I got neat new stuff yesterday.

Neat thing #1 was a new prescription for real, honest to God migraine medication. For the past few years, I've been limited to the stuff that frequently doesn't work but always makes me sick to my stomach or the stuff that sometimes works but makes the room spin and wears off quickly. Which meant I usually just suffered through the headaches.

After a string of nasty four and five day ones, I decided there had to be a better way and demanded an appointment with a doctor who knew about medications and breastfeeding and what can and can't be done -- turns out my theory was right and that as long as I wait long enough between taking the Caffergot and nursing the baby, we'll both be happy. Yippee!

It also turns out that occasionally having my arm and half of my face go numb and losing the ability to speak coherently is just a migraine aura. Guess that's reassuring. It's also the symptom that convinced him I really do have migraines and not just plain old headaches.

Trust me, this is really exciting!

Nifty thing #2 was the yarn I'd ordered from Knitpicks six days earlier. I never get stuff from them that fast and almost didn't bother checking the post office box while I was in town. The new colors of Palette (at least the four different ones I ordered) are gorgeous! More shawls will soon be on my needles, I guess.

I'm still happily playing with my newest shawls. Rose Garden has become my TV knitting, and I'm almost halfway done with it already. The Luna Moth is giving me just enough trouble that I'm afraid to work on it when there's much danger of anyone jumping on me or asking a question, but it's starting to look like something.

And if there was ANY way for me to post a picture, I'd show you the absolutely enormous snake that was spread out behind the van when I walked around it to unload the groceries last week. I don't know how we pulled into the driveway without squishing him, but all four feet of him were stretched out in the gravel and I didn't see him there until I almost stepped on him -- then I jumped and screamed and said some words the kids probably didn't need to hear.

He's at the other end of the yard now, hopefully eating mice or something. And hopefully he's the same fella that left the big skin Bill found in the barn last year.

This way lies insanity

I did cast on for the new shawl -- all 541 stitches of it. I think I've finally figured out the long tail cast on, so it was a lot less painful than I expected. And I made it through two of the nine yarn skeins before realizing that it was going to make me nuts if I kept pushing myself to keep up the same pace. That's too much purling and too much wrestling the stitches along the cable, and the clues for the new mystery stole are out.

Not that I can print anything here at the house. So we went to the library to do it there. They used to have computers on the main level that you could use for a couple of minutes, but I got directed to an eerily quiet room downstairs where they won't let you go with babies. Can't use those. Can't use the computers in the children's section, not even if I had a kid in my lap.

I did get a reference librarian to help me out, and I've got the first two clues, but by the time we got home from karate and hours of errands, it was too late to hunt through the sewing room for Mystery Stole yarn, so I wound up casting on for the Luna Moth Shawl.

How many shawls/stoles/wraps can I have on the needles at once?

5,000 Gram Update

In just over two months, I've managed to knit up 1500 grams of yarn -- yippee! I got a lot done in May, but I was so convinced I wouldn't be able to do much knitting in June that even though our plans changed and I had time to knit, I didn't get anything done.

Now, I feel like knitting. I finished Askew last night and did mange to get the circumference right, which doesn't matter because the straps hit in an impossible place. It's my fault because I didn't make sense of the schematic and pictures until it was too late. So that's in my sewing room, completely done except for the straps. Maybe I'll have a flash of brillance and figure out how to salvage it one of these days. Or maybe I won't.

Immediately after that was done, I cast on for the second Horcrux sock and stayed up working on the leg until I was too tired to see straight. I finished it about an hour ago and I'm a lot more excited about these socks than I expected to be.

A friend commented that she expected something more spectacular to live up to their name. I didn't even remember what a Horcrux was, just liked the idea of socks that would knit up fast. But I didn't have wool, didn't think one skein of Wool-Ease would be enough, didn't want to use a tiny bit of a second skein... And somehow I wound up with a solid reddish brown color and a bit of varigated stuff that looked like it would be enough for heels and toes.

I didn't realize until I was halfway through the first sock that the varigated stuff was the last of the yarn I used to knit premie hats for Quinn while we were in the NICU. Those hats were too ugly to save, hopefully because I was recovering from surgery, stressed out of my mind, didn't have a pattern and the stupid nurse kept forgetting to give me my pain meds even though I kept asking for some. And after typing that, I'm not sure why I want a souvenier of that stage in our lives, but while I was knitting the sock, I thought it was kind of neat to be using that same yarn in socks for me.

Tonight's plan was to cast on for the Rose Garden Shawl, but after rummaging through three rooms to find the yarn and pattern, casing on 541 stitches may be too much for me.

Oh, and Knitpicks has the last few Memories colors I've been coveting on clearance and yummy new colors of Palette and Telemark and a couple of new sock yarns. So I happily spent the last of my birthday money. Now there's really no more yarn until I get 3500 more grams of my stash knitted up.

A little over a week and quite a few hours of computer shopping later, and I'm still stuck with the ergonomic keyboard and Windows98. There are signs of a new computer on the horizon, I'm just not sure when.

So it's time for another round of knitting in isolation -- hopefully not as long as the last one. I can't look at blogs, can't print patterns, haven't tried reserving library books online, but I'm guessing that'll go about as well as looking at blogs...and it's been a loooong time since I could type faster than the computer displayed the letters.

