Robins' Yarns

Just a Quick One (You Know You're A Knitter When...)

2011-08-19T23:19:00.001-07:00

Leonard finished his first sock in fingering weight yarn. He had a lot of challenges to get up to "real" sock knitting. His view not mine. His first pair of socks were actually felted slippers. He made the Fuzzy Feet from Knitty.com. His second pair got stalled out after the first sock was completed. It was a worsted weight pair but the yarn was not a good choice and he wasn't using a pattern and cast on too many stitches so the sock was so big it ended up fitting over a cast. We frogged it.
The reason Len was knitting such big yarn was because he had really bad cataracts and couldn't see. Then he had surgery and suddenly my stash of sock yarn was in immediate danger of being poached. Shelley and I got him some lovely blue/green sock yarn of his own as a present. And now Leonard has a fabulous sock, that fits, and is technically his forth sock. He's still counting them individually... silly man.
The punch line of the joke is, he's over on the couch casting on his second sock and is grumbling and swearing because he's having trouble with the join and I go over to help. As I lean over in my very skimpy nighty to see what's wrong he sits there and counts stitches and examines his joining technique and not once does he do the descent thing and look down my cleavage. He has now graduate to full knitter status!

You know your a knitter when you have a chance at a cheap feel and would rather finish your knitting.

Today is My Birthday

2011-08-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

Leonard, me and Ryan at the Seattle Aquarium

Len has been hassling me to blog, so here it is. We're going to start with a bit of miscellany about what I've been doing the last month or so and then work up to an actual post that may have a point to it.
Since the last time I blogged I have babysat for my Mom. Had Ryan and Jarret for a while. Jarret went home to his Dad's but Ryan stayed. We had a good time. We processed a ton of cherries and ate a ton more. We baked. We painted. Ryan filled an entire sketch book. We did some illustrations for Homeward Pet. If you go into the shelter you can even see one of the "Staff Pick" signs up on the bulletin board.

Knitting at the library

I went to the library with Leonard while he taught Word classes. I even managed to score a new Nevada Barr hardcover for $2. Between Shelley's Kindle and the library I should run out of things to read sometime next millennium.
As far as knitting goes it's been a low knitting month. I'm almost done with the pink summer socks. I've finished the sock monkey for Teresa and most of the baby sock monkey too. The baby monkey just has arms and a tail yet to go. That's it. I haven't worked on any other knitting.... sigh. I do have some funny things to say about knitting with babies but that's going to be another post.

Steampunk brooch for Ryan. Cold riveted and hand sewn on an old button.

Ryan and I did find something new to bond over. We discovered a similar taste in fashion. Not mine, I have very little fashion sense when it comes to dressing myself, but hers! We went through the fabric I'd been collecting for when she got old enough to dress like everyday is Halloween. I had some fabulous burnt out velvet with skulls and scroll work, and black lace and ribbon. We had a little gothfest and made a dress, a necklace and choker, bracelet, pins and brooches. And I still have fabric left over, I just need to get my sewing machine fixed. Yep, you read that right, the whole project was hand sewn because I'm to lazy to replace a part in my sewing machine. I even have the part, but in my defense I have no idea of how to get it in there and then get it working once the part is in. In the whole fit of sewing enthusiasm I also fixed and re-hand tied an old quilt. It looks so much better with all new yarn ties and no giant holes in it. It was queen sized so you could have lost a whole herd of sheep in there and never found them again.

On my birthday I like to think about all the stuff that has happened in the last year. Most people do this at New Years but I never have the time around the holidays to think of anything but baking. So here's my year in review:

1. Had several months of major health challenges, followed by abdominal surgery. This pretty much took up my year until February.
2. I knit a large and industrious amount of bibs, baby sweaters, and toys.
3. My Mom adopted a newborn baby girl, giving me a new baby sister and someone to foist off all the knitting goodies on.
4. Len adopted a new cat from Homeward Pet.
5. John went and adopted a cat from them the next month.
6. The next day I started as a volunteer. I work cats and reception. They like me enough that they haven't fired me or anything.
7. My iTunes library has expanded to over 10GB.
8. I'm finally getting a divorce, yeah!!

I love knitting. I love life. I love my family. Next year is going to be better. 38 was ok. 39 is going to be lovely. 40 is going to rock on toast. I think I'll do a recap post every year on my birthday.

Busy Week Brings Cherries and Not A Lot of Knitting Time

2011-07-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Len, Ryan and I went to Burbank, Washington to visit Len's folks on Monday and Tuesday. It was fabulous. Len's parents are darling and Bonnie always goes out of her way to make us feel welcome. They didn't even mind us bringing Ryan along at the last minute sticking a quiet gothy teenager on the couch.

Ryan petting baby horse.

Ryan got to see a little slice of farm life. Leonard's dad, Lyle has about a 1000 fruit trees around the house plus a tack barn, a small pasture, a work barn and three horse paddocks. One of the horses was home for Ryan to pet and coo at but she wasn't broken to saddle yet, and the other two were up the road getting breed so we didn't get a chance to go horseback riding this time. We did get to visit the other horses and pet all the new baby horses. Some of the foals and colts we were petting were only a few days old. Ryan had never seen new baby horses up close before. They were sooo cute!

Cherries had just come in while we were there so we spent a couple hours picking some. We came home with two 5-gallon buckets of cherries. One bucket of Rainier and one of Van, Van's are dark and sweet just like Bing.

We also went thrift store shopping and came back with some cool milk glass and another cast iron skillet, like Leonard needs more. One shop had the coolest chandelier. This picture doesn't do it justice.

All in all a fun trip. I wish we could have stayed longer. Once we got home we had to wash and pit and freeze all those cherries. We've actually just been eating some and I gave a couple gallon bags to the volunteers at Homeward Pet. Between the trip and yard work and general business I haven't had much time for knitting. I got one sock done and cast on for the other one. And I started the sock monkeys for Teresa at Country Yarns.

Let sleeping Bosco's lie.

Two year old Tango.

Will try harder to knit more this week.... maybe.

Knitting By Glow Stick - It Can Be Done!

2011-06-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

I wish I had brought my camera tonight... not that it would have done a lot of good in the dark but it would have made a fabulous picture.

Here's the story. My fifteen year old daughter, Ryan, got invited to Pump It Up for her friend Shelly's birthday. Pump It Up is basically a big gymnasium with inflatable toys on a grand scale and party rooms for after you bounce, slide, and tumble your way to exhaustion. It's actually a lot of fun. The grow-ups are encouraged to play too and some really smart person even put a drinking fountain in each room. Ryan beat me on the obstacle course.

One of the things they do to make it even more fun for the teenage crowd is turn off all the lights. They give each kid, and adult, a glow stick necklace to wear and then turn on one lonely overhead black-light. Then the music gets louder and the laser show starts and you can't see much. More to the point, you can't see well enough to knit. This will not do. But I am a clever knitter and if there is a way I will find it.

They'd given me a glow stick too. I broke the seal, shook it up and made it into a necklace. It didn't have a lot of light but when I lay it right over the top of my needles I could just make out the yarn. I was knitting socks. My double points were Knit Picks Harmony size 2, not a light color it turns out. The yarn was better, it had flecks of white in it so some of the black-light glow made it easier to see. First I hung my glow stick over my wrist but that was to far from the tips of the needles for me to see. Then I hung the glow stick of off the needle I was working on. That was better but I dropped a stitch while I was knitting around the glow stick and it was like having and extra needle in the way. I had to go out to the lobby to pick up the dropped stitch. Eventually I landed on a solution. It was elegant and ridiculous, but it worked. I put the glowing necklace in my mouth. I had to lean a little closer to my hands but it put the light just where I needed it. You couldn't actually see the needles, you had to go on faith that they were there. I finished half the foot and started the toe decreases. Ryan's friends and the other parents think I'm crazy.

I am happy I got some sock knitting done.

Yes, the cat really is trying to pick his teeth on my double points.

Ryan actually tells me that her friends like me a bit because I'm nuts and paint and knit and bake. She sometimes feeds them my cupcakes and spent a good part of yesterday experimenting with my acrylics to make Shelly's birthday present. I'm so proud.

Everyday Should Be Knit In Public Day, and Homeless Pets Need Love Too

2011-06-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

This is going to be part public service announcement and part random this is what I'm working on now post. Just so you know.

I've started volunteering at Homeward Pet, a no-kill animal shelter here in Woodinville. I love it. I do laundry, answer the phone, feed cats, clean litter boxes and pet more cats. It's just like home! Some day I will graduate to walking dogs. I love kitties. I've always wished I could do more for the ones that don't get adopted. All our pets are rescues. So, now I go in two mornings a week and help out. The staff and other volunteers are very welcoming and friendly, and they do me the enormous honor of eating the cupcakes and cake I bring in after a bout of stress baking. This is a much better thing than having me and my diabetic family eat it all.
Now for the cute cat pictures, here are mine.

Bugaboo stalking the driveway.

Pixel on the cat tree.

Annabelle does not like having her picture taken.

Pixel came from the Humane Society nine years ago and he is still our largest and most cuddly cat.
Bugaboo was part of a litter of five kittens my daughter Ryan rescued from the parking lot of our apartment complex four years ago.
Annabelle and Temperance are both from Homeward Pet.
Bobbie, our ever patient three-legged dog is from PAWS in Lynnwood. He's always happy to have his picture taken with my knitting.

Temperance is only 4 pounds at two years old.

Bobbie under lace wash cloth.... thinks his Mom is nuts.

I also have made good progress on my socks and went to Snohomish and picked up some knitting projects from Country Yarn. Expect Sock Monkey pictures soon.

Knitting Rules For Chronic Screaming Depression

2011-06-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

1. Never knit dark grey socks. This goes for navy blue and white too. Life is just to short to knit boring socks you can buy at Target $6.00 for a package of twelve.

2. Never knit anything grey in the winter. Seasonal Affective Disorder is not just for neurotic middle age women. Why stack the deck? If you live in a cold, rainy, northerly place the absolute last thing you want is a giant pile of more darkness in your lap waiting to become a sweater.

3. Knit bright colors. You don't have to make everything in royal blue or shocking pink but do consider adding a pop of color to your knitting. After knitting a beige cardigan make a few cherry red wash clothes, or lime green cats toys, you'll feel better.

4. Knit something small. Working on a small project can give you a sense of accomplishment when nothing else you're working on seems to be going anywhere. I like interspersing my big projects with baby bibs, booties, dish rags and cat toys, really anything you can pick up and finish in a couple hours is fabulous.

5. Listen to music while you knit. Sing out loud. Some people like background noise, some people don't, I like a bit but not an actual conversation that I have to pay attention to when I'm feeling blue. But I find it impossible to sing and be depressed at the same time. I can listen to Machines of Loving Grace all damn day and still be in a rotten mood but singing off key to the radio perks me right up, and the cats never complain about my lack of singing skill. The extra bonus is you can sing and look at your knitting at the same time.

6. Don't drink and knit. Alcohol is a depressant. This is bad. And when you sober up and see all the mistakes you made on that nice lace scarf you'll feel even worse.

