KnitMensch

Sheep to Shawl, Longing to Weave, Getting Drippy

2010-06-08T16:23:00.004-06:00

My last six days have gone by in a fog of spinning in most of my spare moments. I'm a member of a five-woman sheep-to-shawl team, and we're preparing for this Sunday's sheep-to-shawl (STS) competition at Estes Park's Wool Market. Some STSs require that the sheep be sheared at the beginning of the contest time (yikes!). I am relieved that we can show up for the competition with our fleece washed, our warp threads spun, and our loom dressed and ready to go. During the five-hour STS window, we'll card our weft fleece, spin the weft threads, weave and wash the shawl. After our five hours are up, the shawl will dry for an hour and then be judged against those of the other three teams. I'm told we're judged on the quality of the spinning and weaving, but also (and rather importantly) on how we interact with the public during the competition, as this is meant to be an educational event. I'll try to post pictures and write more after the competition. Anyway, I think I've spun something like 600 yards of fairly fine singles in the six days from last Tuesday night to last night, which was Monday night. The warp yarn, when 2-plied, is a light DK weight or so.

With our warp now spun (and other team members plying it), I'm taking a few days off spinning now to give my left elbow -- the only part that seems much bothered by all this spinning -- a rest before Friday's loom-dressing party and then Sunday's competition. Friday will be my first time helping warp (dress) a floor loom. I'm looking forward to the learning experience.

I did recently learn to warp and weave on a rigid-heddle loom. I had so much fun at the all-day workshop a few weeks ago, I bought a rigid-heddle (RH) loom for myself for my 40th birthday: a Schacht Flip, 25" wide. DH made me a beautiful oaken pickup stick to use with it, and says he'll make me other tools as I figure out what I want. I've promised DH not to warp the loom for a real project until I finish the curtains for our living room, the last room I haven't sewed for yet. When I made that promise, there were also two bedrooms uncurtained. This loom is providing some powerful motivation! I did warp the RH loom with some wool stash yarn, with DH's blessing to try out some weaving patterns, when we came to a technical roadblock on how to hang the living-room curtains, which meant I didn't really know what sizes to make them. Now we have that problem solved, so I'm back on the hook!

I didn't make any promises about not buying wool combs at the Wool Market, though. I loved the process of combing the fleece for the warp, and even better, spinning the resulting, luscious hand-combed top. I want to try it with my Cormo ram fleece. I've been spinning that, woolen (lofty, fuzzy) style, into laceweight yarn for a shawl, processing it with hand cards, but the enjoyment from that two-year-old project is wearing thin, and I enjoy knitting with worsted (smooth) yarns more, anyway. Maybe I'll make a cowl or some other small thing from the woolen yarn I've already made and spin the rest worsted to weave. :)

DH helped me out by replacing the worn-out batteries in our baby monitors (this is a soldering job, something I could do if I had to, but that he's much faster at), so now I have the ability to range out in the yard for more than a few minutes while DS is napping. I can work with the kids outside with me, but DS tends to cover himself in soil when I do that, so I have to figure in time to bathe him and get the soil out of every item of clothing and orifice afterward! He may be quite the gardener once I can focus those digging energies a bit.

Today I used my freedom to finish hooking up our drip system for the vegetable/herb garden. I've tested it and found it leak-free and functioning -- hooray! Next time the garden gets thirsty (it's pouring rain now), I'll test it for adequate coverage. I might add a few emitters here and there to get everything enough water. I already seem to hear the potatoes sighing with relief at not being watered from overhead, and my back sighing with relief at not needing to bend over and carefully water underneath them!

I Can't Hear Myself Think!

2010-04-25T10:06:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I hear myself saying things to my kids that I should listen better to myself:

If cleaning your room at the end of the day is too overwhelming, you'll need to clean as you go.
You don't need to be perfect; just try to do your best.
Why are you so critical?
STOP YELLING!

Sometimes I think that parenthood is little more than an ongoing lesson in recursion. After seeing a friend lose her temper with her son recently, and then getting an abject apology from her by email, I constructed a story in my mind: A little girl grows up, getting yelled at sometimes for doing things wrong and feeling pretty bad about it. By the time she's a mom, she knows she'd prefer to deal with her kids without yelling if possible. But there's still a voice in her head, yelling at her when she falls short of her best intentions. You know the one? Then, lo and behold, when one of her kids screws up, she finds herself yelling at the kid in front of other parents, leading to much embarrassment and self-flagellation.