I did get out to the Black Sheep Gathering this morning and met up with a friend from one of my knittings lists. Had a lot of fun, found some Addi lace needles, bought 3 skeins of yarn -- which does technically break the rules of knitting from my stash and knitting up 5000 grams before buying more yarn, but it's the first time I've cheated in almost two months, ir was only ten bucks and it's prety golden laceweight that isn't anything like the colors available in Knitpicks or Elann's laceweight. And Ranee said I deserved it!

I bought it thinking of the Icarus Shawl, but then I got to thinking about Gerda and I think I've changed my mind. That's one of the things I love about laceweight. It isn't quite as interchangable as sock yarn, but there are an awful lot of things any given amount can be.

I hadn't planned on going this year, but I'm very glad I did.

My computer broke. Literally -- there's a crack in the top of the tower. Nobody will admit that anything at all happened, but when I turn it on, only the fan comes on. So, for the moment, I'm typing this on an old computer that my dad passed onto the kids. I can't print or do anything with pictures, because this thing is too old to have a USB port, but it did let me get online and explain why I've fallen off the edge of the earth...

With all the other garbage I'm dealing with, I did not need this right now.

At least I'd already printed the patterns I want ot make from the new Knitty.

This time, the swatch didn't lie, which has me totally confused. I tried this thing on just before dividing the front and back and it seemed HUGE. Now that it's done, it fits just right. It measures what the schematic says it should. I like the neckline. I thought it would choke me, but it's even loose enough to easily pull on over my ponytail and glasses.

I think I'll try this pattern again with different stitch patterns for the panels.

Pattern: Icy Blue Shell from Creative Knitting July 2007
Yarn: 2 1/2 skeins Lion Brand Cotton-Ease
Needles: Denise 10 1/2 circulars

I didn't feel like knitting at all last night, but wound up ordering a couple of scary movies on pay-per-view and working until all of the ends were woven in. Then I really didn't feel like knitting anything else ever. Not a comfortable feeling, even though I knew it was just temporary.

I was still feeling that way tonight, but I should finish more of the summer tops I have planned so I went up to the sewing room to look for that Elann Sonata I ordered last summer, then googled so I could print out another copy of the pattern I bought it for -- Sonata Crest of the Wave Tank Top.

What was I thinking?! Why didn't I cast on for this months ago?! I want it now!

Utility quilts intrigue me. I want one of my very own. There actually should be a couple hidden away around here someplace, but they're not the kind I'm currently fantasizing about.

I want a quilt that'll use up a ton of ugly scraps and turn them into something that looks neat. I want one that I can spread out on the grass at the park because that's much more comfortable than trying to sit and knit on one of the concrete benches. I want one that won't require a whole lot of accuracy while I'm working on it.

I think I've got a good start --



I've been going through the bags of auction and thrift store fabric, pulling out oddly shaped pieces that I'm never going to use in a regular quilt, and cutting them into strips. There was a little plastic bag that turned out to be full of fabric already cut into strips, and I just hauled down one of the plastic tubs of Mom's scraps (which, for some reason live in my sewing room instead of hers) and found a bunch more strips.

And I figured out what was wrong with my rotary cutter, which hasn't worked right in ages. I had changed the blade a while back, but that didn't help matters at all. Then yesterday I read on one of the quilting lists that it works to take the blade out and flip it, so I decided to give that a try.

There were TWO blades in the dumb thing. They must've stuck together when I was being so careful to take the new one out of the package.

It works much better now. And my 10 year old still hasn't stopped laughing at me.

In the comment she left yesterday, Rachel said I was trying to put the best light on a down situation. I'm glad she saw it that way, because I felt awful whiney. Today's been better.

Alex did send her brother in screaming that she got bitten by a spider while she was collecting eggs this morning, but it doesn't seem to have been a

During some brief stretches while the little ones were napping or playing happily with the big kids, I got the chance to play with my fabric a little more. I'm trying to find online directions for curved piecing, but there don't seem to be any out there.

I did find some other good stuff --

About.com's quilting site has some neat looking patterns.

Quilter's Cache has patterns for a zillion blocks -- I'm drooling over Blazing Arrows.

And, come Hell or high water (or sick kids), I'm going to make a string quilt. I found an article about them in one of the magazines I was leafing through, then found a great tutorial here. Now I know what to do with those ugly novelty prints -- bury them under the strips instead of wasting my good muslin!

Yesterday, my babies were sick again and both insisted that the only place they could be content was in Mommy's lap. Alone. It didn't work out well at all.

I'm sure it's nothing serious, just watery eyes and sniffly noses and feeling miserable, but we're not having any fun here. They got a little friskier later in the day, so I tried to wash and iron the fat quarters.

I want to know what the story behind this fabric is. A lot of pieces were still folded in neat little squares with the ends tucked in, exactly the way they left the quilt shop. Those gave me a sad feeling -- why didn't our mystery quilter do anything with them? Others were cut at the strangest angle, but had been folded back to the size of fat quarters. Those made me feel better, because I'm imagining the weird cut was for a specific project.

That was the stuff in the top half of the bag. At the bottom were scraps of solid colors and ugliest novelty prints ever. I'm positive that the stuff on the top and the stuff on the bottom came from two different sources and was put together at the thrift store. The ugly stuff is back in the bag, waiting for its fate to be determined.