7. Find other knitters. Even if you don't knit in company, even if you have trouble leaving the house, other knitters are a godsend. They will laugh with you, cry with you, and above all understand you when you get teary over a cashmere blend yarn that your dog got ahold of and buried in the yard.

8. Knit for others. Some days it's hard to get motivated to make something for yourself, so make something for someone else. I don't actually use knitted wash clothes, or bibs, and I have plenty of hats. I do have a growing pool of folks to foist off my quick pick-me-up projects.

Pixel under the Icelandic Lace Shawl

9. Knit something gorgeous just for you. Sometimes I don't like my body very much. Some days I don't feel like I'm worthy of having a really nice thing made with really luscious yarn. I'll spend money getting that perfect yarn for the kid's christmas presents but not me. Do it anyway! Knit yourself an alpaca lace shawl or a silk/merino cardigan. If you're a petite then knit a whole bathrobe. If you're on the plushy side then accept who you are and go buy more yarn. Just working with the super soft yarn will make you happier.

10. Life is to short to knit with yarn you hate. Don't do it. If you hate the color, the texture, or if it's just hard to work with, then don't do it. Sometimes you have to fight your knitting, don't fight your yarn too. I don't care if it was a gift, if your five year old picked it out specially because it's their absolute favorite color and they will die with out it, or the wool fumes at your local yarn shop got to you and you bought it on sale, take your crap yarn and give it to Goodwill. Some one there will love it and it will take up less space in your house.

Bobbie thinks his Mom is nuts for putting knitting on him to take pictures.

Seriously though, depression sucks, and I joke and make light of it because that's how I deal with uncomfortable subjects. And this isn't just about knitting, and this isn't just about dealing with depression. Humor is a weapon I use every day to fight depression. I also knit. Making things makes me feel better. So go out there and knit, and feel better. Maybe life will surprise you with cashmere.

Happy Woman Buried Under Sock Yarn

2011-06-09T00:11:00.000-07:00

I have an enormous amount of sock yarn. It's slowly taking over the rest of my stash. But I had no idea how much really until I decided to catalogue it all on Ravelry. I just took 105 pictures of sock yarn to put on my stash. Now this does not mean that I only have 105 skeins of sock yarn, nor does this mean that I don't make socks out of yarns that are in another yarn weight. This does mean that I just took 105 pictures of just the sock weight yarn in my stash that I can find, and is not being used on another project, sorted by brand and color.

And you know what? I don't have enough. I only have three skeins of Socks That Rock, and one skein of Socks That Rock Silkie. That can't possibly be enough to work such a fabulous yarn. I know me. I've done four pairs of Opal socks and still haven't gotten Opal out of my system. Colinette's Jitterbug is very nice, and Fly Dyed Monarch works up with a similarly lovely hand but it's not the same. I've gone over to knitting some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock and Shibui to ease the pain of not having enough Socks That Rock but I still want more. It's like chocolate, more is better.

My housemates have said that that is quite enough and that I don't really need more sock yarn. It'll take me hours to put it all up on Ravelry and if I buy more it'll take even longer. John says I can buy more when I've knit up 105 pairs of socks. I very carefully explained to him that some sock patterns actually require more than one color of yarn, in the case of fair isle, and that some knee high socks actually use several skeins of yarn. And would he really want me to suffer from not having soothing cotton/bamboo ankle socks in summer, and warm merino superwash fair isle thigh highs in winter? Of course not. I even use my sock weight yarn to make other things, gloves, mittens, baby clothes. I even keep all the little balls of leftover yarn for turning into an afghan later.

Leonard says that I can have all the sock yarn I want provided that he gets to pinch as much from my stash as he can get his grubby little sock knitting hands on. He is eyeing my Zauberball Crazy. It may have been an error to teach him how to knit socks.

Just because my sock yarn now takes up an 18" x 18" x 3' bin plus 2 really large baskets does not mean I have to much yarn. My other yarn takes up 7 more bins plus a basket, several sweater bags, a couple boxes and thats not counting the roving. I have not yet reached the critical mass of more yarn than I can knit in my lifetime. I divided up the sock yarn into projects and at my current rate of sock knitting, about a sock a month or so, it should only take me 4 1/2 years. I'm only 38, that's plenty of time.

In fact, it may even be time to get more sock yarn...

The First Day of June Has Arrived With Rain

2011-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

I know, rain in Seattle, who knew?

This week seems to be all about finishing. Today I have to finish Leonard's bunny, finish the laundry I started yesterday, and finish cleaning the kitchen. This week I have to finish cleaning out the garage, so I can get to my painting things, so I can finish the two paintings I have on commission and the nine or so I've already started but never finished before the last garage clean. This is what I get for putting my studio in the garage. If I had the space I would move it in to a room that has heat. At least I'm making progress. My garage has a lot more floor than it did last week and I've vacuumed it at every step so it's a clean floor too. I've even found my old dear friend the dining room table. Handy for all kinds of crafty projects!
And if you think this picture is a big ol' mess you should have seen it before. I hate when things get disorganized, it makes me grind my teeth.

On to more knitting topics, much more fun. I've started to preliminary drawing for Teto, the fox-squirrel from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I have the yarn all ready to pick colors. I'll be using Lamb's Pride for the main body and then some Crystal Palace Whisper in cream for the fur ruff around the neck. This should make the neck ruff super soft and fluffy.

Oh, and one more Bootie pic! I just can't seem to get enough making booties. I'm averaging a pair a week. My Mom was talking about hanging them from the mobile. Yeah, a bootie-go-round. That just sounds so wrong.

10 Things To Do With Booties When The Baby Goes And Gets To Big

2011-05-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

I love making baby booties. It's usually pretty easy, pretty fast and fairly inexpensive. You can try out new yarns, and new color combinations. It's alot more interesting than making a swatch if you need to see what gauge your getting on the new silk/cashmere/merino blend you just paid a small fortune for. Baby booties are also small, so, like socks, you can take them anywhere to knit while waiting for a beer in your local pub. Sometimes your waiter will even ask to see a picture of the cute little darling you're knitting them for.

But babies themselves have a near fatal flaw when it comes to knitting booties. The little suckers go and grow up before you're done knitting for them. I can maybe forgive this for a sweater, you can always give it to some other baby. You could even donate it to a daycare if you don't have another baby handy, but booties are so small and precious, it's almost an insult to have them grow out of them in the week it takes me to make a pair. OK, so it only takes a couple days but it may be two weeks before I see the intended baby. So to ease my troubled heart I've come up with some things you can do with baby booties once the baby gets to big.

1. Christmas Ornaments - I've had a pair of fluffy white booties my Great Grandmother made for me when I was a wee lass on the tree every year for the last 37 years. If you want to seperate them you can even keep one for your tre and send one off with the kid once they move out of the house.

2. Egg Cozy - A 6-9 month size bootie is just about the right size to cuddle a hard boiled egg. Ask me how I know? Those eggs are really hot when they've just come off the boil.

3. Doll Clothes - If the afore mentioned child does not have a suitable sized doll you can get them a teddy bear. If you're desperate you can even knit them a doll just to go with the booties.

4. Swatch Substitute - As mentioned, it's a slightly more entertaining way to get gauge and it's small enough to keep with the yarn for future reference.

5. Cat Toys - Stuff them with a bit of fiberfill and some catnip and your cats will love you forever.

6. Dog Toys - Felt them, if you can, stuff them and then sew them on to a long stuffed tube to make a many footed caterpillar to play tug-o-war with your dog. My dog Bobbie loves tug-o-war and if he does have a special toy for it you can kiss your good socks good bye.

7. Paw Protectors - This isn't as silly an idea as you might think. Dogs feet can get really cold and in some parts of the county in winter can actually freeze to the sidewalk. Booties with drawstings are really your best bet for this, and felted booties don't work as well either because dogs need their toenails to stick out for traction.

8. Shot Glass Cozy - Ok, now that is silly but they make cozies for every other cup known to man so why not?

9. Satchets - I like mine stuffed with lavender for the linens and cinnamon sticks for my clothes. Draw string booties work best for this one too.

10. Charity - Probably the most important thing you can do is give back to your community. Childrens' Hospitals, homeless shelters, womens shelters, church rummage sales, even pet shelters are great places to give a little gift. What homeless cat wouldn't love a catnip stuffed cashmere/merino bootie?

LYS Review: Country Yarns in Snohomish Washington

2011-05-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

One fine Saturday I was looking for a very specific yarn. My favorite local yarn shop had just closed a few months ago and I needed some Black Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted to start a new project. Lamb's pride is one of my favorite "work horse" yarns for felting and making stuffed animals. It's soft has lovely stitch definition when not felted and is rugged enough to take the abuse toddlers dish out to there favorite toys. It even gets a lovely fuzzy halo. And the shop I always got it at was gone!

So I went to Black Sheep's website and looked up who in Washington carries their products. I knew that the two shops closest to my home, Main Street Yarn in Mill Creek and Serial Knitters in Kirkland carry Lamb's Pride but only in Bulky. I did not want Bulky, I wanted worsted. So I called a couple of shops on the list from Black Sheep. One shop was closed and one shop only had three colors. Three colors? What's the use in that? The other shops on the list were to far away or in Seattle proper, I dislike Seattle traffic, save one precious gem of hope, Country Yarns in Snohomish. I live in Woodinville, thats just up Highway 9. Victory was within my grasp.

I called the shop at the first reasonable opening time, 10 am. Who am I kidding, waking up before noon on the weekend is challenging for my house. I spoke with Teresa, the owner and found that she did indeed have the yarn I sought, she also had the color cards and was placing an order so if she didn't have the colors I wanted she could just order them in for me. At that point I nearly teared up and did a little happy dance at my computer. Now all I needed was a conscious roommate with a car.

After a some caffeine we pulled into the parking lot a little before 1:00. (See, not fast movers on a weekend.) We were greeted by a very perky Teresa who immediately made us feel at home. She even made us tea.

My roommate Shelley has some mobility issues. The shop was perfect for her. Nice open floor plan. Everything was in easy reach. No stairs. The shop has a really big table in the middle of the main room so we could sit down with our tea and look through the color cards and books at our own pace. The back room is full of roving and Shelley had to limit the time she spent in there, not because she couldn't move around but because she spins and the wool fumes were making her want to buy everything in site. She did pick up a beautiful 4oz of wool/silk hand dyed roving and an alpaca fleece. The alpacas name was Geraldine, I think. She lives on Sauk Island.

That was one of the things that I most liked about Country Yarns, they make a serious effort to support the local community. They had yarn from spinners in Snohomish and Monroe, dyers in Snohomish, and fleeces from Montana. One of the spinners even uses wool from her own sheep. While we were there knitters kept coming in to the shop and sitting at the big table. They would get out projects and share stories. When I ask Teresa if we were interrupting a knitting circle or class or something she said "no, this is just what happens." It was fantastic. I got to talk with the other knitters and shop the sock yarn and drink tea and ask questions of the class on spinning that actually was a class in the back room. We had a great time.

