freecycle listing) and then offered to teach me how to use my wheel.

Today, while I was loading the kids into the van after getting their picture taken with the Easter bunny, a member of the knitting guild who we haven't seen in ages came up and we had a brief but fun conversation about what we'd been up to and what we were knitting. I had came SO close to wearing Ester to the Ester egg hunt but didn't put it on. Now I'm kicking myself, because it would've been so much fun to show it off.



I've got the first sleeve done on the fast stockinette cardigan, then one more sleeve to go and it won't be quick stockinette anymore since the body is done in a pattern stitch. At least it's an easy pattern.

What I'm thinking I really want to knit is a Weasley Sweatter for Heath. Because he named the stuffed penguin he got for his birthday Ron Weasley. I talked myself out of knitting a sweater for the penguin.

This stay at home mommy stuff is physically demanding! I feel like I've been run over by one of those log trucks that's always speeding by the house, and all I did was lug around my toddlers. Not even both at the same time -- I've finally learned my lesson and stopped doing that unless it's a real emergency. Something in my elbow is not happy with me right now.

This'd better not mess with my knitting tonight -- I've got stitches to divide onto waste yarn and sleeves to start! I'd forgotten how fast stockinette can be, even with sport weight yarn, and I'm enjoying the instant gratification.



Ester is done. Actually, it's been done for a couple of days, but it didn't seem worth posting about until I could actually show it to you. I'm not in love with it, but it's growing on me. I am in love with the fact that I made it from half of a forty-nine cent thrift store sweater.

more and more shawls to knit

Even before I finished my Swallowtail Shawl, I wanted to do more shawls like it. I knew about Kiri, and the Sun Ray Shawl, and thought Shetland Triangle from Scarf Style would work until I got the book from the library again and found out that I'd have to start by casting on a zillion stitches. I still have hopes to do that one eventually, but right now I'm in love with the technique these other shawls use.

Last week, I was browsing Elann and found the Moonlight Sonata Shawl. It took a lot of willpower not to order the yarn from Elann then and there -- or to head over to Knitpicks and buy some dark blue Gloss. And this morning I was having yarn buying urges and checked out the Elann site to see if there was anything new to fuel them and found the Lunca Moth Shawl

I've even found yarn in my stash that'll probably work for both of them, but I still want that Gloss.

I love Flash Your Stash time! It's so much fun to look at what other people are hoarding, even if it is getting a bit harder to find knitters with more yarn than I've got. I know they're out there -- maybe they're knitting with their yarn and not taking pictures of it.

This is the third year in a row I've done this -- even if I am late this time, and it is only a partial stash flash. I'd planned to get all of my yarn organized and take nicer pictures than I managed in 2005 and 2006.

That didn't happen. The first of April snuck up on me and I didn't think I was going to get pictures at all this year, then I got an unexpected sliver of time, got the kids set up watching Eragon, and ran up to the sewing room to do another quick sort and pile and photograph. Something is better than nothing, right? And if some awful catastrophe does strike, my Flash Your Stash pictures would prove that I actually did own such a ridiculous amount of yarn.

Yes, I'm still traumatized by that break in we had a year ago while I was in the hospital trying to delay having Leif. No yarn was taken, but that's only because it was the first thing I moved into the new house, along with the baby pictures and my wedding dress. I had a nightmare last week about coming home and finding that the shop and sewing room were totally empty -- not just empty, but like something from a burned out horror movie set -- and the sick feeling stayed with me for a couple of days.

But on to happier things -- here's the yarn!

I've got sock yarn --



The last time I counted, there was enough actual sock yarn (not counting regular fingering weight yarn or worsted weight yarn that I plan to make socks out of) for forty-some pairs of socks. I've bought more since then. I like sock yarn.

I've got acrylic coming out of my ears --



My definition of good acrylic is yarn I bought new at Walmart, or yard sale yarn that's nice enough to make a sweater out of. The rest is in bins or plastic bags or heaven only knows where. Trust me, there's plenty of it! Most of this is meant to make sweaters for the kids.

And I've got lacweight --



I seem to be missing almost half of my laceweight, but the fact that there's so much gone is reassuring. I must've put it somewhere safe.

And I've got a bunch of yarn that wouldn't pose nicely for photos here if you really want to see most of the rest. Lately, I only go up to the sewing room long enough to rummage around for whatever I think I need, so it's a mess. But it's my mess and I love having a spot where I can spread out my yarn and know that no one will tie it around the table legs using the method Alton Brown just explained for tying up a cut of meat.

I don't have anything to show off.