The good fabric tried to whisper to me while I was ironing it, but Alex was hanging over my shoulder and making too much noise for me to hear exactly what it wants to be. I know what she thinks it should be, and which pieces she wants for herself, and I've got a blister on the side of my hand where I brushed it against the iron because I was too busy keeping everyone else away from it to watch out for myself.

Despite all of that, I found exactly the right colors to make a little wall quilt from one of the magazines. It's one of the rare days when we stay home and I should be able to get some stuff done, but I spent the entire night cuddling Leif in exactly the right position so he could sleep and the day's gotten off to a rotten start.

Eeek!

It's been an absolutely wild day here. We went up to Mom's to pick up the first hundred of the quilt magazines (she's keeping half to read and then we're going to trade, and eventually they'll all wind up in my sewing room.) I haven't even sat down to look at them yet, and I've already found half a dozen things I've gotta make.

Grandma stopped by to see the kids and while we were talking about quilt magazines and my bedraggled monkey quilt and the fantastic one Mom just finished, I told her that if she finds any more cheap bags of cotton fabric at the auction we can definitely find something to use it for. That probably sounds tacky, but she doesn't get the whole "stash building" thing and might just decide we've got enough.

She took off, Mom and the kids and I went out to lunch and ran some errands, and a couple of hours later Grandma pulled into the parking space beside us at Joann's. With a bag of fabric she'd just picked up at the thrift store for $4 -- a bag that had seventy-five fat quarters and a bunch of scraps in it. I don't know how she found it, or even found us, since no one knew where we were headed. I swear that woman has a magic wand!

Then we went to Michaels to look at the new giant skeins of Sugar N Cream, and they've also got Simply Soft in the perfect shade of red. But I stuck to the stash knitting plan and didn't bring any home with me.

Oh, and the library has a copy of Unexpected Knitting, which is in my living room with all of the rest of the good stuff...and I picked up the copy of More Sensational Knitted Socks that I ordered along with the kids' schoolbooks...and I would probably have been able to finish that new summer top tonight if I wasn't in such a happy fabric induced daze.

Life is good.

The plan for June seems to be for me to knit cute little summer tops. Like most of my knitting plans, this one formed without much participation on my part.

I've already got the raglan portion of Picovoli done and, since a friend pointed out that it was an endless stretch of mostly plain stockinette, I decided to save the next few inches for late night and park knitting.

So now I'm working on the Icy Blue Shell from the July 2007 issue of Creative Knitting. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone else was working on it while my back is turned, because this thing is going to be done and ready to wear before I know it.

The only thing I've got doubts about at this point is the neckline, but since it's knit in the round from the bottom up, I'm telling myself I can always change it to something more scooped if it bugs me. I like the dragon skin panels -- there are narrower strips down the sides which don't show up in the magazine photo.

Quinn seems to like the dragon scales as much as I do.



There's been a lot of happy squealing at my house this week.

First, it was the sock patterns. I've mentioned how sock patterns make my heart go pitty pat and how I'm trying to resist the temption to order all of Cookie A's sock patterns right this second?

I found more sock patterns to love. It started with the cables here. I've never seen cables like these. You might not want to read down too far, because something bad -- worse than anything in those horror movies I've been staying up too late to watch -- happened to those cables.

The pattern is from the Socken-Kreativ-Liste. I was so head over heels in lust with those cables that not even the thought of trying to knit them from a German pattern was enough to scare me off. But no matter how much I Googled, I couldn't find the list.

Took me two days find the link on Grumperina's site, right in the post that led me to the gorgeous cables. I managed to get myself signed up and figure out which links to click on to get to the patterns -- and they've got English translations!

Alex and I spent most of the afternoon dancing through the house squealing about pretty lace socks.

Then I got the email about the quilt magazines. I'd responded to a Freecycle post last week, but someone else had beaten me to the fifty quilting magazines that the lady was offering. That someone didn't show up to get them, so she emailed me and asked me to call her that night.

I didn't get the message until the next day, and at that point both babies had just gotten over fevers -- they're fine now, but it probably wouldn't have been right to drag them out in the car, even if there were free quilting magazines involved. So I called Mom and Dad and begged. Then crossed my fingers and called the lady to see if she still had them or if she'd gone to the next name on her list.

Called Mom back with the address and had to hang up abruptly because Bill got bit by the snake he'd just found under the wading pool, which isn't a happy thing at all, but it did illustrate to the children why we keep telling them not to pick up snakes in the yard of the new house. Supposedly, there are rattlesnakes down here.

It was a few hours before I finally heard from her. There weren't fifty quilting magazines. There were TWO HUNDRED quilting magazines, all of them in pristine condition.

Eeek! I should get to pick them up tomorrow, if no one gets sick or snake bit.

Leif has decided that if the sky is even beginning to lighten, he must get up. Do you know how early the sky starts to lighten? I don't, but if I can struggle for an eternity trying to coax him back to bed and it's still only six am when I finally give up and haul us both out into the front room, it must be pretty darn early.

Early mornings do way more damage to Mommy's sanity than late knitting nights. And if they keep up, I'll be falling asleep two seconds after the kids and won't be able to have any more late knitting nights. I don't think I like this!

