Spring Break's of the devil!

Okay, not really. But a mom can pretty quickly get used to her preschoolers going to school a few hours a day, 3 days a week. Really used to it. Same for the boys, who'd much rather be at school with their friends and teachers than with boring old Mom.

I've really got to write more often. Yikes. Okay, my new pledge for the spring. Spring Break's officially over today, Daddy's home all weekend, the boys go back to school Monday, and I'll have more than 30 seconds a day to sit down at the computer again. Yahoo! I'll break out the camera this weekend and get some shots of my latest projects.

My current projects

I'm eagerly awaiting the Uruguayan merino I'm using for my niece's cardigan, so I'm killing time with projects I'm not really that into. I started the chevron scarf for my sister's birthday, coming up in April, but it's SO slow going that I'm already losing my patience. And it's a scarf! I've got quite a way to go! It's the fact that I can't just knit away without looking that bothers me the most. With 3 separate strands of yarn (I think 2 plies each) all rolled together, it's hard to keep up with so many parts when doing things like K2tog and ktf&b. But I got new needles today that are pointier, so they're making it go a tad more quickly. A tad.


The striped atrocity is Aric's. He has growing pains, I guess, in his legs off and on, and I put him to bed with a hot water bottle. But it always makes me nervous to do it since I just wrap a towel around it or stick it into a pillow case. How to make it hot enough to last a while, yet cool enough to not burn a child who's asleep and oblivious to what's touching his legs? So we decided to make a cover. He picked out my favorite yarn, of course. It's the Malabrigo/handpaintedyarn.com merino worsted that I used on one of my very first knitting projects. I have to admit having tried to pull what the Yarn Harlot tried in one of her stories. I tried to talk him into the "crap yarn." He didn't fall for it any more than Steph's daughter did. Oh, well. He picked the yarn colors. I'm not liking the coral-ish stripes at all, but hey, it's his hot water bottle cover. (It's the leftover yarn from my hourglass sweater below) Gotta let the 4 year old start making his own decisions when his life's not on the line. Wow, that's hard to sit back and let a child make his own choices!

I can't wait to get started on my aqua merino! It's the merino from Uruguay that's identical to Malabrigo's, only half the price now that Malbrigo's skyrocketed. I used it on my Hourglass Sweater and love it. Her colors are so pretty, too. Both companies have their own set of gorgeous colors. And Sandra's so sweet and helpful. Of course, if you pay standard shipping, your needles you bought from Hong Kong will arrive before the yarn, even though the yarn was shipped a full week and a half before them. Huh? Is it traveling through Uruguay by burro?
I'm doing a steek, a hood, and cables on this sweater, all things I've never done before. Logic would say to take the rest of that HG sweater yarn and start swatching, since they're identical. But have I done that yet? Of course not. Maybe I'll go do that now. Or maybe I'll go finish the Yarn Harlot book, which is absolutely hilarious! Even non-knitters would find this book funny. Well, at least non-knitting crafters.
Off to swatch! Or read. Hey, I wonder if her book's on tape yet!

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Winter right over!

What's wrong with this picture? It's February 28, it's pushing 80 degrees, and the boys are eating ice cream cones on the swingset in their shorts. They only have long sleeved shirts on because we just got back from Walmart and it was cooler when we left the house earlier. They're burning up in the long sleeves.

Where's my winter??? I have to admit that when I smell the fresh air in the morning or get to leave the windows open, I like it. However, I also love snow, and I got VERY little of it this year. Or last. And with 8 month summers around here, where the air's too stagnant to breathe, and you break out into a sweat the second you get out of the shower, even in air conditioning, I need my winter! Aric picked up on something I'd been saying too often, evidently, when he said out of the blue, "I hate summer!" Amen, kiddo! I told Mom that I really think I'd like living in Iceland. It doesn't really get any colder than here, there's more snow and fewer idiots on the road who freak out at the mysterious white stuff that falls from the sky every single winter, and the summers don't get much higher than the 60s. Yeah, I could do it. And all that sundown stuff would be great for knitting! Of course, getting my boys to go to bed when the sun's still up might be a challenge, but there are ways around that. A few room darkening shades, and I'm good to go. Oh, and modern technology is amazing there. The main road around the island has sensors under it, and they can tell what the road conditions are like! On the TV, they show you what the road is like that day. How cool is that?? All our Dept. of Transportation does is freak out, wait until the snowstorm is over, THEN go out and dump some sand on it, their plows a good 6 inches off the ground. I kid you not, the last time it snowed, we drove behind a snowplow/sand truck (yes, sand. Don't get me started on that. No salt around here. We like to make the snow dirty and then slip and slide on the sand once the snow's gone and the roads are dry. Really safe.) and couldn't tell where he'd been on the highway, his plow was so high. Obviously we knew because we were behind him, but there was no difference in the snow levels in the different lanes. None. I wonder how many of my tax dollars paid him that day to do nada.

So, while I'm excitedly planning on getting a tanning bed membership and drinking SlimFast, I'm also already sad about the leaving (if it was ever really here) of winter. I'm more in the mood for seed catalogs than Christmas planning, but I'm NOT looking forward to the inferno we in Tulsa call summer. Especially when the boys are home from school, and wimpy Mom makes them stay inside all day because it's so hot and suffocating outside. Summer is supposed to be the time of year that you're never inside! Well, until they come and stick a pool in my back yard, it ain't happening.
But at least it's a dry heat. Well, dryish.

If I were an Olympic Sport....