My parents just got back from their winter down south and it sounds like Mom's finished at least half a dozen quilt tops. We're getting together tomorrow for show and tell -- but I don't feel like I have anything exciting to show. pout Alex has all of her projects, Leif has his brand new walking skills, Quinn has a whole bunch of brand new words he could say if he felt like it, Heath can suddenly read...

What have I managed to get done since the beginning of the year?

The only wonderful thing I have is my Swallowtail, which I've been wearing everywhere and Leif has been chewing on, so it's looking a little less beautiful than it was when it was freshly blocked. The endpaper mitts are nice, but I'm not quite sure where they've run off to. The dishcloths are dishcloths, and the baby poncho isn't worth hauling across town. I should take those pieced dresden plates that I still need to applique to the backgrounds squares.

I haven't been feeling at all productive lately. It's a combination of having less time to spend on projects and then spending that time on projects that take forever and a day to finish. I wanted to tackle more ambitious stuff this year, I just didn't realize that it was going to make me feel like I wasn't doing anything.

I blocked Frozen Lake and that scarf that I keep wanting to frog this afternoon so that I'd have something to show on the blog, and figured out what I really like about blocking. It's not forever. If I do a crummy job, I can do better next time. Once I learn how to actually do a good job of it, I can reblock all of my shawls and scarves and whatevers and make them all look the way they should.

I also figured out that I need blocking wires or another good substitute. But I'm too cheap to spend the money on something like that right now.

Oh -- and baby's appointment with the neurologist went well. He doesn't have any symptoms of anything. I could've told them that!

We went up to Woodland Woolworks and I got birthday yarn! There's a skein of laceweight merino waiting to become Gerda, a little cone of laceweight Paris linen waiting to become one of the scarves from Victorian Lace Today, and a skein of Tofutsies waiting to become that sock pattern with the diagonal lines of yarn-overs that go across the top of the foot, as soon as I can either find the copy I printed out or remember the name so I can Google it again! And I got Stahman's Shawls & Scarves, which I've checked out from the library over and over and over again.



There were a couple of other things I really wanted, but I was distracted by the headache that's been trying to eat through my skull since Friday nigt, a small child who kept darting right between me and the yarn I was trying to look at, and another small child who wanted to discuss the price of lacweight merino and whether she should spend her birthday money on a skein of it and wasn't paying any attention to my answers. So I didn't get the Regia Bamboo or the gorgeous mustardy-yellow Zephyr because I wasn't together enough to figure out how to get it into my arms along with the baby and the other stuff. How pathetic is that?

I absolutely love the yarn that did make it home with us and there's a chance that I'll be able to "fix" my mistake tomorrow if things go well. Was I allowed to buy myself birthday yarn, or does that break the Knit from Your Stash rules? I could count is as yarn that Bill would've bought me if my hands weren't full...

After almost three months of not buying any yarn/fabric/goodies, I'm not going to stress too much about the details!

Look what's finally off the needles -- Frozen Lake! I won't start calling it a finished object until it's blocked (otherwise it'd nevet get blocked), but I'm just about giddy to have made it this far. Between this project and my Swallowtail, I've conquered my fear of triangular shawls! Which, in case you didn't know, was caused by this shawl.



I am so happy!

Now it's back to Ester, which I'm anxious to finish but not to work on. At the rate I'm going now that I've ditched the cable needle, it'll probably take another twelve hours or so.

When I was working on Besotted, a friend helpfully tried to show me how to cable without a cable needle. It didn't work. The cable did cross, but it was going the wrong direction, and I couldn't handle the idea of knitting the fourth and fifth stitches on my left needle and then somehow knitting the first and second ones. I still can't handle that idea. Maybe someday, but it's going to take something really special to motivate me. I made it through Besotted and a lot of other projects just fine using cable needles and dpns and seaming pins.

But the patterns kept warning me that I really should learn to do it without a needle. And I'd ignore the warning or give up the idea of knitting that particular pattern.

Ester sort of snuck up on me. I got the narrow portion of the back done before it really sunk in how many cable crossings there are actually going to be in it. And then the rows got a lot longer and I decided it was time to take drastic measures.

Did you know that there's more than one way to cable without a cable needle? I think I came across three methods before finding one that didn't make me whimper in fear. I did a little experimenting, a lot of tinking, and quite a few rows later, I'm convinced that it was time to learn this particular bit of knitting magic.



I can't even tell where I switched methods.

Those new knitting books I reserved at the library are starting to slowly trickle in. There seem to be a couple to pick up every time we drive into town.