But he does make up for it by being so darn cute at the park. He scares the other mommies. I guess they look at him and see a baby half his age. Because they all need to get my attention and warn me that he's climbing.

I've been watching him do it for a couple of weeks now, and he's pretty darn good at it. If he wasn't at the park climbing everything in sight, I'm afraid to think what he'd be trying to climb at home.

I love the park.



Stash Dent Update

I'm not buying yarn until I use up 5000 grams of what I've already got. My vague plan was to use 500 grams of yarn a month. I've knitted up more than 1000 grams of yarn in the past thirty days, not counting at least 150 grams I had to frog. How did I do that?! I don't think I did an excessive amount of knitting. There were a few days I didn't even knit at all. I may be able to buy more yarn sooner than I expected.

That's good because I want to knit A Cardigan For Merry before Leif gets too big to wear it. The pattern calls for Knitpicks Andean Treasure. I'm not going to turn a toddler in a baby alpaca cardigan loose at the park. I've got some Wool-Ease sport that I could use, but I really did have other plans for that yarn. Knitpicks Telemark is the right gauge, I've been wanting to make a project with it, and they've got twelve brand new colors, all of them absolutely gorgeous...and while I was typing that, I realized that I do have some other nice sport weight acrylic in my stash. Dug it out and it's a prettier color than I remembered, but 100 yards less than I need for the cardigan.

So I'll be waiting for the Telemark.

Picovoli?

I sure hope it is, but I'll feel more confident once there's enough of it done to try on. I swatched, but it was hard to count those multi-colored little stitches and swatches do lie...and I've had to frog way too many necklines lately.



The ballet top is done and I love it. I added a few stitches to the cast on to make it looser -- which actually worked, despite the fact that I did it late at night and without actual measurements. I left off the waist shaping because it seemed like a waste of effort to shape a curved waist for a waist that doesn't actually curve.

Pattern: Ballet Top from Loop de Loop by Teva Durham
Yarn: Tahki Stacy Charles Koko - 4 balls
Needles: Denise 10 1/2

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed
I'm one block short and out of red



Those last four monkey wrench blocks -- I actually needed five. And didn't discover that until yesterday afternoon when the baby was napping in his crib, the other three were playing pirates in a bedroom, and I laid the whole thing out so I could assemble it while no one was stampeding across the living room floor.

I resisted the temptation to make the whole quilt a row shorter and dug out the last of the blue background fabric, found another print to use for the scrappy corners, and stole some red from the fabric I just bought for the binding to make the last block. And I did manage to get it all put together before the screaming pirates descended on me.



Now, I've got three more little monkeys to finish. I'm not loving the fusible applique. There's actually a whole lot about this quilt I don't love, but I'm going to finish the thing come Hell or high water.

Tonight's plan -- more rounds of the ballet top. It should be just about long enough by now.

I finished the Mythological Man Hat. It's not the cutest hat ever, but it was a fun little project and Heath and Quinn have been fighting over it for two days, so I guess I should knit another one. I'm hoping to try Maze from Knitty, in acrylic because that's what I've got.

Oh, and remember the list? The last four blocks for the sock monkey quilt got pieced, the hat is done, Briar Rose is done, and I can probably finish the ballet top tonight if that's what I decide to work on.

So I'm making a new list.

Apparently, I can just sit here and happily crank out acrylic sweaters for my kidlets one after another. Here's the latest, the Briar Rose Raglan.




Pattern -- The cables are from Briar Rose, added to a raglan I came up with after measuring some of Alex's favorite tops. The picot bind-off is from Knitting on the Edge.
Yarn -- 2 skeins Caron Simply Soft, Papaya
Needles -- Denise size 8 circular, Lion Brand size 8 dpns

The yarn had been sitting in my stash for about two years. I picked it up at WalMart after seeing a pattern for a lacy poncho in Creative Knitting and tucked it away so no one would notice I'd been shopping (and spent a whole four bucks -- doesn't that make sense? But I immediately forgot where it was and by the time it turned up again, the lunacy had faded and I didn't want to knit that particular poncho anymore and didn't know what to do with the yarn.

So it sat. I didn't think there was enough to make a sweater for Alex. And now I'm wondering how this sweater ever got started if I was so sure there wasn't enough yarn...

There was a plan. I even had a list --

finish the Briar Rose raglan
finish last four blocks of the sock money quilt
cast on a mythological man hat
maybe do some more knitting on Alex's ballet top

I took the raglan to the park and, because Leif fell asleep on the way, there was nothing I could do but sit in the grass next to my sleeping baby while the bigger kids played. I got a few rounds done before he woke up and a few more rounds done while he was sitting next to me and trying to figure out where he was and how he'd gotten there. I did a few more rows and half of the picot bind off during Alex's karate class, so that should be easy to finish tonight.

The squares for the monkey quilt will be more of a challenge, since I don't remember where I left the fabric. Or the book. But they can't have gotten far.

I found some orange and brown Super Saver for the hat -- the most "petroglyphy" stuff I seem to have in my stash. If I keep raiding the log cabin blanket yarn for other projects until I run out, does that mean the blanket is done?

