I've been travelling with my husband and the kids -- and my socks. Wow! After one miserable attempt last year that involved a poorly maintained road and a cranky skein of Euroflax, I hadn't tried knitting in a moving car. I expected to maybe knit a few rounds on my sock when we stopped for gas, if none of the kids needed me to take them in to the bathrooms or change a diaper. But I pulled it out on a boring stretch of I-5 and the next thing I knew, it was an inch long and I was ready to do the heel, mostly with my eyes on the road. (And because there are other knitters out there who love to jump to the worst possible conclusion, I'll add that I was in the passenger seat, NOT driving, and I've heard all of the nasty speculation about what would happen if the airbags went off while I was holding sharp pointy things.)

There were some nervous moments when I had to ladder up a dropped stitch and figure out what to do with an accidental YO a few rows after the fact, but they were worth it because those boring stretches flew by. I'm not sure how just keeping my hands moving could possibly make such a difference, but it did.



We found a shoe tree! It doesn't show up well in the picture (you can click on it for the bigger version), but there are hundreds of shoes wedged up in the branches and hanging in big clumps. Bill doesn't think the multi-colored lump lying there on the dashboard looks anything like a sock, but I know that another knitter would be able to tell.

We kept driving and the sock kept growing. I wasn't to excited about the leg, because the broken rib pattern I originally had in mind would have meant counting, then I remembered what Bonnie posted to Knitting Mothers about alternating random bands of stockinette and garter and ribbing and suddenly I was having all sorts of fun.

I added three color repeats to my latest Mason Dixon warshrag while sitting in a Motel 6 parking lot at midnight with a really fussy baby on my lap, wondering why I was out there because no one in the place could possibly be sleeping through that thunderstorm, especially when one crack set off every car alarm in the parking lot. I got lucky and was only out there an hour before he finally fell asleep.



We made it to Utah and the sock sat neglected in my purse while we dug trilobites and hiked a bit and took the kids to every cheap or free museum we could find and drove a bit. Posion Spider Mesa was never a possibility because we don't have the axles or gear ratio or whatever else we need to tackle something like that. The stupid Durango kept overheating anyway, so we barely left the pavement at all. The one year I'm finally not pregnant and can handle some rough roads!



By far the best knitting on the trip was in the campground right before dawn when I finished another warshrag while watching the sun come up over the rocks. I was going to try to get up early again the next morning (hopefully without the raging migraine that woke me up the first time), but the hiking turned my legs to jelly and it was too much work to crawl out of my sleeping bag.

It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be home!

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...

I used to worry about my sock yarn. I loved it, but I was scared that I'd never learn to knit on dpns, would never figure out how to turn a heel, would never figure out my gauge well enough to make a sock that fit my own foot, wouldn't be able to join my stitches into a circle without twisting them.... What if I could never figure it out? What if that yarn just sat there in my stash forever and got eaten by moths? I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more sock yarn until I could knit socks, but it was so pretty I bought more anyway. I tried to think of other things I could make with my sock yarn -- just in case socks really were too hard. And I bought more sock yarn.

I still haven't conquered the gauge problem and still worry about twisting my stitches, but I can knit toe up socks that fit. I even did one of the patterns from Socks Socks Socks the way it's written and it fits!

So I spent my Christmas money on 32 skeins of sock yarn from Knitpicks.



I don't feel the slightest twinge of fear or guilt, even though there's now enough sock yarn in my stash to make myself thirty pairs of socks. Not counting the single skeins of yarn I bought to make socks for the kids. Or the odds and ends from garage sales. I don't know when I'll have time to make all of those socks, and it doesn't matter. I've got plenty of yarn, two great new sock books, a huge stack of sock patterns I've printed off the internet. And a whole bunch of yarn that isn't sock yarn. It may not even matter if this stupid yarn diet/famine goes on for another year.

Oh, and Leif's hat fits!

Leif's First Hat

My baby needed a hat. The other babies in the NICU have their own cute little outfits and cute little stuffed animals and mine would have something cute if I could leave the stupid house to go shopping for him. So I made a hat last night and sent it up to him this morning. I hope it fits. I hope it doesn't get lost in the NICU before I can get a picture of him wearing it.

