Stuck

I have The Tot in bed, the laundry done, and pretty much nothing else pressing that needs my attention, so why am I not knitting? I have project ADD. I can't seem to stick with anything long enough to see any progress this week, and when you look at a very simple project that would take anybody else a day or two and realize that that one ball of yarn has been taking up space on the same needles for two months, well, it's a bit discouraging. Lack of direction or something I guess. But I did finish something, non-knit, but still, it's SOMETHING.

I forget what the pattern is called, but it's fairly easy. I wanted a quilt for The Tot, but I'm thinkin' a small pillow will have to do for now. I quilted alot when I was pregnant with her, and got kind of burned out on it. My grandma and I worked on a huge flower garden quilt together until I got too big to get close enough to see what I was doing. That one's not finished either.

And there's new yarn:

Okay, I've got to get my act together and get at least ONE thing finshed this week. Or maybe in the next two weeks?

Be careful what you ask for...

I asked for a whole bunch of yarn for my birthday but I didn't get it. So now, about once aweek, there's a package of yarn in the mailbox, what's up with that? Pure torture, I tell you-having all this good stuff and knowing most of it will never get knitted.

So anyway, about being careful what you wish for, it seems that somebody wanted to know what Sam looks like. Sam, of course is not my name, it's my cat's (you know knitters and cats go together and all). But that's the name I use for everything-I even had my telephone number listed in my cat's name before I got married. The Husband said that sure did make it tough for him to find me! Sam, on the other hand, doesn't seem to mind. Can you tell which one is the real Sam?

An Experiment

Okay, my pictures are uploading all double and weird, so I don't have anything to show you. But I HAD a couple of skeins of my handspun that I dyed pink a while back. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it, so it's been lounging around. Well, I think it wants to be felted. It's not a very soft wool at all, but it dyed pretty good (for my first try) and spun easily enough, so I'll probably get some more later on. That is IF it felts okay. I've never tried felting before, but I have found some good references online, and I think I got it. You pretty much just wash it like you would your favorite expensive wool sweater if you wanted to ruin it. Right? Yeah, I can do that. So what am I going to make out of it? Definitely not anything to wear-way to scratchy for that. If it works, I'll show it off. If it doesn't, I'll pretend it never happened and it will never be mentioned again.

New Yarn For Me

No pictures for you! They all made the yarn look neon green. But the Mystical Creation Yarn that I got on E-bay is beautiful! I didn't really see any of their stuff that I would have hated. I forgot how many yards I got-like 1,000 or something, but it's enought for a shawl. It's rayon and I really like it, but I'm not sure if I'll like knitting with it, I'll have to test knit some.

Obviously, my tomato red yarn did not arrive Saturday, but I did find the black alpaca for the other shawl. I forgot how boring black is to knit with. So I entertained myself in other ways:

We stripped our child down to her undies and gave her a big bowl of flour and some scoops and turned her loose with it. It was good for about an hour and a half of entertainment. It was also good for another half hour of mom and dad cleaning the kitchen. So we all had something to do, isn't that nice?

One For Me

Doesn't the lilac bring out the brown in her eyes? Sorry Mrs. Moo, but this one's mine! I just loved knitting with this yarn, so as soon as I finished this yesterday morning, I was going to resume with the black one. I couldn't find it. I know it's here somewhere, and it can't be that far down in the pile. It hasn't been that long since I put it aside. Or maybe I buried it. I was kind of upset when I stopped that one. The Husband sat on it and pulled the needles out and I had to unravel a whole week's worth of knitting-not to mention that 299 stitch cast-on. Needless to say, I was a bit upset, and cried while I sat on the floor and unraveled and rewound the yarn. The Husband felt really bad about it, and although he didn't offer to learn to knit so that he could fix it, he did sit on the floor next to me until I was finished winding it back up. I think my stomach is strong enough to look at it again now, so I'll dig around and look for that black alpaca today and get re-started on that. Unless of course I get something red in the mail today. I might have to start both of them if that happens. Who cares, I'm playing with yarn and I'm happy!

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time in a land far away, or maybe not that far, who can say. There was this pretty shiney yarn. It was a very lovely laceweight with beautiful autumn colors and more than enough yardage to make a little yarn princess very happy indeed. This yarn was looking for a home and was considering living at the princess' castle in the Province of Yarn. That yarn thought and thought about this for many hours, and instead decided to live in a much bigger castle with a very nice lady who most certainly had more time than the little yarn princess in which to shower it with the love and attention the yarn felt that it deserved. Such a sad tale, but it did not end there. The little yarn princess quickly found another yarn to replace that ungrateful rayon and though this yarn was a scandalous red cotton from the far away land of Canada, it agreed to come and live with the yarn princess and be her favorite project forever and ever, until death (or boredom) did they part. The end.

Oh, Merino, How Do I Love Thee?