So, on to the nuts and bolts. Country Yarns is located at 119 Avenue B, Snohomish, WA 98290. It's a one story brick building with on street parking and a parking lot just to the south. The shop is in the front. Their phone number is 360.568.7611. She is getting her new website back up and running but I don't know what it is yet. She's open M-W,F&Sat 10-6, Th 12-8, Closed Sunday. She carries a variety of yarns with an emphasis on local fiber artists and different textures. You may not find a huge selection of novelty yarns or big name yarn companies but you will find a good mix of yarns for every purpose. She carries cotton, kids yarn, sock yarn, natural fibers, wool blended with silk, cashmere, or alpaca. The floor plan is very open so on first blush you might not think she has a lot of variety, or stock for that matter, but take a second look, and then a third, there's a lot of yarn in that shop.

Shelley and I did end up ordering some Lamb's Pride. Shelley's making a large I-cord table cover and matching rug and I wanted to order some of the colors I hadn't seen before just to have them in my palate. I also got three balls of sock yarn and sense my bin and my giant basket of sock yarn are already overflowing I had to get a new basket to keep it in. I wouldn't want my Zauberball or Schoppel Wolle to get lonely while waiting for me to knit them.

Totoro Invades Family Gathering

2011-05-18T23:50:00.001-07:00

The Totoro I made for Ryan was extremely popular on Sunday when my Mom came over for her birthday. She brought my sisters, Quinn and Keelin.

Quinn is five and fairly large for her age. She loved carrying Totoro around and using him as a pillow on the couch while she watched Pokeman.

Keelin is only three months old and didn't know what to make of Totoro. He's bigger than her and her car seat combined.

Jarret, my son, kept trying to steal the big guy from either Ryan or Quinn, who ever had him last. And, no, Jarret is not trying to eat Totoro's ear. He's kissing him. Twelve year olds automatically look goofy when kissing stuffies.

The kids had a good time playing with him and running around. It's always so cool to make something for the kids that they actually like!

Time Managements Leeds to Managing Time

2011-05-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

So I was reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog yesterday after five hours of killing plants in my yard and it got me thinking. OK, mostly I was thinking, gosh my back hurts, and when did the bypass lopper get to be so heavy, but she was talking about how she juggles her crazy life and how family and knitting is more important than housework. And I thought, "Wow, I would much rather be spending time with my family and a good sock pattern than pruning the damn bushes." And then I thought, "How do I really spend my time?" I'd never really thought about it from that direction before. How are my days and hours divided up? Do I really spend that much time doing laundry? So I sat down and really thought about it. It was like Poo Bear in Winnie the Poo going "think, think, think."

Here's how my life stacks up. I work from home, or rather am unemployed and spend most of my time at home as my car died and I have no money to get a new one but that is beside the point, it takes work to make my house function. I live with three other adults, who all work outside the home, a dog, three cats, and one or two children who come for weekends, school breaks and holidays. I live in the downstairs of a 3300 square foot house on one and a half acres.my half of the house, the bit I have to clean and maintain, is about 1600 square feet. The property is mostly lawn and flower beds that have been deeply neglected. We, as a group, rent the house but it's my job to try and bring the yarn back from the dead. I'm also the person in the house most likely to shriek in outrage if the house gets to messy, or dirty, or cluttered, and I don't work so guess who does the bulk of the housework. Go on, guess. I also do all the laundry for me, the two boys and the kids and all the linens. The kids aren't here all the time so at least I don't have to wash six sets of sheets every week.

Oh, and sometimes I cook, and when I'm really stressed I bake. A bad stress day could see five dozen cupcakes, four batches of cookies, banana bread and two dozen ham and cheese rolls. I don't make small food.

My life divides itself into days pretty nicely. One day a week is spent on the yard, usually a Thursday. Thursday is the only day we've had good whether the last few weeks. Yesterday I pruned the trees and bushes back so they would stop hitting me in the face when I mow. I got about half the pruning done. I took down two trees that had died over the winter. The big Weeping Willow that came down is going to have to wait until I can get a chain saw. My landlord finally got the greenhouse fixed but I had to clean up the tools the workman had pulled out of it to work. And I mowed the lawn, that takes about an hour and a half on a riding mower, two hours if I'm being thorough and mow around the barn. I love John Deer.

One day a week is just housework. This may get spread over a couple days if it's a holiday or something but my house is never so messy it can't all be done in one day. I'm really screamingly organized so mostly all you have to do is clean the floors and dust and put things away. Laundry always takes the longest. Sometimes I get twitchy and reorganize my roommates things/rooms because it's to messy for me to tolerate, er, I mean... clean up around. This process usually involves moving furniture and several garbage bags.

One day a week is family. My housemates are family too, so even if the kids are elsewhere we still do stuff together. This usually involves food. Some one has to eat my stress baking.

One day is errand day. Leonard is nearly blind and is getting ready to have cataracts removed, so I drive. John and Shelley sometimes need a nudge out the door for doctors appointments, so I drive.

One day a week is knitting. If I'm not just knitting I'm writing patterns or drawing up designs or doing research. I don't count playing on Ravelry as part of my knitting time. And I knit every single day, so my knitting time is spread out a bit, but I try to set aside a "Knitting Day" once a week. This doesn't always work, but I try.

What do I do with my other two days? I read a bit. I run more errands with my roommates. I do special projects around the house. Now I'm going to clean out the garage so I can get back to all my painting stuff. And one day a week I hope to spend volunteering at my local animal shelter. Wish me luck.

Maybe I'll add another knitting day...

I Should Listen To My Mother

2011-05-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

Over the years my Mom has given me some very valuable advise, which I have promptly forgotten or ignored, and taught me some fabulous life lessons, sometimes on accident. I love my Mom, and in honor of Mother's Day, and as an apology for having to raise me, I dedicate this post to her. Gods help us all.

Things my Mom taught me:

1. Be kind to your younger cousins, because they are bigger than you and there are a lot more of them than you and some day hiding behind the barn won't work.

2. When your Mom says "Are you sure you want to marry that guy?" for the tenth time you should start listening.

3. Cleaning relieves stress. A spotless house is not always a sign of domestic tranquility.

4. No art on the walls is just wrong. It means they haven't unpacked yet or are mentally disturbed.

5. Hand made quilts are better than any other kind of bedding. Even when they're ugly they are made with love, and we love the ladies that made them, every single one.

6. Finish what you start. Even knitting projects that went terribly terribly wrong some where.

7. Home cooking is fulfilling and cost effective. Making tons of food makes you happy and even if you don't eat it you can fill your freezer with leftovers and never buy a TV dinner again.

8. You don't always have to organize all your books and music and movies alphabetically but if you're that OCD and it makes you feel better then go on ahead and do it.... (It does make me feel better so thank you.)

So here's to Mom and my sisters, and my daughter,and the Grandmas who aren't with us any more. I wish they could all be here to share a cuppa and some coffee cake.

The Great Sock Finishing Begins Now

2011-05-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

So, I'm working on some Felted Fuzzy Feet for John, and a pair of ankle socks for my self and thinking really deep thoughts when the most amazing thing occurred to me. I've just finishedthe first sock on both of them. How cool is that?

Yes, that is what my coffee table usually looks like. I like to take pictures of the big sock before felting with a regular size sock just for the "wow, that thing is Huge" factor. Off to the right is Leonard's new technicolor bunny. He knits up the pieces at work and then brings me the bits home to sew together. His co-workers are darling and always asking what he's making now.

I also love reading articles about how other artists work, how knit designers arrange their studios and where people get their inspirations from. Once long ago I posted pictures of my stash. It's a little peek at how I think and how I like to organize my yarn. My stash is now 4 times as big and lives in it's own room. Here's a look at my current work station.

I love to surround myself with bright colors. Kaffe Fasset is my hero when it comes to studio workspace. Man never met a color he didn't like. When I grow up I want to have a studio just like his.

I wish I has something more profound to share but now I need to go and rearrange Leonard's room and get furniture ready for Goodwill to come pick it up, and let the cat in, and get a Half-Price Book run ready and..... Knit.

Totoro Pictures

2011-04-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

... because the daft program refused to upload the pattern with the pictures included.

John and Len love Totoro.... and so does the cat.

Here are some detail shots that I included in the pattern but that Word and/or Blogger punted.

Totoro for the Masses

2011-04-29T19:00:00.001-07:00

King of the Forest Pattern

The Really Big Totoro

Here is the exact pattern I used to knit this giant sized Totoro for my daughter. One of the things that most bothers me about many of the knitting patterns in magazines is a lack of consistency. If you follow the pattern to the letter and knit every stitch as written then you should get something that looks just like the picture, right? I took notes the whole time I was knitting this and I can promise that if you can get gauge, and use the same yarn, you'll get a big fluffy Totoro just like in the picture.

Skill Level: Medium

Size: Large

Finished Height: 22"

Finished Width: 25"

Materials

3 skeins of Homespun from Lion Brand (98% Acrylic, 2% Polyester; 185 yds/169 m) in color 312 Edwardian, and 1 skein of Homespun from Lion Brand in color 300 Hepple White (5)

Small amount of smooth black yarn for embroidering eyes and nose. (I used Lamb's Pride Worsted in Black)

Size 8 (5.0 mm) 24" circular needle, or size to obtain gauge.

Size 8 (5.0 mm) set of double point needles.

4 stitch markers.

Tapestry Needle

3 - 20oz bags of Fiberfill.

Gauge: 16 ½ sts and 24 rows = 4" in St st.

Note: The yarn Ryan, my daughter, chose is a fluffy, very soft, boucle' yarn in a bulky weight. It is knitted at a very firm gauge so the stuffing doesn't poke out, but this yarn is a little difficult to work. It splits like mad and has no give at all. For an easier to knit version I would try Lamb's Pride Bulky by Brown Sheep.

Body

Bottom

CO 20 sts on circular needle. The bottom is worked back and forth in Stockinette Stitch.

Row 1 (WS): Purl

Row 2 (RS): K1, M1, Knit to last stitch, M1, K1.

Repeat last 2 rows until you have 48 sts.

Work in St st 14 rows ending on a WS row.

Body

Turn to right side.

K 48, PM (this marker will become to beginning of the round, Marker 1), Pick up and knit 14 sts along strait edge and then pick up and knit 28 sts along edge of increase rows, PM, Pick up and knit 20sts, PM, Pick up and knit 28 sts along edge of increase rows and 14 sts along strait edge, PM. (152 sts)

Knit for 13".

Head

Round 1: SSK, K to 2 sts before 2^nd marker, K2tog, slip marker, K to 3^rd marker, slip marker, SSK, K to 2 sts before 4^th M, K2tog, slip marker, k to end of round.

Round 2: Knit all sts slipping markers as you come to them.

Repeat these 2 rounds until 24 sts remain between 1^st and 2^nd marker. (116 sts)

Nose decreases, to be worked at the same time as head shaping. After the 4^th marker, K 22 sts, K2tog, SSK, K 22. (110 sts)

Decrease 2 sts every round 12 times, until 20 sts remain between Marker 4 and Marker 1.

Switch to double point needles when necessary.