I'd love to find more baby hat patterns like Baby's First Hat. The cute premie patterns are too small, or too basic, or too girly... I've got a vision of my dream hat, but don't have the yarn to make it right now -- and may not have the skills, but as long as the hat is in the fantasy stages, that doesn't matter.

I'd like to try this pattern. I think I have the right colors in the house for an apple and leaves, and hopefully Alex has some brown in her stash that'll work for a stem. The pineapple hat is cute, too, but I know I don't have the right shade of yellow.

And what Leif really needs is a Viking hat! I followed the link expecting the chicken hat, but this is a real Viking one. I'd need to knit it even if my little guy didn't have a Viking name.

It's a Boy!

Leif was born January 17 at 7:36 am, weighed 4 pounds 11 ounces, and was 18 1/2 inches long. Is it weird that I also know his head circumfrence?

This isn't fun anymore...

I don't like my knitting anymore. I assume that's due to a combination of knitting non-stop for a month, not being able to go up the stairs to my sewing room and get the yarn I really want to play with, and small children who have sabotaged all three of my current WIPs.

Someone took one needle tip off of my Denise cables, and although I could finish Chaos without it, I'm using it as an excuse to avoid picking up stitches for the neck and button band, which doesn't seem like it can possibly work.

Someone took all of the needles out of my Opal sock, which I'd just put back on the needles for the third time in as many days. Then someone else put three of the needles and the sock back in the plastic bag and tried to convince me that it had just fallen off of the couch. I refuse to believe that something that started out in the bottom of my knitting bag could become separated from its needles without being removed from the bag first. But they did find the missing needle. So I could pick up all of those splitty little stitches....again....

Heath's sock came out the right size, and when I went to get the second ball of yarn from my knitting bag last night, there wasn't any yarn in there. It's been found and returned to me, but I had to hide the knitting bag and even if I did feel like getting up pulling it back out at the same time as I felt like casting on for the socks, I'm afraid that the needles might not be there.

I will feel like knitting again though, I'm sure of it! I just spent my Christmas money on a big order of sock yarn (lots more of the Sock Landscape I fell in love with when I was knitting the Cape Code socks) from Knitpicks. And, not five minutes later, I found out that I really really need some black and white wool to knit pirate stuff. There's a hat, which I fell head over heels for even before I saw the mittens, which are even neater. Too bad I didn't see them in time to order some yarn!

Chaos!

After a couple of false starts with other projects, I cast on for Chaos this morning. I'm in love with these random cables! Rolling the die over and over is tedious (especially re-rolling for the 5's and 6's) but the effect is worth it. And it's not like I don't have plenty of knitting time on my hands right now.

2005 - My Fo's

I actually finished 46 projects this year, some of them fairly large or complicated -- by my standards, at least. That's a lot more than last year, which puzzles me since I've spent 2005 having a new baby, buying a new house, and growing another new baby... I did knit a lot last month, but not THAT much!

Here's how it broke down --

6 pairs of adult socks
4 pairs baby socks
1 pair of socks for Heath
2 pairs of slippers for Alex
10 hats
8 scarves
4 shawls
2 baby blankets

There was also a baby sweater, a diaper soaker, and some other little stuff -- the full list of projects is in the side bar. I've decided that there's not much point comparing my own output from year to year (let alone comparing mine to anyone else's, even though that is fun!), but it's interesting to look back and see the trends I didn't notice until I saw all of the projects in one list. 2005 seems to have been my year of big flat things. Very few of the projects needed much finishing except for weaving in the ends, and I don't think I did a gauge swatch all year.

This year, I'm going to knit sweaters for me and all four kids. And tackle more complex sock patterns instead of the generic toe-up method I've been using. While I was in the hospital, I actually followed the pattern for the Gull Socks from Socks Socks Socks as written, gusset heel and all. Somehow, even though I was using yarn and needles that I happened to have with me, and forcing them to work, they fit! There are tons of patterns in that book I'd like to tackle, and I'm also waiting for the copy of Sensational Knitted Socks my mom ordered to replace a gift from her that had to be exchanged.