So how do we break the cycle? For this kind of yelling/criticism loop, I suspect it has a lot to do with learning to be gentle with ourselves when we screw up. Otherwise, how can we manage to be gentle with our kids? Can we come up with a mantra for ourselves? Something like, "I will remember that I am a good parent, that I have always done the best I could, and that I have passed on to my children as few of the hurts that I endured as a child as I could possibly manage. And someday, I'll get some rest!" (That's a paraphrase of the Parents' Commitment in Co-Counseling.) Or how about a chant I heard in a women's singing circle: "I will be gentle with myself. I will love myself. I am a child of the universe, being born each moment." Is it possible to remember that life is an ongoing learning process, and that most learners, ourselves included, don't do well with constant criticism and put-downs?

Looking at the list above, it seems like my own chief demons are perfectionism and impatience – the inward- and outward-facing parts of the same stinkin' thinkin', as FlyLady might call it. FlyLady's lessons have been one of the most helpful things for me in learning to be more patient with myself, to the extent I manage to do that. My co-counseling experience was helpful, of course, but FlyLady has helped me take the lessons of self-acceptance and patience with myself and others into the less orderly context of my daily life, amid chores, kids, and household chaos.

I still have a ways to go. Perhaps alongside FlyLady's 15 minutes of decluttering per day, I could try a daily practice of forgiving someone -- myself, my kids, my husband, a stranger, but myself at least some of the time -- for something. Anything. It's time to declutter my mind of impatience, perfectionism, and eventually whatever other demons I might turn up after those clear out a bit. Then maybe, when I give one of my kids a piece of advice or correction, I'll be able to hear myself think!

Attack of the Exercise Imp

2010-04-24T19:30:00.000-06:00

I remember my first bike ride for fun after I moved to the Bay Area 18 years ago. I’d had the same mountain bike all through college and pretty much only ridden it for short trips around campus and town. I didn’t have, or know how to use, a patch kit. I didn’t have a quick-release rear wheel; this was great for locking my bike on campus, but not conducive to repairs. See what’s gonna happen here? My girlfriend and I went for a 12-mile-or-so ride around Contra Costa County, on rural roads through grazing lands and rolling hills. Just about as far from BART as our route would take us, my rear tire tangled with a 6-inch piece of barbed wire on the shoulder. It was a mess. My girlfriend had a patch kit and the knowledge to use it, but not the 15-mm wrench to remove my wheel! We walked to the nearest farm, and fortunately found someone willing to lend an adjustable wrench. After something like an hour of dealing with this, we were back on our way, having used just about all the patches we had. And then I had another flat. No need to go on; suffice it to say that that day was what my dad used to call an existential experience. I did eventually proceed to ride long distances (six years later, from San Francisco to Los Angeles!), but it took a little while to get back in the saddle after that debacle.

Is there some spirit of mischief that plagues people trying to set out on the path to a healthier, more active lifestyle? I ask because I think today it bit me again. This past week, I got my bike back in riding condition for the first time since last summer, and I took my daughter to her dance class along with the little guy in the double bike trailer. It went pretty well, though the ride back home, uphill all the way, was a challenge. I figured I’d have all spring to get in better shape, now that my bike is ready to go, I’ve found all the appropriate locks, etc.

See it coming yet?

So this afternoon, when we all decided on the spur of the moment to go to the library, I suggested we take the bikes. Husband and kids were all game, and soon we were off. No sooner did we get to the library, though, than the little guy barfed up his lunch in the parking lot. Oops! Was he motion-sick? He’d never had that problem before. We decided to hang out outdoors for a bit and see. Nope. More barfing. He’s just sick. I hung out with him outside the nearby supermarket, while DH got some dinner stuff and a roll of paper towels for cleanup. More barfing. We rode home slowly, checking on him constantly. He’s convalescing slowly in front of a video now, to take his mind off things. Or maybe just to make us feel better – he only seems unhappy for about 30 seconds longer than it takes him to have a couple of heaves. Thank goodness for small favors!

So I’m thinking, how long will it be before we’re ready to get back in the saddle for a family bike trip? Maybe, now that we’re pretty sure it’s not motion sickness, not too long. I will be packing a change of clothes and carrying that roll of paper towels and a plastic bag or two in the trailer, though! Maybe we can avoid the spell of the exercise imp and get past the mental barriers this time. Wish us luck!

Putting On My Own Oxygen Mask

2010-04-22T19:53:00.003-06:00

For 15 years after college, I lived in the same area in California. I built a good network of connections there that gave my life stability and depth. Now, three years into my life in Boulder, I'm still looking for that. As an at-home mom of two young children, I crave adult connection. It gets hard to be really present with my kids if I don't get that. So what works?