Continue rounds 1 and 2 until only 2 sts remain between markers 1 and 2. (44 sts)

Place 22 sts on each of 2 double points. Stuff the body, you'll need a lot of stuffing at this point. Kitchener stitch the head closed. Weave in ends.

Ears

CO 16 sts. Divide sts 4 per needle. Join in the round.

Knit 4 rounds.

*K1, M1, K6, M1,K1*, repeat. (20 sts)

Knit 1 round.

*K1, M1, K8, M1, K1*, repeat. (24 sts)

Knit 3 rounds.

*SSK, K8, K2tog*, repeat.

Knit 3 rounds.

*SSK, K6, K2tog*, repeat.

Knit 3 rounds.

Continue decreasing in pattern until 4 sts remains. Using a tapestry needle, thread through sts, BO.

Sew ears to top of head over the points left by Kitchener stitching the head.

Hint: This yarn is a right screaming pain in the arse to sew with. You might try using a smooth yarn in a similar color for sewing the arms and ears in place.

Arms

CO 32 sts. Divide sts evenly on to 4 double points. Join in the round.

Knit for 6".

Decrease rounds.

Round 1: *K1, SSK, knit to last 3 sts on next needle, K2tog, K1.* Repeat.

Round 2: Knit.

Repeat these 2 rounds 3 times. (20 sts)

Then repeat only round 1, 3 times. (8 sts)

BO by passing tail through all sts. Weave in end.

Stuff lightly and sew in place on body, about an inch below where the decreases start for the head. Exact placement is less important than making sure both arms are at the same height.

Tummy

In white, CO 20 sts on circular needle. The tummy and eyes are worked back and forth in Stockinette Stitch.

Row 1: Purl

Row 2: K1, M1, K to last st, M1, K1.

Repeat these 2 rows 5 times. (30 sts)

Row 1 & 3: Purl

Row 2: Knit

Row 4: K1, M1, K to last st, M1, K1.

Repeat these 4 rows 5 times. (40 sts)

Knit 10 rows.

Row 1: K1, SSK, knit to last 3 sts on next needle, K2tog, K1.

Row 2 & 4: Purl.

Row 3: Knit

Repeat decrease rows until 30 sts remain. Then repeat only rows 1 and 2 until 20 sts remain.

Next row: P1, P2tog, P to last 3 sts, P2tog, P1.

Repeat Row 1. (16 sts)

BO.

Sew tummy to front of body placing the bottom edge 1" above the base of the body.

Using dark grey, duplicate stitch the chevrons at the top of the tummy piece. Work 3 chevrons in the top row and 4 chevrons in the next row.

Note: Sounds simple enough to do right? Not so my friend. The stitches are hard to see and the yarn does not lend itself to embroidery at all. What I did was draw on my chevrons freehand with a water soluble marker in a light orange color. I had to wash off the chevrons a couple of times before I had the proportions I wanted and then I went about doing the duplicate stitch. The edges ended up a bit jagged and it didn't come out a smooth a texture as I would have liked but I'm happier with the look of it than I would have been if I'd tried to use a different yarn. You might try a satin stitch to fill in the outlines of the chevrons instead. I would have but my satin stitch is even worse looking than my duplicate stitch.

Face

Eyes

Note: I knitted the eyes and they came out a little thick and look a bit like Gir from Invader Zim. This may also be due to a lack of skill at embroidering on the pupils.

You may consider cutting out a piece of felt in white for the eyes or embroidering them on using satin stitch. Here is the knitted version.

CO 4 sts.

Row 1: Purl

Row 2: K1, M1, K2, M1, K1. (6 sts)

Row 3: Purl

Row 4: K

Row 5: P

Row 6: K

Row 7: P

Row 8: K1, SSK, K2tog, K1

Row 9: P1, P2tog, P1

BO last 3 sts.

The eyes form a very slight tear drop shape, sew them on point side down on either side, and slightly below the point of the nose.

Using a small amount of black yarn embroider pupils in center of the eye.

Nose

Totoro's nose is more of a sidewise oval than a typical cat nose. Using black yarn satin stitch a 1 ½" wide by ¾" high oval across the tip of the nose.

Embroider a small circle for the mouth between the nose and the top of the tummy.

Have every member of your household pose for pictures with the big cool stuffy, including your cat. Enjoy.

Easter! A Time For Food, Fun, Dying and Chocolate

2011-04-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what to do with the left over colored goop after you're done dying Easter eggs? Wonder no more. I present to you Easter Egg Sock Yarn.

I took some lovely Knit Picks Bare and stuck it in the dye cups with out pre soaking to prevent the color from creeping. I let it soak for about an hour until all of the color had been absorbed in the dye bath.

Then stuck it in the microwave for about 7 minutes to heat set it. Rinsed, dried, and look what I got.

These are going to make some awesome socks.

Back in the Saddle Again!

2011-04-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

So.... after many years of not blogging, and signing up for Ravelry and then not using it, I'm going to try blogging once again. I find that I do indeed have something interesting to say and perhaps some useful information to impart. The cool cat pictures are a bonus. I can't promise to post regularly but here's a look at whatI'm doing right now.

Socks. I always have at least 2 sock projects going, one for at homeand one for in my purse.

Last summerI taught my partner Leonard how to knit on a cruise in Alaska and I was so proudof him. He took to it like a fish to water. He had 2 hats done by the time we got home. His current knitting obsession is knitted toys. Here's the kitty from Nicky Epsteins Knitting: Block By Block and the bunny from Susan B Anderson's Itty Bitty Toys. Right now he's working on a second bunny in rainbow stripes.

Easter! Or as Leonard calls it "Zombie Apocalypse Day." Isn't the bunny cute?

I'm also making my daughter Ryan a Giant Totoro. I'll post pictures and the pattern tomorrow or the next day. And then link it to Ravelry. They have a group just for folks like me who love Studio Ghibli.

Getting Ready For Hollows

2008-10-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

If you've never been to the AntiCraft, you should go. The new Samhain issue is up and while it only has one knit project his time it's a cool one. I mean who wouldn't want a scull project bag with a zippered pouch in the mouth. I'm going to make one. Complete with daisies growing out of the head and all.

The big thing I need to get done before Hallween is for my son James. He wants felted shrunken heads. Yes, more than one, in different colors. I got the pattern from, you guessed it, an issue of the AntiCraft. It's the Tsantsa pattern from the Beltane 2007 issue. If I knit fast I can get 3-4 of them done in time. Of course he will tie them to his backpack and carry them around all year. He's 16, I would expect nothing less.

Here are pictures from the pattern. Next week I'll put up pics of the finished heads I've done.

Enjoy the Holiday!

Lots of socks - a cure for chronic depression?

2008-10-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't blogged in a while. I'm sure I've been kicked off the Knitblogs netring by now, which makes me a dufus of the first degree.

So I knit some socks. 6 or 8 pairs of socks. Started a shawl, knit 4 bags, a sweater, a fish, 10 wash clothes, half a glove and got a 3 legged dog.

I now have warm feet, a warm husband (see above sweater), and my Mom has a ton of bags and uses the washrags as doilies because they are "to pretty".

So I'm starting over.

Knitting socks may not be the way to a healthy mind but it sure is nice to have warm feet.

April Fools

2008-04-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

James' says "All hail foolish people!"

How I Came to Knitting

2008-03-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

This is an essay I wrote for something or other and felt it would be nice to print it here too. It's a bit long so go get some coffee.

How I Came to Knitting

An essay by Robin Jacobson

Every one learns in a different way. It’s what makes us unique.

Every one learns to knit in a different way. It’s what makes us unique knitters. There are even so many ways to knit that many of them have names. Pickers, Flingers, Combination Knitters, all unique a fabulous individuals that have found their perfect way to interact with yarn. I think that the way we knit is just as interesting as what we knit. But even more interesting than that is how we learned to knit.

Everyone has a story. Some are short, “My Mom taught me.” Some are long and take days or even whole books to tell. Mine is a short essay, not an epic saga, but hopefully interesting.

I first learned to knit from my Mom when I was in Jr. High. It was the ‘80’s and I had a very short attention span. The ‘80’s were not great for girls who were less superficial and liked to create things. If you liked to make stuff and sew and cook you were either Amish or super weird. I was a freak show, in a very punk, proto-goth kind of way. I even had purple hair. Well, knitting didn’t take and I ended up starting my love affair with sewing and painting, both of which have kept me fed and clothed at various points in my life. I think my knitting produced one 8” square for the whole decade.

The second time I learned to knit was in the ‘90’s, again from my Mom. This produced a second 8” square. I may have been trying to make a hat.

The third time I learned to knit was in 2002. My Mom had just made a batch of hats for the kids for Christmas the year before, 2001, and I wanted to make my daughter a matching scarf. It was January and she really needed it. My Mom gave me the leftover yarn from the hat; it was a horrible fluffy pink acrylic. I had never touched wool yarn. Mom always knit with acrylic. Cheap acrylic. Then Mom gave me the aluminum needles she had used. They were old and dinged all to hell, so the yarn kept snagging. She showed me how to do a long-tail cast-on. The only one she knew. I knit the whole 60” scarf in stockinette stitch. I had no idea it would curl up like that and end up looking like a plushy pink boa constrictor. I would not have wished this on some one I don’t like as a first knitting project. I would not wish this on an enemy as knitting penance.

My daughter loved it. She still wears it, with the hat.

After the big pink snake scarf I needed to feed my creative soul. I had stopped painting. I wasn’t currently sewing or designing so I needed an outlet. I got some acrylic eyelash yarn my daughter had picked out and made her another scarf. My friend, now adopted sister, Shelley took me under her wing. She helped me figure out the while my purl stitches were perfect and I had wonderful gauge every single one of my knit stitches were crossed.

And then she took me to a real yarn shop. Before that all my yarn had come from Rite-aid. She bought me my very first set of Denise needles. She bought me a $37.00 skein of hand painted rayon eyelash yarn in a deep chocolate/coffee because I liked it. I made a scarf, for myself, on size 17 Lantern Moon ebony needles. She thought I was nuts for knitting something so slippery, so easy to drop a stitch, on such big needles. But the needles were pretty and I didn’t know any better, and it was way easier than the squeaky acrylic on evil aluminum needles.

These three scarves are the only scarves I have ever knit. My next project was a queen sized afghan knit in the round, and then came socks.

I learned some very interesting things from Shelley, my second knitting teacher. I learned that Mom was left handed and therefore knit weird. She had never really learned a standard way and no one could show her how to knit left handed. She would hold her working needle between her knees and then her other needle in her left hand and only ever worked on straits. Long straits. She was also a flinger.

This seemed like a lot of extra arm movement to me. I’m ambidextrous so I figured I could figure out a way to use both hands. I became a picker completely by accident. That’s not how the 1953 book my Mom gave me showed to do it. Shelley’s a flinger. I just grabbed the needles on that first scarf and went about knitting continental. I still have no idea why my hands thought that was just the proper way. Thank goodness no one was there to stop me.

Every single person I have taught to knit since I have taught English. That’s just the way they liked to learn. It felt right in their hands.

That is the best gift I can think of to give to some one.

The gift of knitting.