One Skein Wonders -- After all of the waiting and longing, this book was a total letdown. I'd leafed through it at the bookstore long enough to decide that I wanted my own copy, but once I actually sat down and read it I changed my mind. There's not one thing in it that made me want to grab my yarn and needles. How's that even possible in a book with 101 patterns? (My ten year old, on the other hand, has already finished one project, started another, and decided to save up for a copy.)

Knitorama -- Lots and lots and lots of patterns for knitted food. I did get the urge to knit a duck for my husband, who collected duck stuff when we first got married, but couldn't figure out the wings.

Knitting With Balls -- I'm obviously not the target audience for this one, and I should know by now that I'm not going to find anything my honey would wear in a book that expects him to knit it himself.

I also didn't find anything I wanted to knit in Yarnplay, Dominitrix (that one was fun to read through and had some good technical information), or The Northampton Wools knitting book....have I mentioned that someone in our library system must really like knitting a lot?



The big surprise was Knit 2 Together. I had no expectations for this book. But I had a few minutes this afternoon before we had to leave for playgroup and sat down to leaf through it. I'll try to recreate the experience --

The Baby Baseball Tee is cute, but it's got neck buttons....Alex might like the flowered version of First Hat...I have got to make Grownup Bonnet for myself, maybe with that really soft wool that's in the cupboard under the coffee table, maybe I can cast on for it after playgroup...

And, although I know the odds of my knitting a bath mat in this life aren't real high, that Muriwai Bath Mat is even neater than the ones in Mason Dixon Knitting.

The Lacy Hug-Me-Tight is nice...so is the Pimlico Shrug...

But what I Really Must Have for my house is the table skirt. There's an old round bedside table in the barn, if what I remember seeing is the whole thing and not just the base. Bill is not going to understand why I want him to dig it out from under everything else...and there's no good place for it in the house, but I'm sure the sewing room could use little table that will be cute once I knit it a lacy cover...

Hey -- that antique plant stand thingie next to the fireplace has a great base and a scuffed up top. I'm sure it could use a skirt!

Every time I get too close to this scarf, I'm tempted to frog it and use the yarn for something else. It's not that I don't like the scarf -- I just really really love that yarn, which was an estate sale find, and of course I didn't save the ball bands, so I don't even know what it was, just that it's a wool/something blend and absolutely yummy.

The thing took me 20some hours to knit, which is the only thing that's saved it for this long. I should at least block it and see what it really looks like before I do anything drastic. But it may not come to that.

I realized this afternoon that the yarn feels an awful lot like Knitpicks Gloss. I can get more of that...someday....when this whole Knit From Your Stash thing is behind me. If expensive things quit happening.

But I think I'm headed for trouble again. That blue cotton sweater I'm tearing apart is made up of some really pretty yarn. I can think of at least three summer tops I could try with it. I've been dying to make all three and not had suitable yarn for any of them. Now I've got to settle on one. (There probably is enough yarn for two, but what would be the point to making two summer tops in identical colors one right after the other?)

Guess I'll think about it while I work on Ester tonight.

It wasn't yarn when I brought it home from the thrift store yesterday, but it's yarn now! For the first time ever, I actually managed to unzip the seams instead of picking them apart a stitch at a time. How did that take me so long to figure out? There's still a lot of trial and error, but now I know that it's worth it to hang in there until I find the right bit of yarn.

I measured a stockinette chunk of the sweater -- 4 stitches an inch! -- and swatched, and cast on for Ester earlier this evening.

Yippee!

Does this count as a yarn purchase?

When this knit from your stash thing got started, someone asked if thrift store sweaters counted as yarn. My immediate response was absolutely not. If I couldn't buy any yarn forever and ever, and if other people got to claim that sock yarn didn't count, I was going to let myself paw through the GoodWill bins now and then!

It has been two months, one week, and five days since I bought any yarn or fabric. So whether it's technically cheating or not (and I vote for not), I am not going to feel guilty over the three sweaters I bought for forty-nine cents each this afternoon.

It's not like I went looking for them. With a couple of hours to kill between my emergency trip to the dentist and Alex's karate class, we went into the store hoping to find some of the books I need to fill in the homeschooling curriculum we just bought for the kids. And found two of them in perfect condition for a buck a piece. The kids actually picked out the sweaters -- which are nicer than what I've found in the past.

One is a light green wool/cotton blend and if things go really well, I think the yarn might be the right gauge to knit Ester from the new Knitty. If things go a little less well, it'd be good for a shawl I've been coveting and much nicer than the acrylic that was the best choice from my stash yarn. And if it doesn't work out at all, I only wasted fifty cents.

There are quite a few patterns in the new Knitty that I hope to make, if I ever work up the motivation to start something new.

Maybe tomorrow.