I'm also going to do more sewing this year. The 2006 Quilt Pattern a Day Calendar has some projects I can't wait to start in on once I'm allowed to sit up and use the sewing machine.

I'm still bewildered by the fact that a quick trip to the OB to make sure my latest stomach bug was nothing important turned into 22 days in the hospital. I was so positive it was nothing, and only made the drive into town because I'd be able to pick up some yarn for last minute Christmas knitting!

Once they got me weaned off of the nasty IV meds and onto stuff that left me feeling pretty much okay, there was nothing to do but watch Law & Order reruns, wait for the next meal, and knit....and knit...and knit...and call home and beg my husband to bring me more yarn because yes I had used up all four skeins of the red stuff he brought me last time....

My final total --

the Cape Cod socks
the baby bunting
the Lacy Kerchief Scarf
the Faorese Style Shawl from Cast On
Toddle
blue & brown Magic Stripes socks
Grey Gull socks
SOS! Slippers
Leaf Edge Baby Hat

Except for the Lacy Kerchief Scarf and the Cape Cod socks, which were both about half done, the rest was knit from start to finish in my hospital bed. And with 25 more days of bed rest before I can start getting back on my feet (if #4 will stay put for that long), I'm sure I'll be adding more to the list. Pictures will have to wait until I'm allowed to move around more.

Another Christmas Knitting Finish

I never did find the same ornament pattern I'd lost, but this is a pretty cute replacement. If I ever do another one, I'll use sport or fingering weight instead of the worsted the pattern calls for and make the neck a few stitches wider.

Still no progress on the slippers because I was feeling way too pregnant and achy to knit after taking the kids to a Christmas craft party and karate yesterday. Maybe tonight...

The Christmas Knitting Continues...

I finished Heath's hat at 3am Sunday morning, despite the fact that I hadn't even cast on until after midnight. My plan was just to get it started, but I did the first five rows the pattern and then the purl rows, and then thought I'd just keep going until it was time to decrease the top, and then the top only needed eleven more rounds, and by then I'd totally lost track of what time it really was and was forcing myself to ignore the fact that I've got little kids who expect Mommy to actually move in the morning....

Alex insists that it's far too girly for her brother and that she should wear it instead. At least she spotted the hat in my knitting bag and not her slippers, which I'd hoped to finish after she went to bed last night. Instead, I gave in to exhaustion and went to sleep myself about ten minutes after I got the kids all chased off to bed.

The day wasn't a total knitting loss -- I started the second Cape Cod Sock and a sock for hospital knitting (because it's finally sunk in that no matter what else happens, I am going to be spending some time in a hospital at the end of this pregnancy and may want something mindless to knit on.) I love toe up socks, but the figure-eight cast on is fiddly and I don't always get it right on the first (or second) try. So I tend to put off starting new ones. Now, I've got my Cape Cod sock for a simple project to work on while the kids are in the room, and the other one as an even simpler project to work on when I just want to have my hands moving.

As for the rest of the Christmas knitting... The needles I own won't cooperate with the laceweight yarn for the neck warmer, so that's on hold until I drive into town. I did find some yummy grey yarn in my stash yesterday, so I may go back up and dig that out to see if I can adjust the pattern for bigger yarn. It'd knit up faster and probably be warmer, so if the ruffle doesn't work I may just pick a nice lacy stitch pattern and work with that. My ornament patterns vanished sometime between 3am Sunday and yesterday afternoon. I know they just got picked up and put in with something else, but I can't find them and I can't print out another copy from the internet because of course I don't remember the name of the pattern I finally decided to use.

Today's goal -- finish the slippers!

My Christmas List

Over the past day and a half, I've managed to put a very reassuring dent in my Christmas knitting list. DH's present, a helmet liner to wear hunting, is done and took a lot less time than I thought it would. Either that, or I squeezed in more knitting hours than I'd expected to. Whatever did the trick, it left me feeling a lot calmer about the rest of the knitting I still hope to get done.

I've decided not to tackle the wristwarmers for my sister, because they look difficult even before I add in the fact that the pattern's written in Norwegian. Maybe she'll get those next year. For now, I'm debating between two scarves I already have finished.