To make it feel right.

In there hands.

So this is my life...

2008-03-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

After the Holidays I had to move. And then I got pneumonia. And then I had to move while I had pneumonia. From this I learned 2 really amazing things. Hiring movers is very smart. Not having health insurance is very scary when you have a life threatening illness.

Did I mention that I had to pack my whole house, that's husband, 3 kids and 4 cats, unpack my whole house and coordinate the move with pneumonia!

I love my husband but he so screwed the pooch on helping with the move. I still have boxes of stuff in the garage, and I'm the kind of person who as everything unpacked and put away in less than a week. Two weeks at the most. The thing they don't tell you about pneumonia is it takes forever to get better. Even after the antibiotics are done it was still 2 weeks before stairs weren't a big obstacle.

While I was sick I knit socks.
One pair of ankle socks in Collinette Jitterbug - Tapis. Which reaffirms why I love Jitterbug.

I also read.

And then I went back to work and have been running ever since. Which is still not a very good excuse to stop blogging but there it is.

Bowling birthday party's have also become very popular with the 8 year old set. I started a new sock pattern (I write patterns in my spare time. Stop that laughing!) and the whole experience was so novel that I have to take some sock pictures of it.

Then it all goes Disco.

At least my cats like my new room.

Robin's Holiday Survival Guide

2008-01-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

Merry New Year!

Wow was 2007 a fun ride. It's always nice to ring in the new year with a bang but I find having all the holidays piled up at the end to be a bit stressful, like finals. So here are few things I do to get me through with all my hair still on my head.

1. Drink responsibly. Take time to sit down with a cuppa with friends and family. There's nothing more sad than having a cup of hot cocoa alone at 1 am to take the edge off.

2. Decorating is a team sport. Have the kids help out, they like it, and when you go to put everything away after the holidays they can help with that too.

3. Wrapping gifts is a team sport too. I like wrapping presents, really I do. But when you haven't gotten anything wrapped at all and it's 2 days til Christmas Eve it's time to call in the troops. Thank you Shelley!

4. It's not all about the food. I love to cook. I love to feed people. I love baking for the holidays. I had no time this year. Believe it or not this is the first year I have ever worked full time for the holidays. I didn't do any baking this year and I felt deprived until I realized I also did not gain any weight either. That's 5 less pounds to shed this year. Go me.

5. Knit responsibly. Never take on more knitting projects than you can finish.

6. Be careful what you promise to knit when giving knit certificates. On the card I said hat, mittens or a scarf. Len wants a hat, no problem. Lisa wants a Doctor Who scarf. Have you seen how long those things are? Next year it's going to be a one skein limit.

7. Pick a day to just sleep in. This one is a life saver. You will have to do some pre-planning to make sure you get your day but it's so worth it.

8. Christmas ornaments are not eternal. You are going to lose or break at least one every year. This year Jarret broke one of the good blown glass ones and the kitten got a pear, a teddy bear, a fish and an apple. At least I can fix the kitten's ornamental depredations.

9. Play games. This one is self explanatory. We really like Munchkin Blender.

And I finished Quinn's sweater in time for it to be a Christmas present. Mom's sending me a picture of it soon.

So happy to have a minute to blog

2007-12-21T15:49:00.000-08:00

Can you believe its almost Yule!

And to start the Holiday season my daughter and her choir class got to sing for us. She's the curly headed one in the middle top row. They were very good. The orchestra was painful but the choirs rocked.

In my house we have a bunch of different Winter Holidays. My ex and my son James do Hanukkah, sometimes he takes the other kids out to his Mom's too. Then my husbands family does Christmas Day. My family has always done Christmas Eve and Yule. But this year... no Hanukkah because Great Grandma and Grandpa are both in the hospital, and I can't find Jamie's menorah. No Christmas day with my husband's family because of health issues with his Mom, see the above mention of hospitals again. And my husband is working Yule and Christmas Eve. Time for plan B.

We are doing Yule, without the Husband, on Saturday. Sad, but still, he never does ritual with us anyway.

My Mom works Christmas Eve and just found out that her daycare is closed, so we will have Quinn all day. Not a worry but all the prep needs to be done before hand. Chasing toddlers and doing last minute present wrapping don't mix. Pass the eggnog!

Christmas Day, which Husband does have off, we are going to my soon to be new home Shelley's. There we will play games like Munchkin Cthulu and Zombie Flux. We will eat and talk and see what happens if you mix the Stoner Flux deck with the Zombie Flux deck. We will also play Last Day On Earth and Haunted House 1, 2, 3 and 4, Illuminati and Empire Builder. Ok, so we're gamer geeks....

As for Yule knitting, some of the fabulous people on my list are getting Knitting Promissory Notes. This is basically a card and a box with yarn in it an a promise to make the knitted object in question. My Husband is getting a Hat Promise. Hat promises are also going to a couple of friends. My kids (who do read this blog) are getting surprise promises.

Quinn's sweater is still not finished. I sewed the sleeves on and found that despite measuring twice, and counting the exact number of stitches, twice, that I had arsed it up completely and had to rip out the whole sleeve and start again. I had to do this on one of her previous sweaters to. So the sleeves are still not sewn on and the whole thing is waiting for me to be less irritated at it.

Ryan's socks are, but the pic for them is at home.

I cast on for a new pair of gloves. I gave the last pair I knit to my Mom.
I'm making Deborah Newton's Twisted Stitch Gauntlet's out of Interweave Knits Holiday issue. These will be for me. If I ever get enough knitting time to finish them.

That's my holiday wish to every knitter.

May your days be filled with love and joy, and more time to Knit!

It's the Most Busiest Time of the Year... come on, you know the words

2007-12-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

Shopping and Wrapping and snow on car, it's the most Busiest time of the Year!

I've also been making ornaments and trying to finish UFO's to round out the Yule gifts. The sheep ornaments are to cute for words, and came out so well that later I'm going to put up a step-by-step tutorial.

Sheeps in Space. It's a sheepy constellation.

Baa, a whole sheepy galaxy.

Ok, so the light from the chandelier doesn't help a whole lot.

But aren't they cute with there little roving faces and their little roving tails and their wild arse colors.

I like me some Bright colors in the winter. For those of you unfamiliar with the great Pacific North West, especially the Puget Sound region, we don't actually get to see the sun for six months of the year. I doesn't rain the whole time, despite popular media myth, but it's overcast and gray. From October to April the Puget Sound is a big bowl of storm clouds, drizzle and fog. The only color we get out of nature is the green from the trees, if you can see them. It also gets dark at about 4:00 pm and doesn't get light until 8:00 am. I drive to work in the dark. I drive home in the dark. I combat this with bright screaming color.

And chocolate. And wool. And technocolor sheeps.

Tomorrow, or later today, the Saga of Quinn's Sweater...

I want to be Stephanie Pearl-McPhee when I grow up.

2007-12-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

She's my hero. She's funny and fiber addicted and can manage to blog almost every day. I want to be able to dedicate my life to knitterly pursuits like that. I just love her and she makes me laugh.

I, like many of you knitters out there, have taken to having poor helpless people hold my knitting to have their picture taken. We can mostly all blame this idea on Stephanie. But the cake must be taken by this fabulous knitter, Tracy, who got Barack Obama to hold her sock in progress for pictures. She has way more balls than I do.

Yarn Balls! I meant yarn balls. Really. :)

As for me, I'm back to teaching knitting at Michael's. As if I needed more to do with my Saturdays, but I figure teaching knitting is a public service. If everyone knew how to knit just imagine how much better the world would be. Everyone would be a lot warmer for one thing.

If every one in the world knew how to knit...
... no one would freeze to death because they did not have hats, scarves, sweaters, gloves, mittens or blankets.
... you could get yarn at your local stockists and there would be more yarn shops than 7-11's.
... no one would question your need for alpaca.
... no one would ever walk up to you and ask if that's knitting or crochet.
... no one would just assume that you could whip them out a sweater in a couple hours and that it was reasonable to offer you $20.00 for it.
... no one would be offended if you said 'could you wait until I finish this row' or 'just a second I'm counting stitches'.
... there would be knitting contests and knitting awards and more knitting shows on TV.
... you could get more yarn in more fibers in more colors.
... kids would pay attention to math in school and stop asking the teacher 'am I ever going to need to know this?'
... it would solve world hunger, improve the world economy, end illiteracy and promote world trade.
... there would be peace on earth and good will towards men because everybody would be to busy knitting to go out and kill each other. It would damage your needles and mess up your yarn, not to mention seriously cutting in to your knitting time.

So some day the world will be a better place because more people know how to knit. And I'm helping.

...and then I got sick.

2007-11-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

First of all, Thanksgiving was fabulous.

I love having a whole day dedicated to being with family and friends and eating a metric ton of turkey. Ok, maybe not quite that much turkey, but the bird was over 20lbs. We stuffed it with fresh cut oranges, onions, carrots and rosemary and thyme. It's a good thing I'm a beefy girl or I never would have gotten it in the oven by myself. It was a very tasty bird.

After the sleepy coma turkey induces I got a sinus infection, and an ear infection, and then my eardrums ruptured. Which just sucks. I didn't even get back to work until today.

So this is one of those "I'm not dead" posts. With no pictures, because I am humble, and can't find the cord for my camera... Tomorrow we will have more posts, with pictures.

Yes, you can plan a whole vacation around yarn!

2007-11-19T10:50:00.001-08:00

My friend and adopted sister Shelley and I went on a pre-holiday yarn crawl. We generally do this twice a year and our favorite destination by far is Port Townsend.

Port Townsend, Washington is a picturesque little Victorian town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

We always stay at the Palace Hotel.

Port Townsend is a great get-away spot. In the off season the room rates are really low, the restaurants are open and not to crowded and the two yarn shops get in there winter wool. Did I mention the yarn shops are only a block apart. And just to make it even more tempting Port Townsend has fabulous restaurants.

The first place we invaded was Diva Yarns. The ladies there are always so happy to see us.

We shopped and then went to the adjoining bead store

and the store that sells trim. There was a lot of shopping going on.

The fabulous lady at Diva even held up my traveling scarf.

Then she made me hold it up and took my picture. Sneaky woman. Apparently , as I am a large woman, stuffing a lot of things in my pockets and then looking down makes me look like a pear with triple chins. Did I mention I'm not keen on having my picture taken.

After the shopping fest at Diva we took ourselves to lunch at the Fountain Cafe, another favorite place. One of the best things about them is the total lack of a deep fat fryer in the kitchen. They have great soups, great salads, and incredible grilled sandwiches. Try the turkey rueben.

Then we went to the Twisted Ewe, and got more yarn.

And candles.

This is Shelley going 'why are you taking my picture, monkey?' She learned that look from my cats.

The very nice lady at the shop did not hold the traveling scarf for me.

But I got lots of pictures any way.

I love yarn shops.

After an amazing dinner at Fins and some much deserved rest, to sleep off the amazing dinner, we set out the next day for Bainbridge Island and Churchmouse Yarn and Tea....

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Joyful Hallows!

Merry Samhain!

Here's a bunch of cat pictures. Sorry no knitting content today.