I've gone door-to-door in my new neighborhood, sort of like a Welcome Wagon in reverse, meeting people and compiling a neighborhood contact list. I probably know more people in my neighborhood by name than most longer-term residents -- but only a few any better than that. I have hopes that this will progress into regular neighborhood-based social activities or mutual aid like sharing tools or skills. But there's still work to do.

I joined a local church in my denomination (Unitarian Universalist) and have met some folks there. But between having two young kids and my husband not being a church guy, it's been hard to take full advantage of opportunities for connection there. Connections at church are starting to form, but they, too, need work.

So does school. I talk to some of the other parents at my daughter's school, but finding the ones I have much in common with is a slow business.

The one place I felt instantly at home, when I found it, was the monthly spinning/knitting gathering at my local yarn shop. The people there are all different ages and have pretty widely varying lives, but something about their being crafty with fiber seems to bring out common values:

We crafters seem to value making things more than having them. Many knitters give away most of what they make; it's really the pleasure of creation that keeps us going. This tends to correlate with interests in things like simpler living and slow food, though that's not universal.
We value teaching and learning. People often ask questions when they're having trouble, and there are always people ready to drop what they're doing and help out. Just listening to conversations there, I learn more about the crafts I know and get useful background on those I have yet to learn.
We know it's important to take time to create. The setting selects for that, of course. Some of us have children or demanding jobs, but we make time for fiber, somewhere between once a month and every day. It feeds us and makes the rest of our lives more doable to take this time for something we love.

For me, as a mom, socializing with fiber folk is a form of putting on my own oxygen mask first: making sure I get some down time, some connection, so I have something to give to my kids when they need it. In some families, I think the same idea is expressed, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Amen.

I continue to work on connections at church, school, and in my neighborhood, but I've made the most progress with crafty gatherings. Since December I've been hosting a monthly craft circle at my house on a Saturday morning and serving lunch afterward. My husband, who can see the benefits of these connections for me, takes care of our kids and sometimes others who come with their moms (it's all women so far) while we sit and ply (or spin, or knit, or crochet!) our crafts. I've taught a couple of brand-new knitters at the gatherings.

Our circle is slowly growing, and it's knitting together (oh, but the puns are rich here!) friends from school, extended family, and folks I've met at the local yarn shop gatherings. (I got the owner's blessing to recruit there as long as I don't schedule in conflict with their spin/knit-ins.) I can feel my root system getting deeper and more complex with each monthly circle. The oxygen mask is on, and the air is sweet!

I'm So Excited...

2009-05-23T22:46:00.003-06:00

I have the Pointer Sisters song running through my head. I've been making a second incarnation of the Menschkin Baby Blanket for a cousin's new baby, and this time I've been keeping good enough track to turn it into a pattern. I just found my notes from the last blanket about the border, and I'm ready to work the border on the new blanket. Rock and roll! Watch this space for that pattern and also a spiral hat design.

A Family Motto

2009-02-08T21:03:00.004-07:00

My goodness, it's been a long time since last August! But that's when our house move began... The interior remodeling ran 4 weeks past due, so we camped in hotels and vacation rental houses for a month. Since then we've been in various stages of remodel purgatory. Meanwhile, DS is 9 months old, crawling and seriously considering walking, so there's babyproofing and general chasing after him to do. It's been a very busy time!

Since last summer we've read the entire Little House series of books to DD (4.5 years old), who loved them. (Among other things, they have provided opportunities for lots of discussion and learning about Native Americans and about how beliefs about disciplining children have changed!) DH and I went on to read some of Laura Ingalls Wilder's other works, including a collection of her newspaper pieces called Little House in the Ozarks. Wilder wrote from the standpoint of a successful farm wife in Missouri, ruminating on issues of importance to her and giving advice to those who might want it. A question she asked in one article was, why shouldn't a family have a motto, as many other purposeful organizations do? She gave "Always prepared" as one possible example.

I got to thinking about it. It was a good time to be considering this, since I was somewhat discontented with our intrafamily dynamics and looking for ways toward more harmony and less strife. It was clear we needed more kindness and cooperation, running in all directions. DD, as a new big sister and an almost-5-year-old, is getting a little obstreperous sometimes, but I don't have to engage in much introspection to see that much of her unkind or uncooperative behavior is learned from yours truly. Ouch. Okay, there's some room to grow there.