There's an ornament for the Knittingmothers exchange, which could be done in an hour or two if I used a simple pattern, but I really want to try that itty bitty aran stocking I found a pattern for...

There's a pair of slippers for Alex, which should go quickly. I had one almost half done this morning before I realized how impossibly far off the gauge was. Now that I've found the size dpns that pattern called for, I should be able to knit them in a few hours.

I want to make something for a friend who I swear bundles up more than anyone I've ever met in my life, so I'm hoping that the lacy little neckwarmer I found in InKnitters will knit up in time.

If I make something for Alex, I've gotta make something for Heath, so there's a hat pattern in the 2006 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar and some yarn he picked out ages ago. How long can a hat take? And if I knit for the older two, I've got to knit for Quinn. Probably the basketweave toddler socks from my to-knit list.

21 days till Christmas...five projects left on the list....it could happen...

dreaming of sock yarn...

I dreamed of soft merino sock yarn last night, after finishing the first of my Cape Cod socks. The wool was soft and yummy in the skein and to work with, but I wasn't prepared for how it was going to feel to slip my foot into the finished sock. I was just hoping it would fit right, and suddenly my foot was wrapped in this heavenly warm cocoon of gorgeous yarn. My husband might have thought I was a little nuts when I made him try it on so he could feel for himself why I need more sock yarn from Knitpicks even though he seems to think I have enough yarn already. Once the second sock is done, I've only got two more skeins of this wonderful merino to play with. In Paper Doll, the colors I was dreaming of last night.





I can already tell the second sock is going to interfere with my Christmas Knitting.

Craft Warehouse has racks and racks full of fluffy novelty yarn on sale for $1.99 a skein, which we discovered totally by accident yesterday when the kids and I stopped to price yarn for Christmas presents, just in case I couldn't knit what I need to finish with stash yarn.



The pink eyelash is for the bodice of this. The red stuff is for a scarf for me, because I absolutely love the color and was intrigued by the texture of their sample scarf. The black and white zebra is to swatch and see how it would work with a scarf pattern I want to try. And I've got my fingers crossed that when we go back up to town next week, I can find something that'll work for a Vegan Fox. There were lots of shades of brown in different textures, so I'm hopeful.

And if I wasn't sock crazed enough by the merino, Socks Socks Socks finally came in at the library. I've checked this book out before, but now that I know I can actually knit socks, I'm looking at it through new eyes, thinking I could knit that and that and that and that.... I definitely need to get my own copy of this one. I was so absorbed in it last night and this morning, I totally forgot I also brought home Loop de Loop.

The Christmas knitting is looking less and less like fun....

I missed Thanksgiving

Actually, I lost an entire week to the nasty bug that made the rest of the family kind of sick but sent me and #4 to the hospital. Twice. My Thanksgiving dinner was two liters of IV fluid and a cup of chicken broth. Bill and the kids got something from a convenience store. The turkey is still in the fridge, hopefully still safe enough to cook. I've got to call the Butterball hotline and see what they think.

And while I was missing that, I missed most of Knit Unto Others. I'd hoped to do a bunch of premie hats, but only managed one before I got sick and two more once the nausea passed enough for me to try knitting again. I'll do a few more when my Christmas knitting is done -- or after Christmas, when I run out of gift knitting time.



My back issues of InKnitters got here the other day, and I'm so glad I ordered the set. I did wind up with one I already have, but the others are new-to-me and even though I've barely glanced through one of them, there are at least three projects besides the baby bunting I ordered it for that I want to try. And I think I've got suitable yarn for all of them!

I can see how I missed the baby bunting when this issue was on the stands. The picture in the table of contents is tiny, and hidden in the fold next to the staples. And it's not nearly as cute in the magazine as the picture on the designer's home page, which triggered the whole pattern hunt. None of the four projects I want to knit are visible on the table of contents page, either not clearly or not at all. Makes me wonder what else I've been missing as I quickly flip through the knitting magazines in the grocery store.