Why do cats like to sleep in the sink?

Kitten in the kitchen. Isn't she to cute.

This is Crystal. My beautiful hairy white menace. She's gone. I lost her. She hasn't been home in 10 days. I'm hoping one of our neighbors took her in and loves her as much as I do. I like to think that she is safe and warm and happy and not part of some coyote's digestive system.

OK not a lot of knitting content.

I have to finish Ryan's socks by tomorrow so she can take them to Fall Encampment this weekend. This is the second sock! It's not as bad as it looks, I just need to do the toe.

I still need to block my shawl and I need to finish Quinn's sweater before her next growth spurt so she can wear it for more than two minutes. Girl grows way to fast. At least I finished the back, now I need sleeves.

What was I thinking

2007-10-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

Just because your work is getting ready for an audit is no reason to not blog. I am a bad bad knitter.

Warning: this will be a very long post, and it will have many pictures. Go get some coffee.

This is my baby sister Quinn. She is to darn cute for words.

This is the blanket that I made for my Mom for her last birthday. It's hard to tell but that is actually a big mitered square blanket done in an ombre dyed boucle. It's also very soft. You can tell how much Quinn appreciates it.

Mom and Quinn just got back from a trip to Oregon to see the family. Mom tried to get some good shots of her and various baby cousins in some of my hand knits but she hasn't gotten all the film developed yet. Yes, she still uses a regular old film loading camera. Sigh.

She did send my the first lot online though. Go Mom!

My favorite picture is of Quinn watching the cows. She has this total fascination with cows. She even tries to walk up to them and pet them. Mom says it is damn funny to watch. Like a chase in slow motion. Quinn walks up, they take a step or two back, Quinn walks up, and so on. Apparently it's funny watching a toddler herd cows across a field.

In other news.

I finished my shawl! It is not blocked yet to show off it's true beauty. That lump in the back of the picture is actually the top of my husbands head. He was kind enough to hold it up for the picture. My husband is also a large man so the distance between his outstretched arms is 72" to give you an idea of size. It should block out nicely.

I don't think I'm going to dye it after all. It's just to pretty.

I also just had to torture my cat. He's such a lump. This is his "What the hell do you think you're doing monkey?" look.

I started a new sweater for Quinn. Here's the front. It's done in Lion Brand's Organic Cotton, dyed pink, so not so organic anymore. They have the pattern free online. I made pants to match too.

I'm still working on the back but it is the serious boring knitting only good for standing in lines or watching tv, all garter stitch to the neck.

We got a new kitten. Her name is Rio, because I had to fish her out from under a Kia Rio to bring her home. My cat Sentry found her and would not come in the house until I went and got her. Probably just as well, when I got there she was hiding from a family of five raccoons.

This is her snuggled up in between my knee and Sentry's butt.

We have nicknamed her Raccoon Bait. She's only about seven weeks old.

There is lots more to tell but I have to get back to work.... My lunch is over, that's always so sad.

Picture Day (Catching Up)

2007-09-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

I rembered to bring my cable with me this time. Go me.

So here are a few pics from the last 2 weeks or so to prove to you, me and everybody that knitting has in fact occurred. And there are some cute cat pictures too.

Here's the finished top section of the Icelandic Lace Shawl.

Here's Pixel being totally unconcerned that he is interfering with my picture.

Some goodies I took up to my Mom. That yellow thing in the middle is actually a very cute baby sweater that I wrote the pattern for myself. I'll get pictures of Quinn actually in it soon. Hopefully before she grows out of it.

Here's some sock progress. Yes, I know they are not identicle socks. But I really like how self striping yarns make fabulous fraternal, twin socks.

And last for this morning, my fierce new knitting bag. Which I'm using as a purse, because mostly what goes in my purse is knitting anyway.

It's suade. I love to just pet it.

Gainful Employment Interferes With Knitters Ability To Blog!

2007-09-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

More money, yeah! No time, boo...

This is just a quick post to try and catch up and ease my guilt for not having posted in, gasp, two weeks. More than two weeks actually, but I'm trying not to think about it. Some day I will be like my blogging idol Stephanie Pearl-Mcfee and post almost every day. But today is not that day.

I have been so busy. Work went from part-time to full time. My husband switched from graveyard to day shift. School started. But knitting has occurred. I'm to the heal turn on the second sock I was working on at the baseball game. I'm very nearly done with the Iceland Lace shawl. I'm having such a good time with lace knitting that I even bought Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby.

I even took pictures of all my projects and everything. And next time I bring my camera to work to post before work starts I'll remember to bring the darn cable to plug the darn camera in too..... Argh.

Work officially starts in 3 minutes so as I said, just a quick post....

How much sock can you knit in a baseball game?

2007-09-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

I can knit this much.

If you want to get all technical it's 4 1/2 " using Opal sock yarn on size 1 double points. The pink and purple and blue in this color way is very pretty, but the orangey brown and black stripe mixed in to the colorway begs a question. What the hell were they thinking?

I've been avoiding this preticular sock for this very reason. I finished the first one in June. It is not second sock sindrome at work here. I have never before hessitated at making a second sock. The pattern is very nice, it's a plain 1 by 1 rib for an inch at the top and a 1 by 3 rib the rest of the way. I just can't stand the colorway. And size 1 needles take longer than size 2.

In my real life, yes I have one, I've been busy at work and haven't had a lot of time for knitting. I always get quite sad when I don't have time to knit. It makes me want to go and buy yarn, um, more yarn. So I did. Yesterday I popped in Michael's and picked up some of the new self-striping Sugar and Cream, and Paton's has some new colors of SWS. So I got some of that too.

Funny how yarn just jumps out at you when you haven't had enough time to spend with it. And all I really needed were some clasps to fix a bracelet. I got those too.

In other news the shawl is coming along fine. I've finished the first ball of yarn and I was going to do a big 'I Finished the First Ball' post. But I was working and got busy and couldn't stop knitting on it so finishing the first 437 yards became a non-event. Bad me, these things should be celebrated.

It's hard to see in the picture but the center bit of lace is shaping up nicely. Now that I've knit on it a while I'm getting to like it. I'll never use this pattern again but it looks pretty cool now that I'm knitting more than 2 rows an hour. Funny how when the work goes faster the patterns starts being less irritating.

Knitting With Cats

2007-08-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps it would be more acurate to say knitting around cats, because cats do interfere with your knitting. So here are some simple rules I have found that help me cope with catly interference.

1. Your cat loves you, and he will express this love by laying on you while you are knitting. Especially if he can manage to lay on the yarn ball and or a strategic corner of your project making it neccessary to move him before finishing or starting a new row. There is really no way around this one. Your cat has the upper hand here. You love him, and would never lob him across the room for snagging your very delicate and complicated lace shawl. He will also feel free to sleep on any pattern, book, or charted design you're working from. Making it neccessary to shuffle the cat from your knitting, off your lap, off your pattern, off your working yarn ball and hopefully off your couch. He may or may not get the hint at this point. Sometimes I resort to locking him out of the house or briding him with catnip.

2. Your cat loves your yarn, especially if it is expensive or impossible to replace. If you bought a silk/mohair yarn on a special trip to Portland for half price, because they don't make that size skein in that colorway anymore, that is the yarn your cat will want to make his very own stuffy. Fortunately this problem has a simple solution. Bag it, box it, or stick it in a cupboard. If you have an open work basket, shove it under an endtable or lock it in a closet. Never under estimate the yarn thieving abilities of your average cat, or you will wake up with yarn balls strung a round your dining room table, into the living room and down the hall to the laundry machines. Ask me how I know.

3. Completed or semi completed knitting projects make perfect cat beds. If your project is complete and just needs to go in the wash this isn't as much of a problem. If your project is still on the needles and becomes you cats favoritest place to sleep, there by knocking stitches loose, and making you swear a blue streak as your try to pick them all up again, it's more of a problem. But then you really can't blame the cat for sleeping on afgans you made for sleeping on in the first place.

4. As far as your cat is concerned yarn is a toy. You love yarn. You love the way it feels, how it flows through your hands and on to the needles, the texture, the color, and even the smell. So does your cat. Only he likes to bat it around your whole house and pack it around like a dead rat. If you're very unlucky he also likes to eat it, or at least chew on it. How do I know this?

I have yarn loving cats, all four of the little beggers. Pixel, Crystal, and Bugaboo all love wool. I cannot even count the number of times I have had to start a new ball of yarn because they've gnoshed through it, usually in mid-row, usually while the little darling was laying on my lap. Sentry, on the other hand, likes cotton. Only he likes to eat it. Now actually digesting yarn is bad for cats. It won't go through and you have to have the vet surgically remove what ever won't pass. This scares me a bit to think that my yarn could kill my cat, so when I see him snacking and he has a big ol' strand of yarn hanging out of his mouth I pull it out. I once pulled 2 1/2 yarns of dishrag cotton, dripping kitty spit and all slimy, out of him mouth. Yuck. I do not have pictures of this and I don't ever want to do it again. I keep my cotton locked up now.

5. If you blog about knitting your cat will become obsessed with walking on your keyboard. The picture says it all. It once took me five minutes to figure out that the reason a page wasn't loading was because he was laying on the esc key.

6. Who ate my double points? Cats have a hard time resisting wooden needles. Who can blame them, so do I. I however, do not chew on the ends. I now have two sets of double points that used to have five needles a piece and now only have four. Darned cat. Again the solution is to hide them from your cats. I have special bags for my needles and after they're bagged I put them in the cupboard. So far this has worked, because I'm a needle snob and I'll be damned if I'm going to use aluminum needles because of the cats.

I hope you've found these rules helpful. Or at least entertaining. I'm sure there will be more catly interference with my knitting and I'll need to come up with more rules. But my cats and I have reached an understanding and if they claw up my shawl while I'm blocking it I refuse to be responsible for my actions.

A sneak peek at the Stash

2007-08-21T15:01:00.000-07:00

Almost every person I know has a stash. Not every stash has yarn but the erge to stash is very human. My huband stashes snack foods and scrap booking supplies. My friend Lisa has a yarn and fabric stash. My friend Shelley has a profound yarn stash. I thought folks might like a little peek at mine.

I have a yarn cupboard. It's double layered, there's more yarn behind the bit in the front. Most of this yarn is sock yarn.

I have yarn under the bed. This is mostly wool for felting. Some of it I dyed myself.

This is not the only box of yarn under the bed, but we will not take pictures of all of them. We do not want the Husband to ever really know the full extent of the stash.

I have yarn in the closet. Husband insists on hanging his clothes in the bottom part, I get the shelves.

I also have knitting books. And an alarming tenedency to leave my knitting projects 'all over the damn house' quoth my husband. Whom I dearly love and tolerate his alarming tendency to leave books and empty soda cans all over the damn house.

I also have some less tidy corners with baskets, bags and, well more bags of knitting projects and yarn. But they were somewhat less picture worthy.

I love my stash.

And I needed to blog on something that was NOT the shawl...