And the ballet top is just happily there. I know I can finish it in a single long evening, all that's left to do is make it longer, and I was looking for something else on my Elann order history and discovered that I've actually got six balls of the yarn instead of the four I thought I had, so I don't even have to worry about running out of yarn.

BUT

I did a search for the ballet top and found a link to Picovoli, and followed it just to see if I could use the yarn I'd thought about using for it a long time ago. And one of the substitutions listed is Shine Twist. There was a split second when I wondered what Shine Twist was before I realized that I've got some -- and maybe, just maybe, it's enough to make Picovoli with that and now I've got to go ransack the sewing room.

And while I was looking for the link to the hat pattern, I saw the intriguingly named Bear Claw Scarfette and fell instantly in love. I don't have enough of the first yarn that leaped into my mind, but I do have enough of the dark brown Super Kydd...

So who knows what I'll be working on tonight.

Last year at Oregon Flock and Fiber, I saw some old treadle sewing machine bases hooked up to spinning wheel parts and mentioned to my grandma that if she came across a cheap enough one at the auctions I could use it. She had one in the back room of the antique mall already that she'd picked up at the auction for and asked if I'd want it for Christmas.

I said yes, and it was a couple of months before I saw a blurry picture of it on her cell phone. A few weeks after that, my mother called and asked if I'd been down to the shop to look at it because it was really "rough" and she didn't think I knew what I'd agreed to. I don't think there's such a thing as a treadle sewing machine too rough for me to want it. Too rough for me to pay what a lot of the antique stores want, sure, but I was only really after the treadle part and if it was that bad, it could live on the enclosed front porch and be a plant stand. This was before the rooster and two geese took up residence out there.



It was a few more weeks before I saw my new toy up close and personal. It has little drawers down the sides and decorative carving and there's a MACHINE in it. Grandma had asked if I wanted her to take the machine out because it was frozen up and worthless, but I told her I'd like to play around with it -- so she oiled it and fiddled with it and it looks like it might actually work if we can find a bobbin...which she thinks she has in a box somewhere.

I guess she hadn't even meant to bid on it, and now I've got a real treadle sewing machine that I would've lusted after if I'd seen it in an antique store. It's got dings and scrapes and a couple of rings where someone must've kept plants on top of it, but if it was in pristine condition it wouldn't be so perfect for our old farmhouse.

She finally made it down to the old farmhouse this morning, and I'm tempted to spend a couple of hours just sitting and drooling over her. Or knit a doily to cover her up with. Grandma sent a doily, but this gorgeous thing needs something made just for her. I should quilt a table runner -- much more practical, since I've never made a doily.

Yes, I've gone ga-ga over a piece of furniture.

I'm also smitten with a book I brought home from the library last week, Family Ties Old Quilt Patterns From New Cloth by Nancilu Butler Burdick. It's full of patterns based on the quilts made by Talula Gilbert Bottoms, the author's grandmother. Between 1870s and 1945, she made more than 200 quilts.

Only a few of the pictures in this book are of her originals, but there are brief bits about how she made hers and what became of them. Some were packed away the moment she died. One is being used by a descendant to cover the washer and dryer on her back porch.

There's another book about her life that apparently does have pictures of her stuff. The stupid library doesn't have a copy, and of course it's out of print. I found one online last night, but the shipping rates made me hesitate. But I found one on Ebay this morning for $8, with cheaper shipping! And it's on its way to me now.

For a couple of months, I've been having urges to learn how to piece curves and these quilts are absolutely full of them. And I've got those big bags of scraps from Grandma... It was meant to be.

But mom showed up with this --



And now I can't decide what's calling to me loudest. Did I mention that lace and those socks?

Those late nights of knitting have started to add up.



Both tops are done except for the bodies. The little ballet top is just straight stockinette until I run out of yarn, and the Briar Rose raglan needs another inch or two of stockinette and then more ribbing and cables. Not a seam anywhere in their futures, just a couple of ends to weave in. I can do that!

If I can finish both by the end of the month I'll have knit up about fifty dollars worth of yarn. That's encouraging -- maybe really I do need to buy as much yarn as I do! Or, more likely, it's a weird month where I'm using up stuff I paid too much for.

Finally, this sweater is worth showing a picture of!



I really liked the cables on the sleeves and hem of Briar Rose, but my first thought was why not make it a top down raglan? Lately I've had good luck with those. And bad luck with seams.

Alex's current favorite top is a raglan with a wide neckline and 3/4 sleeves, a style which would make my 600some yards of yarn more likely to be enough, so I measured the neck and sleeves and figured out my gauge and cast on.

Neckline #1 was a stupid disaster. I don't know how it took me quite so long to realize that, but I should've noticed a lot sooner than I did.

Neckline #2 was slightly less of a disaster and it took me just as long to see the danger signs. If not longer. I wasn't willing to frog the whole thing again, so I kept going until I had a sleeve done and then tried to wrestle it into submission.

It took me until way past midnight, but the neck just fine now, Instead of a gaping, curling, stockinette monstrosity, there's ribbing that looks exactly like it should.

It won't slide down over her shoulders and drop to the ground! And I'm pretty sure I'm going to have enough yarn to finish the rest of it.

I think I'm in trouble....