You Are Curling

What you lack in athleticism, you make up for in concentration. And while curling isn't much more of a sport than bowling, you *can* win a gold medal for it!

What Winter Sport Are You?

Okay, anyone who knows me knows that I do NOTHING athletic if I can help it. I technically don't mind athletic things as far as the work involved, getting hot and sweaty, etc., if everything lines up just right first. You know, things like drive, finding a sport I actually enjoy, finding time, finding a sitter, having the right clothes so I don't feel like a cow while I'm huffing and puffing with all the size 0 athletes in the room, etc. Therefore, it doesn't happen often. Every week starts out with (and sometimes ends with) "Okay, starting tomorrow: salads. And walking around the park (6 houses away from us) no matter how cold/hot it is outside." Then another week goes by. Occasionally I'll get one of the two things accomplished, but salad's only so helpful once you wash it down with a 32 oz. Coke.
So I'm not surprised by the outcome of this test. I wish I'd gotten to see the curling events. We got rid of our cable for a few months so we could get some other financial things taken care of, and it happened right before the Olympics. Dangit. There's just something frustrating about watching the NBC highlights on a TV with bad reception that makes you long for the digital cable you just relinquished and makes you turn off the TV and start your own countdown to the Montreal Olympics, by which time you'll finally have cable back again and can watch any number of sports channels and see the sports you want to see. And of course WHEN you want to see them, thanks to your DVR.

Back in the saddle again....

I guess I need to change the name of my blog, since I don't just knit. I started scrapbooking again this week after almost a year's hiatus. Ouch. That's what happens when your already-precious time is suddenly consumed with a new hobby like knitting. Time to taper off and do some of both.

My parents are visiting next week, so I'm feverishly finishing up my mom's Grandmother's Calendar that she usually gets each Christmas (hanging my head in shame) and my dad's retirement album (he retired 1.5 years ago). Time to get those darn monkeys off my back!

So off I got o journal some more for Dad's album. A glutton for punishment, I used the military alphabet (he retired from the Air Force) that he and I used to send each other letters in. So that means 26 pages of content! Aah! What was I thinking? Oh, well. It's pretty impressive, being so detailed. Never mind that it's YEARS late! Hey, he's still retired, isn't he? :-)

Thoughts? Opinions?

Here's my niece's birth announcement. Thoughts? Should the text in the corners go somewhere else or be different in another way? Should the photo be lightened at all? Overlap or not overlap the names? Does it look like they're showing through each other artistically or more like they're all jumbled and crammed together?

Just FYI, the color looks absolutely pukey on my monitor. But it prints out pretty. If you like chartreuse and "Martha" greens, that is. So don't think I've lost it if it looks like spoiled mustard or baby poop on your monitor, too. It's not.

I'm done! I'm done!

Or almost, at least. I think I'm going to take out the neck facing and do a couple more decreases so the neckline is smaller and more practical. The sweater's so soft and warm, but not too hot for Oklahoma winters. Too hot for this week, but we're getting close.
This knit up so quickly, I was amazed. It took me just over a week of the boys' naptimes, trips in the car across town when Brad was driving, a few nights in front of the TV while we watched something together after the boys went to bed... No real knitting marathon times or anything. No ignored housework, other than what's always ignored. :-)
This sweater is SO thick! The yarn's a pretty heavy worsted merino, so I think I might make a lighter weight, dressier one for warmer days, maybe out of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool. I love that yarn! But with a cozier neckline, this one is great for fall and winter with my jeans, my Danskos, and maybe a tank top underneath. So glad I found the pattern and made it! And so glad you taught me to knit, Lib! :-)

So close I can taste it!

I'm almost done! Finally! After knitting the body twice, I'm ready to be done. Although, it's supposed to be 89 degrees today, so I guess I can't wear the sweater anyway. Boo hoo. But the rain's supposed to come tonight and cool the temperatures down to the 60s for the weekend, so maybe I can wear this one evening or to church, where it's always cold in the A/C.
I'm done with three of the 15 decreases, so I'm going to work like crazy when the boys go down for a nap this afternoon. It's "Mom's time" when they do; no housework, no bills, nada. My version of sleeping when the baby sleeps. LOL That and a sanity saver.
I'll post pictures of the sweater this evening. Here's hoping it will be on me for the pictures!

Back to the starting block...

Well, I'm two weeks into my hourglass sweater and I've been fooling myself about the yarn. I can clearly see where the first ball ran out and the second started. The yarn, a super soft merino from Uruguay--from the same mill as Malabrigo's yarn, only cheaper and from a different seller-- is like most hand-dyed yarns. It's not a solid shade all the way through, so I should have used two balls at once and alternated them every couple of rows. Nah, too much tedium, I thought. Yeah, well, it's better than starting over! Hindsight is 20/20.

So I think I'm going to set this part aside and start a new one with the other balls of yarn for now. It's too traumatic a thought at the moment to rip out all my hard work! I'll wait until I'm zooming along with the new version.

The color of the yarn is nothing like the picture. I wish someone would come up with a way to make cameras and monitors consistent with real life colors. The yarn is a rusty terra cotta orange, not the pinky peach it looks like in this picture. Think fall, not spring.

Well, off to the new sweater. Nothing like a do-over. I was already thinking about my next challenge, but I guess it'll have to wait.

Welcome!

Well, here's my first jump into blog-dom! A knitting blog for now, it may evolve as I find more hobbies or passions along the way. But for now, stay up to date on my latest projects and enjoy!