Knit Unto Others

My plan is to knit premie hats for the Special Care Nursery at the local hospital, five before the end of the KAL and another five before baby #4 is born at the end of February. I've been meaning to knit them hats for a little over a year now, so hopefully this will get me motivated!

Working on my WIPs

Despite two spectacular mistakes -- how could I first manage to knit the right side rows on the wrong side and then, only a few hours later, manage to graft the wrong sides together? -- the blue lace scarf is done, except for blocking. I haven't figured out where to spread it out yet. The sewing room or attic, probably, I just need to get up there and get it done while the kids are all occupied.

The Cape Cod socks are still coming along, the Lacy Kerchief Scarf is waiting for me to have some peaceful time to spend with it, and the cardigan is still shoved in a dark corner. I've got thoughts that I should finish it before the end of the year, but not enough motivation to actually pull it out and cast on for the sleeves.

Socks!

This has got to be one of the neatest things I've seen on a knitting blog. FIFTY SEVEN pairs of hand knit socks all laid out together in a gorgeous ring...I obviously need more sock yarn if I'm ever going to have that many wonderful socks. It does not matter that I hardly ever wear socks. If I had socks that pretty, I'd wear them. Even if I didn't wear them, they'd provide me with lots of hours of stress relieving creative time. Which I need.

I can't buy pretty sock yarn, so I'll work on using up what I've already got. That way if the house ever sells, I'll have a good reason to buy more.



This is the first of the Cape Cod (Knitpicks Sock Landscape) socks. Instead of the basketweave pattern I had in mind but kept avoiding, I'm using the Waterfall Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks and thoroughly enjoying myself. This stuff is turning out to be just as nice to knit with as it felt in the skein. Hard to believe that three days ago all that was done was the toe shaping.

I know better

Every time I cut down on my WIP list without starting new projects to take the place of the ones I've finished, I regret it. Especially when I finish all of the easy stuff and leave myself with nothing I can just pick up and knit away on while I watch the baby play. Starting new projects is never as easy as it seems like it should be. I spent a couple of hours swatching to see if I can use my Opal crocodile yarn for a baby sweater (with a pattern that calls for almost identical yarn)...couldn't get the gauge right. Cast on for a lace pattern dishcloth to see if I liked the pattern enough to make a shawl in it....frogged after it was obvious that the thing was going to be huge.

I still don't have a decent baby watching project. Instead I've got the Lacy Kerchief Scarf (Interweave Knits, Summer 2005).



Love the pattern, love the yarn (TLC Cotton Plus I originally bought for a Honeymoon Cami), love the knitting....but I'm not going to be able to play with this one unless the kids are asleep or really occupied with something. I'm actually knitting lace from a chart!

Having the washer and dryer on the porch makes laundry a much bigger project, especially now that it's so darn cold out there. But I braved the elements this afternoon to wash and dry the Euroflax Stole, and it didn't fall apart in the process. No pictures, because the kids move it as fast as I stretch it out to dry and it's going to need more competent blocking later. For now, it's softer and drapier, and I'm a lot happier with it. The color doesn't go with any of my maternity stuff, so it'll be a while before I get to wear it.

I've spent most of the rest of the day knitting and have high hopes for this evening. Quinn's finally got socks that fit --



He won't keep them on his feet, but I guess I can carry them around as proof that my little guy does have something to keep his feet warm, even if he doesn't seem to want them that way.

Sensational Knitted Socks came home from the library with me last night and after a quick glance through it, I'm thinking this may be the sock book I have to own. Lots of neat stitch patterns, adjustable by size and yarn type.... wonder if I can test the stitch patterns out on toddler socks....

I love this little hat!



It's Julia's Hat from the 2006 Knitting Pattern a Day calendar (September 6), and I knit it up with the Knitpicks Dancing left over from those weirdly striped socks. I like this stuff much better as a garter stitch baby hat. It's cushy and stretchy and when I can, I plan to order enough of the yarn for a whole little baby sweater. Hopefully that will be while #4 is still tiny!

And just as much as I love the yarn, I love the pattern. It's worked in short row wedges with bobbles and fringe (which don't show up well in my picture, but trust me, they're cute!) formed by casting on and binding of stitches. I can see myself using up a lot of leftover sock yarn on these. There's also a toddler size, so I'll have to make one for Quinn.