I don't even remember what I was Googling for when I stumbled across the Lace Shawl KAL and the Mountain Lace KAL, but from there I found out about the Lacy Lattice Stole and the Seraphim Shawl and the Diamond Fantasy Shawl and got reminded of the Hidcote Garden Shawl and my poor little brain is now overflowing with lace fantasies. Not that it wasn't overflowing before...

Aside from all of the other lace --and quilts and sweaters and everything else -- I've been trying to resist Cookie A's 2007 Sock Collection. I don't need more patterns for socks and shawls. I've got a huge stack of patterns that I'm dying to knit.

But I really want to add those shawls and socks to my list. Almost as much as I'm wanting More Sensational Knitted Socks and Alison Hyde's upcoming book.

I didn't realize until this morning that I forgot to write about the incident that sparked yesterday's little anti-heirloom rant. (And I'm not against heirlooms, I'm against the attitude that everything we make should be treated like a precious treasure destined to be passed down through the ages.)

A friend had asked if I had a picture of my Swallowtail shawl and I responded that I take pictures of all of my FOs before something happens to them. Not two hours later, Heath wore his new sweater to the park and was sloshing around in the stream looking for neat rocks. And throwing mud at his buddies, who of course threw mud back at him. We mommies did quickly put an end to that game, but only because we didn't want the muck in our cars.



And, speaking of things that aren't destined to be heirlooms, my Turkish String Bag is done. I like it well enough, and I might do another one someday, but if I do, I'll use much cheaper yarn. This really shouldn't have been a $20 project. What sounds kind of tempting is to get a cone of Peaches n Cream at WalMart and knit up a bunch of matching ones for the groceries, but I think that's just the part of me that'll jump at absolutely any reason to buy more yarn talking.

Pattern: Turkish String Bag
Yarn: 2 1/2 skeins all hemp HEMP6
Needles: Denise size 13

I think tonight's plan is to work on the new sweater and see if my plan to salvage the neckline will actually work. Wish me luck!

I'm not slaving over future heirlooms here.



There's a lot of advice floating around about how to make sure the handknits will last down to the grandkids -- knit for the older kids so things can be handed down to the littler ones...knit it in a neutral color...knit it in a classic style...and then there's that trick about doing the button bands on a cardigan so the buttons can be switched from the girl side to the boy side.

The quilts are supposed to be wrapped in acid-free tissue, carefully taken out and refolded every few months to prevent creases from weakening the fibers....the needlework is supposed to be kept out of direct light...and appraised in case the house burns down and it's destroyed...

I don't do any of that. I want to knit and quilt and stitch a whole bunch of stuff and if it all lasts forever, sooner or later the house will be full. My heroine is a lady who posted to the knitlist ages ago that she sends her kids out to play in their sweaters so she'll have an excuse to knit more of them.

Were the farm wives who made all of those wonderful feedsack quilts stressing out over how many years the fabric would last? And look at how many of those are still around and in decent shape.

My favorite heirlooms are the accidental ones. The tole painted daisies my mom was getting rid of because she'd done the same painting for herself, her mother, and my father's mother, and they've all come back to her. Which are now at my house because I want at least one example of what she spent so many years doing. The sock monkey Grandma Walters made. The honey jar my Grandma Marr made that sat on her kitchen counter for decades, unused because she accidentally glazed the top to the base.

Hopefully some of my projects do survive longer than I do -- and please let them be good ones, not the ones I keep hoping will get lost or melted in the dryer or eaten by wild animals.

I can imagine the sampler as an heirloom, but not unless I break down and spend the money to have it framed.

It's an H!



The big goal for this sweater was that it be roomy and bulletproof. I think I succeeded on both counts -- especially the bulletproof part. This is the plastic-iest Red Heart Supersaver I've worked with in a while. I had to drag four kids into three different stores to get the color I wanted and by the time I found it, I never even thought to touch the stuff. (The texture really can vary a lot from skein to skein.) By the time I got it home and felt it, I wasn't going back. Hopefully it'll soften up in the wash. If it doesn't, Heath won't care.

And it's just roomy enough. Halfway through the back, I started to really worry that it was going to be too huge. I came so close to making the whole thing a few inches shorter.... And that would have been bad, because my son refuses to admit when he's outgrown any article he likes. And he likes this.

Pattern: It's sort of this. With different yarn, a different gauge, and different construction. I did follow the chart for the H.
Yarn: 3 skeins Red Heart Super Saver -- although looking at my leftovers, I think I only actually used 2 skeins worth. I borrowed the brown from my log cabin blanket. Guess I should put it back before I forget where it came from and it gets mixed in
with something else.

Look what I slogged my way through last night -- two Weasley sweater sleeves, the same length and with matching decreases. And a few more rounds of my Turkish String Bag. And the cast on and first few rows of a Rabbit Proof Scarf. I spent four hours with a couple of DVDs and my knitting spread out across the couch, switching back and forth between projects whenever I felt like it. I didn't plan to work on the sleeves at all, but at one poitn I wanted to keep my eyes on the movie instead of my needles and before I kenw it, there were only ten more rows to go.

Open Water 2 was actually pretty good. The Marsh wasn't worth the dollar I spent to rent it, unless you count the white cables that the heroine kept wearing. I counted at least three different sweaters and a wide scarf thing with a wooden button in the front. I guess it would technically be a stole of a shawl, but it had more of a scarfy feel to it. I want one, but mine won't be white and mine will have prettier cables and less fringe.