Lace knitting: the Shawl Saga

2007-08-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

This picture should be titled 'I Love My Cat and Will Not Kill Him'. He knows this, of course. He also knows that he is a black cat and I am knitting a very delicate white shawl. If he did not kill mice for me and keep my feet warm at night I would wang his little kitty head against a wall.

Sigh.

As you can see, around the cat, I have been working on my shawl. I've progressed to the last panel of lace that forms the center of the triangle. It sits right around the top of the shoulders and the base of the neck.

I'm not sure I like it. The lace is formed by an alternating K3tog (knit 3 together), k1 p1 k1 into the next stitch, row and plain knit rows. Because of the decreases you end up knitting the 3 (k1 p1 k1) stitches on the next pass. The resulting lace looks a bit like moss stitch with holes in it. It does not lay flat, because it's kinda fancy garter stitch.

It's not an amazingly difficult pattern, it's just time consuming. The K3tog's are touchy and you have to be really careful to not lose a stitch or split the yarn or only knit 2 out of 3. (Of course some of this is my fault for knitting super slippery alpaca lace weight yarn on super slippery Addi Turbo's. But i will over look that.)

I just don't know if I like the look of it. It looks OK in the magazine picture, but is somewhat distorted by the drape of the garment. So I'm left with questions. How will it look in real life once it's knitted up? How will it look once it's blocked? If it's ugly will my hair be long enough to cover it? Well, probably, my hair goes past my waist. Will it look good enough to not need long hair?

And most importantly, can I keep my cat off it long enough to even answer these and other facinating questions?

(Que dramatic music.)

I'm making progress!

2007-08-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

See how far I've gotten.

Ok, it's not blocked so it's not nearly as impressive as it could be, but it's still progress.

This is how the pattern works. You cast on 339 stitches and knit your way up and in, then you come back and pick up sticthes to knit the border. So basically you start in the middle. The shawl itself has 4 kinds of lace pannels interspersed with reverse stockinette stitch.

I've done two of the different kinds of lace. Here's a close up. If you go by the charts I have done A, B and C, and just finished row 57. On the big picture you can see where I've put red dots on the rows I've finished. I mark up most of my patterns eventually which is why I work from photocopies alot.

In the original pattern the rows of eyelet lace at the bottom and the rows of eyelet lace at the top would be in a grey-beige color. The feather and fan lace block in the middle would be in dark grey at the bottom shading to light grey at the top. So if you think about it I've done a fair swack of knitting.

I like to think about it that way. I can't wait to see how much it's going to stretch out once it's blocked. The lace is working up so fine I wonder if it'll fit through a wedding ring?

10 Rules For Knitting While Watching TV

2007-08-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

I like to knit in the evening while I'm watching TV. I'm really bad at just sitting still so this is about the only way I can sit through a whole TV show. So here are my rules. Your mileage may vary.

1. Knit during the commercials. This is the best time to get some serious knitting done without missing the good parts of the show.
2. Stop knitting if the suspense gets to much for you. I don't generally watch scary shows but I do like mystery shows and if the actions get to suspenseful you could tense up. You could end up with an hourglass shape in the middle of your knitting because the tension went from nice and easy to oh my gods tight.
3. Don't knit from charts. The constant looking back and forth will make you either screw up your knitting or miss your show. This is not the time to do complicated intarsia.
4. Do knit patterns with lots of repeats. Simple lace, simple cables, plain textured knitting are all good choices for TV watching.
5. Wait to count rows or stitches until the commercials. You'll be less distracted.
6. Don't watch really funny comedies. One rerun of Coupling was enough to make me laugh so hard 3 stitches had fallen off the end of the needles before I even noticed.
7. TV time is great for boring knitting. TV is what gets me through 96 rounds of stockinette on that really big felted bag.
8. You can't eat and knit and watch TV. Generally you can't eat and knit any way but this is especially true while trying to watch TV. But then this is not a disadvantage if you're dieting.
9. Don't let your knitting take up the entire couch. If you live alone you can pretty much ignore this rule but I have to share my couch with 4 cats a husband and 3 kids. Husband gets grouchy when there is no where for him to sit because of all the yarn, patterns, notions, needles, et all. He also gets upset when he sits on double points, go figure. The cats just walk all over everything and lay on my knitting any way.
10. Be prepared. Have your knitting, patterns, notions, a drink and everything handy. So you don't have to get up. You can also ignore this rule if you have children you can send to fetch you the things you need. First you have to teach them what a cable needle is though, and you run the risk of them playing with your measuring tape.

All rules can be ignored if you're in the same room as the TV but aren't actually watching it. Husband likes to have me in the same room when he's watching movies. He calls this spending time together. He is mistaken. He is watching TV. I am ignoring the TV and doing something constructive. We are merely in the same room. Oh well, it makes him feel better.

Slogalong with Mason Dixon

2007-08-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

Some days are Chuck Berry kind of days, and some days are My Life With Thrill Kill Kult.

I listen to a lot of music. A whole lot. All the time. If I'm on the computer then the computer is playing launchcast or the CD of the day. If I'm doing house work, the radio or the stereo is on. Husband has the TV as his favorite form of background noise, I like my noise to have a tempo and actual musical notes. I will listen to opera but I will not listen to rap. Ok, I'm not overly fond of country and western either, but I love music. Love it, love it, love it.

Given my love of music I tend to associate events, objects, people, days, with songs. I'm having a Genesis, just after loosing Peter Gabriel, kind of day. Phil Collins was all that and a bag of chips but still finding his feet. So thats me today, musically inspired but still wanting to be behind a set of drums where I can hit things.

The point of this post was actually to talk about something I just read on Mason Dixon Knitting today. It was Ann's post from yesterday, she was talking about her vacation and the silk shrug she was working on and something called a slogalong. So being the cat curious person I am I followed the links and found out that they, the fabulous ladies at Mason Dixon, had started up a group for people who were stuck battling those fun knitting projects the seem to take forever. And I thought, well hey, I'm knitting this shawl that should be done about in time for the next ice age. It definitely qualifies. So I signed up.

I like talking to other knitters. Mostly I do this in person, but I've come to learn that their are an awful lot of knitters online. This should be a fun opportunity to see what other knitters are blogging about.

Here's progress on the shawl. It's still in the ramen noodle stage. It is my first big lace project and I can't even begin to count the number of little mistakes are in it. I understand that blocking will make it look prettier but it still looks like ramen. On the positive side, the yarn is a dream of softness. I've seen scratchier butter than this yarn. Which makes knitting it on Addi Turbo's ever so slightly stupid...

Maybe I should go by some wood circs. Hey, any excuse to go to my fave yarn shop.

Birthdays

2007-08-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

The 4th was my birthday. Go me.

My Mom and my baby sister Quinn visited.

I turned 35. 35 is a hard age for women in my family. It's not quite middle age so you're not allowed to have your mid-life crisis yet but it's old enough that you feel you should have done more with your life and haven't. I am not having the best 35.

Today is my son James 15th birthday. I had 15 children running through my very small apartment. The cake and watermelon didn't last long. I've also desided that teenagers are loud and obnoxious, especially in large quantities.

I'm going to go mope and work on my lace shawl. It's the Icelandic Lace Shawl from Piecework that Knitting Daily has had up. I actually had the original from the July 1996 Piecework, but didn't start it until last week or so. Hey, I bought the yarn and needles for it 2 years ago. I'm knitting it in lace weight, oh so soft, Misti Alpaca, all in cream. The pattern calls for alot of color changes but I figured I would knit the whole thing in cream and after it was made up I would ombre dye it to give it a more subtle shading.

OK, I obviously care more about my shawl than my stupid birthday....

Teddy Bear Party

2007-08-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

We made bears!

We made 117 bears for the kids at the Hospice and Camp Erin, a bereavement camp. Camp Erin is partly sponsered by the Moyer Foundation and alot of folks in the community all come together to make Camp happen. Frontier Bank and Banner Bank both help out by providing funds for campers. Everett Clinic helps pay for food and renting the camp site. Project Linus makes quilts so when each child arrives at camp the are greated by a hand made bear and quilt on their bed.

It was just amazing to see all the bears people made and all the love and care that went into them. It made me go all teary eyed to see so many people in the community come together. Knitters are the best. We had people from 90 years old to 5 1/2 years old making bears. OK, clothes for bears. The bears themselves are donated by Warm 106.9, and other local radio stations. It was such fun.

These are to two I made.

Some of the bears, not in the 117 total, will go for auction in Oct. There was an Arabain Nights bear and a bear with a sheep stuffy and even a biker Nun. The creativity of my fellow knitters is awe inspiring. Just, wow.

I'll have more pictures as I get them. and I'll come up with more brilliant commentary as I have time. This is just a quick post. More to come....

A New Computer, A Finished Sock, and Lizards Online

2007-07-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing blogs are more for journaling and less of an actual news article or an actual web site for a business or some such, because at nearly 1am I'm not very coherent.

So why blog at 1 am you ask? Insomnia, I reply. Some nights I can't even get to sleep until 3 or 4. Which is a right pain in the arse when you have to be up by 8 to go to work. At least tomorrow I have the day off.

Other than the time it's a fabulous day. My new computer just came in. It has a nice big flat screen monitor and is somewhat faster than the hand-me-down computer I was using. Which I imediately handed down to my son James. I put together this one. He had to haul the old one into his room and set it up his own self.

I started a new sock in Tofutsies. Now that I look at it it doesn't actually say the name of the color on the ball, but it's 'Three Feet Short'. I'm doing this one for Great Yarns too.

The coolest thing about Great Yarns..... My Lizard pattern is up on the website! Isn't he darling.

Charity Knitting Postponed To Make Sock

2007-07-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

My son James is thoughtfully holding up some Charity Bears, while thinking his Mom is a total goober for taking his picture.

Great Yarns, my LYS, does up a whole bunch of bears every year for children in hospice care and they also sponser a bereivement camp for children who've lost there parents or siblings. When I went in the other week they had the bears put up all over the place. These bears were dressed to the nines. There were bears in sweaters, shawls, hats, cardigans, made with every knitting technique known to man, entrelac, lace, intarsia, fairisle, even beaded. The talent pool of knitters at Great Yarns is just amazing. I was blown away.

And being a giving kind of person, I snatched up two bears to make clothes for then and there. Then I got to talking to Fontelle and she said they were getting in some fabulous new sock yarn. I am a sock yarn addict. We will never tell my husband how much sock yarn I truly have, so we will never have to hear him say something really foolish like 'don't you have enough sock yarn already'. He will never know.

Any way, Fontelle says they're getting in this new yarn and could I knit up a sock for the store's display. I said, 'Oh, yes, please!', just as soon as you get it in. I'm no dummy, I get to knit socks and not have to pay for the yarn first, and everybody gets to admire them and say what fabulous socks they are and how fine a job I did on them. Oh, yeah.

So I went in yesterday and the new sock yarn was in! It was wonderful. She had got in Tofutsie and Shi Bui. Two of my all time favorites. And then Fontelle tells me that she needs the first sock in Shi Bui by next Wednesday so she can take it to the Seattle Mariners Stitch and Pitch on Thursday. So I'm knitting socks and not bear clothes because all the bears have to be in by August 1st and the sock has to be done in 5 days. Eek. Good thing I knit fast.