I don't hate this as much as I did last week...



After knitting and knitting and knitting and making absolutely no progress at all, I flew through the final skein and it's almost done. I just have to weave in the last few ends and wash and block it. The ends I'll do if Quinn naps long enough. The blocking will wait until I find out why there isn't any heat in our house today. Right now, it's too cold to want to mess with anything wet.

When she was good she was very good, but when she was bad she was horrid....

Why isn't it possible to cheat on my yarn diets just a tiny bit? For me, it's all or nothing. After posting to the knitlist to see if anyone could tell me what yarn and needles I'd need for the baby bunting and finding out that all I really need is the pattern, I'd pretty much convinced myself it would be perfectly reasonable to order the magazine. It's for the baby, after all, and #4 deserves something special and wonderful that was made just for him or her. As opposed to the things I've been making for Quinn that keep turning out too small because I get so caught up in the whole "making things for my babies" mood and don't bother to read the size information until I'm halfway through the project.

Then we went to Walmart to do the grocery shopping and I had to walk through the yarn aisle just to see if the brands they carried came in good baby bunting colors, just in case I didn't have 800 yards of something good already. Not because I was going to buy anything. The yarn is next to the fabric. And the Halloween prints -- and the wonderful autumny stuff -- was fifty cents a yard. Baby will need a little car seat quilt with ghosts and brightly colored moons and stars. I needed the prints with pumpkins and candy corn and leaves. And it was one of those "now or never" things.

I guess I'm going to have to feel guilty about the magazine and work really hard to keep myself in line for a while. Or haul something else to grandma's antique mall. She just sold the absolute ugliest painting on the planet -- the one that I was ready to haul to the dump because it was too bad even for Goodwill -- for eighteen bucks. The thing didn't even have a frame. She tells me she can get quite a bit for the bench by the front porch (which has friends just like it in the barn and garage, so it wouldn't be a loss) and the lamp in my sewing room. Converting the junk the sellers left behind into yarn is fun -- probably the next best thing to finding an old spinning wheel hiding in a dark corner.

The library books I reserved are starting to trickle in. Last trip, I came home with Knitting Over the Edge (lots of neat possibilities in there!), That Dorky Homemade Look - Quilting Lessons From a Parallel Universe, and Alterknits. When Interweave Knits ran the pattern for the Laptop Cases, I thought it was cruel that the model was wearing a really cute knit scarf and of course they wouldn't have the pattern for that. The pattern's in the book, and the scarf attatches to a matching shawl to make a wrap that I've absolutely got to have. Of course it's knit in two strands of yarn and the gauge is over Fish-Scale Lace. That should be easy to figure out a replacement for, right? The yarn the pattern calls for would make it a $316.00 project -- yikes! Somewhere in my future there's got to be a yarn that will make something like this.

For now I've got the Euroflax. It's starting to look like something now that I'm into the third and final skein.

After finishing the magic stripe socks (is something finished if the ends aren't woven in but you've worn it twice? ), I tried swatching for the Truly Tasha shawl, decided I didn't like what the yarn was doing, thought about using the yarn (salvaged from a thrift store sweater) to follow the witch's hat recipe that was posted to one of the lists last week, was feeling too lazy to go up to the sewing room to get the right size dpns, and wound up working on the Euroflax Stole instead... I've been plodding away on the feather and fan stuff ever since.

Have I mentioned how disappointed I am with this yarn? Yarn that costs that much should be really really nice to knit with, not stiff and scratchy and slippery and mean. I've seen how nice it's supposed to get after it's been washed a few times, but I don't trust it.

What I'd like to be plodding away on is that Heartstrings baby blanket I bought the Denim Style for, but I'm trying to make myself finish the stole before I cast on something else that uses exactly the same pattern.

And I --really-- want these! I want to buy a skein of Shimmer to make Frozen Lake, and the Andean Treasure (or something else nice and green) to make The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep... stupid yarn diet...stupid house that no one wants to buy... stupid website that won't let you print a 12 page pattern without cutting off half the written directions and charts... I'm running out of ink and can't find the box with all of my extra computer stuff, which might or might not have an extra ink cartridge in it.