Let me count the yards. Well, I would if I had one of those nifty yardage meters, but for now, I'll have to guess. I know it's about 4 ounces of maybe worsted weight. And I know I love this color and I wish I had some more. But it's probably best that I don't since I couldn't even spin these two spindles the same. I'd hate to imagine what a third might turn out like. The first was beautiful, and the second, while still nice, a little overspun. I suppose I could ply them together and make a chunky yarn, but I'm partial to singles for some reason. I bought a spinning book from GirlReaction. So maybe next time, my spinning will come out resembling real yarn! Now I just have to wait until it tells me what it wants to be . I think it wants to be a pair of dog sweaters, but we'll wait for it to 'age' a while before we commit. Well, we might swatch tonight, but that's all. Really, I swear. I'm still intent on finishing the lilac alpaca shawl by mid-week. You never know, I might finish it by then.

Roving, roving, roving...

You know it's time to clean out when your toddler looks at your stash and says "Wow, look at all this mess!" So, tonight after everybody goes to bed, I will make an honest effort to sort some of my stuff.

I know I've got some merino roving that needs to turn into yarn, so maybe I'll get the wheel out and work on that. It's not much and shouldn't take long. I haven't had the wheel out in a while anyway, and this stuff is really fun to handle, and a pretty color too. It's kind of black-cherry-ish. Hard to tell from this picture, I know.

I would like to be able to spin my own laceweight, but I haven't had much success with that yet. Although I'm holding off on buying anything new until I get finished with a few projects, I still look. And I found some really pretty laceweight on E-bay yesterday. I think it was a rayon or silk blend. I tried not to look at it too long or I would have talked myself into it, but I will definitely be hunting up some of that before too long. Maybe I could just go look at it again. Just to see how much it's going for you know. But it had such a beautiful sheen to it. Maybe I'll just get enough for one shawl. As a gift for somebody else. Yeah, right. I guess I'll have a couple of skeins of that by the end of the month.

Halfway There

I finished one ball of the Misti Alpaca and ended up with ten pattern repeats for thirteen inches. It seems like that should be about halfway. So I think two balls total of this ought to be enough for a whole shawl. I really hope so, but it's not like the alpaca was really expensive, and if I need more to finish this shawl, I can go ahead and get a third ball for the black and moss colored ones too. I just love this pattern! I'm thinking about doing some other lace stuff, but haven't picked anything yet. I have my heart set on a cutsey little sweater to wear over a cami or tank, but I think it's just not meant to be. At least not yet. Maybe a cardi with some lacy insets on the front. Hmmm........

Proof

See? I can get through a whole day of mommy time and get something accomplished. Yay me!

This is the front (or back) of a sleeveless shell. I can't remember who the pattern came from, but I did alot of modifications to it anyway. (yarn snobs, turn away) The yarn is some kind of cotton denim stuff, Bernat I think, but I can't find the ball band this morning. I'm using #6 US needles, and it knits up to a nice thick fabric. It'll be comfy this fall with a shawl when it's not quite cool enough for a sweater. It looks more black and white here, but it's really navy and white. I think I'll wear it a good bit once it's finished.

Unfettered Knitting

This is not a usual thing for us. I realize children spend nights and even whole weekends with their grandparents all the time. And it's not like they're that far away-about a 15 minute drive. No big deal, and everybody says that moms and dads need some time away. away? away from what? So here I have a whole day to myself, I could be knitting, cleaning house, or whatever, and what am I doing? Right, worrying and wondering if I should call and check on them. (the Husband wouldn't let me call last night, he swore that if she turned on them or they went to the emergency room or anything they'd call us first, oh yeah, THAT'S reassuring!) We could have done anything we wanted to last night, but we mostly sat around and talked about how quiet it is around here.

So how much actual knitting have I done? Surprisingly little, or not surprising, whatever. But still, I can if I want to. Or I could go vaccuum the living room. Or put on a load of laundry. Yep, I'll get right on that, just as soon as I get done sitting around.

And now, I knit

It's finally the weekend, and I have been able to slow down and get some knitting done. It helps when the Tot is occupied which she has been this evening. We visited some friends that the Husband plays music with and she danced and played outside while I knit on the Birch patterned shawl in Alpaca Lace. It was wonderful, I think I might need a cigarette now.....

I didn't really make enough progress on it that you'd be able to tell, but I did catch a shot or two of the Tot letting me knit.

Here's another stick Mom, since you seem to like them so much. Aren't I cute? Hey, look at me!lookatme, lookatme, lookatmelookatmelookatmelookatme!

One day, out of the blue, she's gonna climb up on my lap and ask me to show her how to knit. And then I'll wake up. Or she'll turn sixteen.

A Little Progress

All but one of my baby cardi pics turned out grey. WHAAAAA!!!! I just wanted to show off the yarn anyway. What does everybody have against knitting with cotton? I'm making the Toddler Hoodie pattern from Bernat in Cotton Tots and I think the color is Wonder Dreams. The yarn works up pretty fast, even as slow as I am, and makes a nicely defined stitch. Soft too.

And Granny? If you're reading today, this one's just for you. I think this pose would be titled "Wait, wait! I'm not ready for my closeup!" or maybe "One tired and sweaty baby, coming right up!"