The pattern I'm using is fun one, Fiber Trends Lupine Lace Socks, and the color we picked is called Anime. I knit some on it last night and this afternoon and it's coming along pretty fast. The pattern calls for Lornas' Lace sock yarn and size 1 needles. I'm using size 2 needles, because Shi Bui is just a tiny bit thicker, to knit the small size sock and I'm getting the medium size measurements out of it. One of the nice things about the pattern is that you get a great leaf pattern and after you've done one pattern repeat you never have to look at the chart again. I love easy to memorize patterns. And have I mentioned the yarn. It's so soft and you can wash it in the wash machine too.

FROGS!

2007-07-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

I spent almost three blissful hours in my local yarn shop today. They have AC, my apartment does not. And even though it did not reach the, oh my Gods, 99 degrees F it got up to yesterday it was still toasty.

In case I haven't (bragged) mentioned it, Great Yarns is carrying my Little Lizard pattern. Pretty soon the patterns will be available on the website, and I'm doing up a pattern for poison dart frogs.

The first froggy ended up pudgy, with a square butt. Here's a picture before felting. I don't have one for after because that's when the hoodlums I call my children broke my camera. OK, I call my cats hoodlums too, I just like the word hoodlum. While I was basking in the AC I got out the fat frog to show Fontelle my progress. She thought it was cute. And then one of the regulars, yarn shops always have regulars, came in with her nephew and we gave him the frog as a distraction. It went strait into his mouth. I love it. That is the ultimate stamp of toy approval so far as I'm concerned. It's just not a successful toy unless it's played with.

While everyboby was going about helping folks and restocking and calling suppliers and all the stuff that keeps us yarn addicts in wool, I sat down to knit. As I had the frog on my mind I knit frog parts. I made three legs and half the body. I think I've gotten the reshaping on the body figured out too. Yeah.

It must be the wool fumes. It was the most relaxing afternoon I'd had in a long time. I love spending time with other knitters.

Crazy Aunt Purl

2007-07-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I was raiding my friend Shelley's blog for links to other blogs, she has a fabulous list going, and I found Crazy Aunt Purl. Now to be honest I had heard of her before and just hadn't got round to visiting yet.

Long story short, she is fabulous. Who could not love a divorce' with four cats? I'm a divorce', remarried, with four cats, and three kids, but that's beside the point. Yesterday she lost a loved one, her cat Roy.
It's always hard to lose someone close but it's even harder to lose someone you've shared so muck of your life with. My heart goes out to her.

Web surfing and site collecting

2007-07-09T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is me and my cat Crystal. She thinks that laying on me while I'm knitting socks is just too funny. She's a Turkish Angora, but we like to call her 'Bitch Kitty'. She's not real fond of the other cats.

There are four cats in my house. Sentry is the black and white medium haired one who likes to sleep on felted bags. Pixel is the huge orange striped one who likes to sleep and walk over me while I'm knitting anything other than socks. Bug-a-boo is the black one. Pixel and Crystal came to us from the Humane Society as adults. Sentry and Bug-a-boo were part of a set of five kittens we rescued, fostered, fixed and redistributed. I am a huge supporter of fixing cats, and adopting from shelters. The kittens we saved are the first kittens I've ever had, and if the stupid people next door had ever heard of a vet or fixing their boy I wouldn't have had them at all. The mom of the kittens died, we found them at barely four weeks old in our parking lot. My daughter Ryan, the Girl Scout, trapped them and brought them in the house. The poor babies were just able to eat wet kitten food. Now they almost one year old yarn theives, who like to wind wool all around the dining room table.

Tomorrow is going to be a very hot day and today was no peach either. So I haven't been doing as much knitting as usual, which is a pity, but I have been checking out my friend Shelley's blog. She has the most amazing list of links to craft blogs, it's not comprehensive but it is worth hours of cheap entertainment. When I'm done with this post I'm going to go and flesh out my hot list.

I love my cats.

Cat interference, roughing the yarn

2007-07-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some pictures of my cats getting in the way of knitting, or at least getting in on the picture taking.

This is Pixel, showing his enthusiasm for for the mesh bag I was working on a couple weeks ago.

And Bug-a-boo laying on some hand dyed yarn. I was trying to show the color variations you can get using food safe dye stuffs. He thinks that means a ready made bed or a quick game of chase the skein. He also likes my giant Wobbly Circles Tote.

Pictures!

2007-07-08T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, the camera is toast. Whatever the kids dropped it in killed it. But the card, she is beautifique. My computer at home choked on it but my computer at work had no such worries. Yeah!

As you can see my cats love my knitting. Now I can blog in color.

More images and stories will be forthcoming. I've got a whole bunch of pictures of my Yarn Crawl through Portland and dying and cats interfering with knitting and more....

I love my kids and will not drown them

2007-07-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

I will continue to not drown my kids even when they really deserve it.

I got in my universal card reader. From Hong Kong, which explains why it took so long, like a week is a long time.... Only to find out that the kids spilled something on my camera and now the furshluggina things broken. I can't read the card and I don't know if it's a computer thing or if the readers wonky or if the card got toasted with the rest of the camera. I had to wipe gunk of the card so ...... grrr.

I had almost a years worth of pictures of yarny goodness on that card. Every project for a whole year, including dying. That a lot of knitting pictures.

I'm very erked.

Pattern sales and camera issues

2007-06-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

I dropped off a set of Felted Nesting Bowls at Great Yarns, my local yarn shop, and Fontelle, the owner, told me that she had sold two of my Felted Lizard patterns. I was so excited, my first sales, the pattern had just gotten back from the printer.

To celebrate I bought myself a new book, Viking Patterns for Knitting by Elsebeth Lavold. I know, usually I would buy myself more yarn but I'm feeling a little full right at the moment. And I didn't have a good way to sneak it in past my husband. Now that I think about it though, my friend Shelley was with me and she could have brought the bag in to the house and said it was hers. Oh well. I'll use that next time Shelley and I go out to get yarn, which happens alot. She's my favorite yarny co-consperator.

Once the bowls have been photographed that pattern'll go off to the printer too. Then Great Yarns will carry two of my patterns. Yeah! Fontelle is going to be putting them up for sale on the website pretty soon too. I'm sure once that happens I'll get all excited and blog about it then too. There has even been talk about kits.

Now I have to finish the pattern for the frogs.

In other news my camera is still not talking to my computer, so no pictures. I got the drivers, I got the cables, I put in fresh batteries, it's still not working. I just need to get the full install disk from the camera manufacturer. It could happen. My friend Leonard is going to help me figure it out tomorrow. Maybe he can get the camera and computer to talk to each other.

I've lost a pattern...

2007-06-20T21:50:00.001-07:00

Well and truly lost it.

I'm almost done with this great bag. It's cotton with one of those mesh patterns in the main body that looks and sounds complex, but after repeating the two rounds once you've got it and don't need to carry the whole pattern around with you anymore. Especially after the 52 rounds of mesh knitting. Then at the top you do a few more rounds of garter stitch, some decreases and the handle.

Which is all fine up until the point where you go looking for the pattern and it's not on your clip board where you left it. Nore is it in the work basket where you left the clipboard, or the chase lounge where the basket lives, or under the chase on the floor. So I went looking. Let me list the places it was not found. It was not in the stash, not under the bed in one of the three boxes of yarn, in the yarn cupboard, in the basket by the couch, or any of the boxes in the closet. It was not under the couch, I moved it out, twice. It was not with my knitting books, pattern binders or magazines, I even moved the bookcase and realphabetized everything. It was not in any of my work bags, I have two under the vanity, one by the couch, one shoved in the yarn cupboard, a work basket in my room and I have knitting in my purse, just in case.

The sucker was gone. I even looked in the truck of my car. Found my daughter Girl Scout Handbook, no pattern.

So I looked online. I got the pattern out of the Spring 2007 issue of Knitscene. They do not have their patterns on the web. But they do have some very nice pictures, and pattern corrections. Come to find out that the pattern I had pulled out of the magazine was wrong any way.

And being the sort of person I am, after tearing apart my house looking for the dumb thing, I gave in to total impatience and faked it. I finished the bag up this morning sans pattern and it looks fabulous.

Now all I need to do is buy a new cable for my camera so I can put up pictures of it.... :)

End of the week blues..

2007-06-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those weeks that doesn't really seem busy but at the end of it you feel really drained and then you look back on your week and discover that it actually was really busy and that's why you're so tired?
OK, maybe that was a silly question.
My week looked like this. On Sunday I went to my friend Steve's birthday party. His Uncle cooked, it was fabulous. Before my husband and I could go we had to arrange for the redispursement of the children, and that was hectic. Monday was recover-from-the-weekend and laundry day. I did about 7 loads. Tuesday I got called in to work and started this blog. Yeah! Got home and then had to do the random kid shuffle again. Tuesday is Dinner-with-Dad night. Then I get to go out to dinner with my friends, who were sick, so I took dinner to them at home so they could stay in nightgowns. Wednesday I worked in the morning got home and discovered that tending to sick people makes you more suseptable to colds. I drank lots of fluids and did the dishes. And my eldest son invaded for his weekly Dinner-with-Mom. Thursday I read a book, served leftovers for dinner and spent alot of time talking to my youngest sons teacher and father. Oh and I went to Costco. Friday my youngest son had a field trip to the beach. My son's teacher specifically requested that I attend to keep him in line. Literally, it was two special ed. classes taking a city bus down to a state park. Hearding cats is easier than hearding twenty 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade autistic kids. We walked alot and it rained.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my life, I love my kids, I even had fun on Jarret's (my youngest) feild trip. The kids thought it was funny that Jarret's Mom was knitting while walking on the beach and one of the teachers wanted to know what stitch pattern I was using for the mesh on my bag. Knitters are the universes way to keep other knitters from going insane. Knitting loves company? It was a busy week and I'm tired.

In the world of knitting I managed to knit a set of felted nesting bowls for Great Yarns, my LYS. I finished the cuff and the heal flap on a pair of socks in Opal on size 1's. And got most of the way done on a cotton mesh bag, the 'Rutabaga Bag' in some issue of Knitscene. Then I discovered I've gone and lost the darn pattern and have to tear my apartment apart to find it so I can finish the bag. Usually I get more knitting done.
On the book front I finished reading 'No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting' by Anne Macdonald. I'll post a reveiw later when I have more brain cells. I'm also reading 'The Second Summoning' by Tanya Huff. I read the first in the set 'Summon the Keeper' and howled. I'm mostly done with second book and so far they're both a scream.

I should pen some sort of pithy closing but it's quarter of one and I'm out of pithy right at the moment. It'll have to wait for the next post......

Begin at the beginning.....

2007-06-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

..and when you reach the end, stop.

So this is my first post on my first ever blog. It only get's better from here. I'm still trying to find my way around the site so any feedback is greatly apreciated. Once I get through the shakedown post this site is going to be about yarn. And knitting, and all of the fabulous things you can do with yarn and knitting. And yarn, did I mention the yarn?

But not crochet because that's just vile.