I did copy the text and pictures into my email program and get them to fit on a page that way, and I'm sure I have SOMETHING in my stash that'll make pretty triangular shawls, but Frozen Lake is going to have to wait until I can buy the Shimmer because it's so neat looking the way it's designed.

The wish list just gets longer and longer...

So long ago I can't remember when it was, I read a post on Socknitters that explained how to start a sock from the toe up and gave it a try. Everything was going wonderfully until it was time to start the heel and I realized that I didn't have the slightest idea what to do next. I tried something, which didn't work, then put the whole mess onto waste yarn and hid it from myself. It popped out of hiding now and then, but even though I'd figured out how to do a short row heel, I guess I thought that frogging back my miserable attempt at a heel and picking up the stitches would be to hard. Actually, I'm not sure what I was thinking, because once I finally picked it up again it took two evenings to finish the first sock and would've only taken a couple of days to knit the second one if I hadn't been doing everything but knitting.

It's easy to avoid knitting projects, even the ones I want to do. I let myself get scared by people who posted that there wasn't enough yardage in a skein of Magic Stripes to knit a pair of size 10 socks....I couldn't divide the yarn evenly in half because I don't have an accurate scale (that's near the top of my list of things to buy after the house sells)...I was afraid of messing up my "good" yarn (even though in this case, the good stuff had been bought with a 40% off coupon and would be easy to frog or replace if something went disastrously wrong) ....

Because I was sure there wouldn't be enough yarn, I made them short. A lot shorter than they needed to be, but they fit and I like them and I'm going to try making a tiny hat of pair of socks for #4 with the yarn that's left over.

Hopefully this hat:

I tried last night, but wasn't paying enough attention to the instructions so I'll be starting over this afternoon.

Just because I feel like knitting socks in stockinette and plain old k2p2 ribbing instead of doing a pattern stitch on the instep and cuff doesn't mean I'm wasting yarn. I've got myself almost totally convinced that's true. Which is good, because all I seem to want to settle down and knit right now are stockinette sock feet. I cast on for one of the toddler socks I've been meaning to do, but after a few rounds decided that I didn't like the way the yarn looked or want to fuss with cables. So I pulled out the sock I started in Magic Stripes and then abandoned when I realized I didn't know how to make a heel and the foot was too short anyway. That sock's done now, I've got a good start on its mate, and I'm eyeballing the three other skeins of Magic Stripes that have been aging in my stash....

Devilish Little Horns

I worried about running out of yarn, or that it might not fit his little head, but I never even thought about what a pain picking up the stitches for those little horns would be, let alone knitting them in the round and doing the decreases! Or trying to get a picture of it while he chased me across the room, but I can't complain about that.

The pattern is from here, and I think the yarn might be Woolease left over from Besotted. Quinn's big sister insists that he needs more of a costume, but I don't have the time -- or the yarn -- to knit matching pants, even if I do have a pattern for them.

My socks, which I expected to take forever, somehow flew off my needles:



They've got their little problems (like those weird blue and yellow striped pools of color), but they fit and they were so much fun to work on I'm ready to cast on with some of my pretty sock yarn.

How many days do I have left until Halloween?

I had it all planned out -- spend the next three days finishing my sock, then finish the blue scarf and knit the little devil baby hat for Quinn. There was lots of time to get my Halloween knitting done without abandoning my other projects. Then the cruel folks at Knitty had to put up Yorick. I so need to knit this to wear trick or treating. I've got yarn that should work, I'm just not sure I've got time to make it and the hat before Halloween without totally abandoning the houses.

I'm also really intrigued with this month's Month of Softies theme....especially after seeing the Zombie Rag Doll.

It's quiet here. Both boys are napping and Alex is reading and I'm revelling in the fact that I'm in my own house using my own computer, even if it is set up on the bedroom floor because I shouldn't try to lift the monitor.

This was the view from my kitchen sink this morning:



It'd be more poetic without the Durango sitting there, but I love the trees and the mist and knowing that there are deer and elk out there -- along with the frogs and raccoons and the cat the previous owners left who wants nothing to do with us but we occasionally spot skulking in the distance.