Between the movies and the knitting, I had to force myself to finally put the yarn away and go to bed at 2am. Then I laid awake and worried about which sweater to cast on next. Until the baby woke up at 2:15. And again at 5:00.

I did get a little more sleep and woke up later knowing exactly what I want to work on next. But I think I'm too tired to swatch.

Diane made an organic cotton cotton shopping bag, which reminded me of that red hemp I bought a couple of years ago when I was so sure I wanted to knit a stretchy string bag. I'd gotten all excited about a pattern and spent some time tracking down the exact yarn it called for. I don't know why -- I never go out and buy the exact yarn a pattern calls for.

But this time I was determined to have the hemp, and it had to be red. I ordered four skeins so I could make the large size, because bags should be large. The yarn aged in my stash for a while before I cast on and discovered that the stupid pattern wanted me to cast on a whole bunch of stitches and join them so I could knit the whole bag in the round and then sew up the bottom later. I wasn't going to do that. A seam at the bottom of a big stretchy bag sounded like a very bad idea.

So my pretty red hemp sat and aged some more. And then Diane made her bag and I thought about digging it out again, and a string bag knitalong got started, and I read stories about knitters churning them out like they were ballband warshrags or something and the hemp was exactly where I thought it would be and now I'm knitting a bag.

There's a word for what I've been doing for the past few days. I've been slogging -- doesn't that sound nice and productive? Until I found out I was slogging, I thought I was just spending a lot of time getting nowhere.



I signed up for the Mason Dixon Slogalong hoping that it would motivate me to finally make some progress on the Alterknits wrap, but what's got me totally bogged down right now are the sleeves for Heath's Weasley Sweater. I tried twice to pick up the stitches the way the pattern told me to, then decided to work the sleeves separately so I could do them both at the same time and have the decreases and lengths match. Good idea, but it's taking so miserably long to see any progress that I'm rapidly losing my enthusiasm.

The back went quickly because I was anxious to start the front. The front was entertaining, because it had that great big intarsia H to deal with. The tops of the sleeves have the same number of stitches as the body, so it's taking me twice as long to see the same amount of progress.

This is why I usually try to do sleeves first. Because sleeves are boring and they have decreases to keep track of and I'd rather get them out of the way while I'm still all excited about a project. And they're usually narrow, so they make good swatches if I knit one at a time.

I'll keep going because I do have hopes of finishing before it gets too hot outside for Heath to wear it. If I manage an inch or two a night, the whole thing will be behind me soon. Except for the seams. I'm not excited about those, either. Seams never excite me.

Caron Simply Soft is one of my favorite cheap box store yarns, so their new Simply Soft Shadows intrigued me. When I was at Michaels and had an extra 40% off coupon, I picked a up a skein. I think I was going to try to knit Calorimetry out of it.

Then I met the hugely pregnant lady who runs the nursery at our new church. How could I not decide to knit something for a mommy-to-be wearing a nametag on her belly?



It's a modified Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono, based on the changes described here. I added a little bit of garter stitch at the cuffs because I didn't like the way the ones on Leif's kimono came out. It only took an evening and a half to knit and when I bound off there was just enough yarn left in the skein to sew up the seams. I still can't believe I didn't run out.

The yarn is a little nicer to the touch than regular Simply Soft, and I love the muted striping effect. But I'm not sure I'd invest in enough skeins for a big project.

I finished the seams in the church parking lot this morning, took a picture of it on the front seat, and handed it to the mommy-to-be shortly before she left for the hospital.

---

This is what 5000 grams of yarn looks like --



It's not the 5000 grams I'll be knitting my dent out of. I had a picture of the acrylic, but then I re-weighed the bag and realized that it was actually sixteen pounds, not twelve. The scale was on the carpet the first time I weighed it. The bag of sock yarn weighed about the right amount, so it's what I took a picture of.

I've been working on the details --

If I knit up at least 500 grams of yarn a month, it'll only take me until the end of next February. I can go through 100 grams of worsted weight in an extremely productive day, or 50 grams in a more reasonable evening. So that makes five or ten days a month of actually using up yarn. And leaves at least twenty days to quilt or play with laceweight or sock yarn. Or not do anything at all. And I'll still manage to finish before the end of time.

I will knit from my stash, but I can buy new yarn or knitting books to celebrate significant FO's or weight loss. Christmas yarn, or yarn bought with Christmas money, doesn't count. Auction yarn, or any other yarn that falls into my lap, does not count. Thrift store sweaters only count if I go actively looking for them. Garage sale yarn -- oh, I don't know! It's not like I'm not gonna cheat.

If my weighing and guessing and calculating is anywhere near accurate, 5000 grams is about 10% of my stash. It'd be equal to 100 skeins of yarn, if I didn't use so much cheap acrylic. Doesn't that sound like a lot? Enough to be considered a huge dent? I'm using grams instead of yards or skeins because it's the most accurate way I can think of to measure how much yarn I'm actually using.

Oh, and if anyone wants to do this with me, I'd love the company!