And I've got knitting pictures:



Branching Out, which I finished a while ago. After the first few pattern repeats, which had me wondering if I really should have blown the last of my yarn money (for a while at least) on laceweight wool and shawl books, it got much much easier.



And the Broadripple Baby Socks. This is some of Alex's mystery yarn, which I had to trade the Goodwill alpaca for. From a distance, it looks a lot like Fixation, but it's definitely something else. I love the dense squishy fabric it worked up into and the color, which reminds me of rubber rain boots. They're too small for Quinn, because his Mommy didn't read the size until she had her heart set on the pattern and yarn, so they'll be waiting for #4.



And my socks, which I'm knitting in Knitpicks Dancing with bits of a couple of different patterns. I started out hating the color and the weird blue and yellow stripes -- how does the yarn do that? But now that I've got one done, I'm anxious to finish the second so I can wear them. And after that, I want to start a pair with the other color of dancing I ordered to see if it's got any neat tricks.

The tangle of sock yarn has been tamed! And I didn't have to resort to the scissors, and I'm almost done with the sock. Which would be finished by now if I hadn't been dumb enough to let the baby play with my skein of yarn while I was trying to knit with it.

I bought a little doily pamplet/book/thingie and a skein of pretty green crochet cotton at Walmart while I was grocery shopping yesterday (any yarn purchase that costs less than $5 and goes in with the groceries can't be considered breaking the yarn diet, right?) and the doily books I had reserved should be in by now, so if I can get all three kids occupied at once, I should be able to give this crochet thing a try soon.

After reading the Yarn Harlot's reasons NOT to learn, I'm convinced that this is something I've gotta do. Fast? Uses up lots of yarn? So I could possibly make sweaters for the kids (who will outgrow them fast, so it all balances) with cheap yarn from Goodwill or the discount stores which would make dh see how much yarn I'm using and agree with me that I need to buy more pretty stuff from Knitpicks. Unfortunately, he might pay too much attention to what I'm knitting and what yarn I'm using.

And I don't have the energy to haul the kids to the other library where they'd actually have crochet books with baby patterns...

It's been a whole month without my computer, and I'm handling the deprivation a lot better than I thought I would. I still want my internet access back -- NOW -- but I'm not obsessing about it every minute of every day. I've got other things to keep my occupied (besides the family and the homeschooling and the moving...)

Like the Yarn Harlot's new book. I spent two weeks bugging the local bookstore until the copy I ordered finally came in. Now I'm toting it around from room to room wiht me, enjoying the cover with the shocked little sheepie on the front and reading a chapter now and then.

And my sock. Despite the fact that I'm using fingering weight and size 1 needles and have huge feet, I've made it up past the heel, in the process discovering that I can barely get my foot close enough to the rest of me to wrestle a partial sock onto it. Luckily I got the size right on the first try, so as long as I don't lose this one before I need to compare it to its mate, I should be okay.

All that's left to do is the leg, which would be the easy part. If I hadn't let Quinn hold my yarn while I worked on the heel, turning it into a scary tangle that totally wasn't his fault. And if he hadn't shot out out a little hand with that unexpected speed unique to destructive not-quite toddlers and pulled a dpn loose from 30some teeny tiny stitches, which I couldn't fix until we went to the new house so I could get a teeny tiny crochet hook from the sewing room. The stitches are all back in place and now I need to decide whether to keep fighting the tangle of find some scissors in the hopes that it'll be easier to fix without a sock and needles attatched to one end.

I've done a few more repeats on the Euroflax Stole and finished Branching Out except for the blocking, which I'll wait and do at the new place. I'm ignoring the blue lace scarf because it doesn't look like much fun and I've got something like 16 more 20 row repeats to do.

I want to try some of the worsted weight toddler socks that I printed the pattern for months ago and thought I needed yarn for, totally forgetting about the two skeins of highland wool I bought for I-cord Booga Bag straps and then never used....And the Baby Broadripple socks...and a crochet doily if the book I reserved came in and it's got good directions...