I've been happily planning how I might actually knit a dent in my stash, coming up with a plan of attack that should work -- besides the obvious "start knitting and don't stop until you're done" approach. I made one last purchase before promising myself not to buy any more yarn for as long as I can stand it....and I'm already in trouble!

Monday night, I placed what was meant to be my last yarn order for at least a couple of months. I got yarn for the Reversible Lace Rib Shrug With Swing Shaping, which I've been intrigued by since they first posted the pattern months ago, yarn for the Pacific Waves Shawl in Rose Garden, which I've been drooling over for a couple weeks, and five skeins of Calista for that version of the Luna Moth Shawl.

Every single time I place a Knitpicks or Elann order and swear I won't order more yarn anytime soon, they immediately come out with yummy stuff that I can barely live without. It's the way the world works, and I was prepared for it. But I wasn't at all happy when I got my yarn order Friday morning and saw the Peruvian Baby Lace Merino that's going to become available on the 8th. Six hundred yards of 50% Baby Alpaca/ 50% Fine Merino for $4.48! If I'd waited just a couple more days, I could've made Gerda in pink

sigh

Why didn't I think to look at the sneak peeks before placing my order?!

I do love the yarn I ordered, especially the Calista, but it would've been so easy to add another $4 skein of yarn or two or three to the total.

It's not the end of the world. I could spend the rest of my birthday money from Mom and Dad (birthday yarn does not by any stretch of the imagination count as cheating against knitting from my stash or knitting a dent, or whatever it is I'm supposedly doing). I could cheat. Or I could wait until I've finished a big project and celebrate with laceweight.

The Pacific Waves Shawl is big...

So, how long do you think it would take to knit a substantial dent in my yarn stash?

As of last night, I'm trying to find out. The plan is to weigh my finished projects on the kitchen scale and keep track of how much yarn I'm actually using and how long it takes me to knit up 5000 grams.

It should be interesting. I'm afraid it might be downright scary to find out how little yarn I use compared to how much I buy.

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.

For the past few days, there's been a weird smell in the house, especially on the babies. Something like freshly cut wood, but more chemically than that. It's was starting to drive me nuts that I couldn't figure out what it was, especially since it was on my kids!

This morning, I threw in a load of laundry and realized that it's the HE detergent Bill bought for our new washer. I've got another sixty loads worth to use up before I try to convince him to never ever ever buy Gain again. And he was trying to help me out, because the only stuff I could find was Tide which I've refused to go near since I had a bloody allergic reaction to it years ago. And I can't use the stuff I do like because the new washer is finicky.

It's been one of those mornings. I woke up with the same headache I went ot bed with, then the medicine for my head made me want to puke, the carbon monoxide detector started chirping because it wants a new battery. And my knee's been throbbing because my buddy and I didn't walk this week. So I found the tire pump, got the double jog stroller set up for the first time since Heath was a baby (the tires are constantly going flat and I don't do tire pumps) and the kids and I headed up the hill.

There was a furry black and white animal chewing on something in the field by the side of the road. I thought it was a cat I hadn't seen before, but it didn't look right. So I told the kids to stay put and got close enough to see the stripes. Told the kids to be very very quiet or I would murder them and then to come over one at a time to look at the skunk.

So they're all excited about the wildlife and I'm wondering if it wasn't just pointed out to me that my kids and their clothes could smell a whole lot worse.

Chest Freezer Diving

DH said we should start using up the stuff in the chest freezer. It was so full I had to weight down the top to keep it closed a couple of times, but that's what happens when both of us go to Costco on the same day and come home with a bunch of the same stuff. So for the past couple of weeks I've been rummaging around in there and hauling stuff into the kitchen freezer (kind of like what I do with the yarn and fabric stashes) and now it's only half full.

Last night, I was digging down to the very bottom because I knew there was a turkey breast down there. It turned out to be under two big paper bags of yarn. One I remember putting in there, but was sure I'd taken out. The other one I'm not so sure about. But it has to be mine, right? Now that all of the yarn is out, there's lots of room for groceries.

And there's a good explanation for a freezer full of yarn I don't remember. Grandma goes to the auction to buy furniture for her antique shop and find cheap yarn. Some of it's very nice cheap yarn, some is usable cheap yarn, and some is crappy cheap yarn that I try to foist off on the kids. Because I don't know where's it's been, it all goes straight into the freezer for a couple of days, just in case.

Last week, she brought over a box with seven or eight skeins of white and pale blue worsted weight wool. It looks nice enough, but I couldn't think of a thing to do with it. That little moment of absolute stupidity has passed and as soon as I can figure out how to keep the kids occupied, I'm going to break out the food coloring and plastic wrap. I see colorful diaper soakers in Leif's future.

Even though I'm not making a whole lot of progess on anything but Frozen Lake, I found something else to think about knitting -- scroll down about half way to see the Argosy baby blanket. I want one, and Kay says there's a free pattern coming. There's already a dishcloth version, so I printed it out to see if I really do like the design enough to do something big. And the Wedgie Scarf looks like it could be fun, too.

I've lost track -- this is either my 3rd or 4th attempt at Frozen Lake, and I finally get it!!! My rows of yo's and decreases line up just the way they should. If someone talks to me and I lose count, I can look at the stitches and figure out if I'm supposed to be decreasing or yarn-overing or just knitting.



Why was this so impossible a couple of months ago?