I let the idea sit for a couple of days and added learning as another important family value: We parents have a lot to teach our kids, yes, but our interactions with them can be greatly enriched by a measure of curiosity on our part about who they are as people, and what they need from us in a given moment, week, or month. Also, lifelong learning is something I enjoy, benefit from, and want to encourage in my kids.

So, "Kindness, Learning, Cooperation." I decided it needed a bit more of an alliterative ring to it, so it became, "Kindness, Curiosity, Cooperation." I shared it with DH, who liked it. I started talking with DD about it, and it's been fruitful.

Focusing on a value of cooperation has encouraged me to talk about our activities in terms of common goals. So we're not hurrying to get ready for preschool just because Mama is a chronically punctual tyrant; we're doing it because she and I both, for our own reasons, want her to get to preschool on time. Any time I think we have a shared goal, but she's dragging her feet about it, I'll take a couple of deep breaths and say something like, "My goal right now is for you to eat enough food that you won't be hungry during the night, and do it soon enough that you can go to bed soon and not be tired in the morning. And I'd like the food you eat to be healthy food so you can stay well and grow strong. That's what I'm trying to do. What's your goal right now? Do we have the same goals?" This has been much more effective at strife-reduction than just haranguing her some more!

Focusing on kindness has helped keep me honest about my behavior toward others, especially my family. Isn't it sometimes easier, perhaps especially for those of us raised in the middle class, to be kinder to strangers or acquaintances than to those we hold dearest? I mean, there's nothing wrong with kindness to strangers, but why do we so often show our worst faces to our families? Perhaps it's because we feel safe with them, and know on some level that they will not abandon us for having a bad day. But I have to remember -- kids are learning all the time. What am I teaching with my behavior right now?

Focusing on curiosity is totally for my own benefit right now. DD is naturally curious -- all I have to do is listen to her questions and try not to brush them off. But I need the discipline of asking myself, and asking her, about what's going on for her. She can't always tell me, especially if she's in the middle of an emotional upset. But I think it helps both of us to hear me ask.

We have family-motto checkups. Sometimes I'll ask on a ride somewhere in the car, "How do you think we're doing with kindness and cooperation lately?" She usually focuses on her own behavior first: "Well, I cooperated pretty well this morning. And last night I watched the baby for you while you cooked dinner." I love giving her a chance to notice what she's doing well. Then I'll ask, "How do you think I'm doing?" A recent answer: "Pretty good. I think you only yelled at me once today."

Ouch. Okay, still room to grow there.

Perfectionism, Pragmatism, and... Pentathlon

2008-08-22T23:29:00.004-06:00

I've been watching the Olympics. A lot. At first I mostly watched gymnastics. But after a while, it got annoying how much the judges were essentially looking for sameness -- for perfection. It's a sport of deductions, and no one measures up to that perfect 10 anymore. Does this strike anyone else as an exercise in frustration?

So then I started watching more track and field events. There, no one cares much what your form is like, only how fast, how high, how far you go. And man, some of those folks can go fast! Usain Bolt is amazing. I liked how he didn't seem to care about the few more hundredths of a second he could have shaved off his time in the 100 meters -- he just wanted to celebrate! I love watching high jumpers, pole vaulters, you name it.

But a few days ago, my Olympics viewing took a whole new turn when I watched the equestrian portion of the men's modern pentathlon. There had been a torrential rain, and the arena was in terrible shape. This being modern pentathlon, the riders and horses only had about 20 minutes to get acquainted with each other before their attempts at the 12-jump course. (Modern pentathlon, I'm told, is based on 19th-century military experience, where an officer trapped behind enemy lines would not have had the luxury of riding a horse he'd trained with for years.) One rider after another racked up penalties for the horses refusing to jump the gates at all. Several were thrown from their horses. And what did they do? Cry? Jump up and down? Kick the judges? Nope. Mostly they sauntered over to wherever their alarmed horses had ended up, remounted, and went about their muddy business. Sure, a few seemed frustrated, but by and large they they took it pretty well. One rider, after giving up and taking the maximum penalty because his round was already so bad -- and, I suspect, because he wanted to conserve energy and unbroken bones for the run afterward -- grinned and patted the horse's neck repeatedly as he returned to the paddock.

I just have to love these guys. Can you imagine, being good enough to get to the Olympics in your sport and still having an event where getting thrown off your horse in front of millions of viewers is a realistic likelihood? Gymnasts and track athletes do risky things and sometimes have embarrassing falls or get hurt, but those horses seem like a far more potent wild card.

So I got to thinking about the parallels between Olympic sports and life skills like getting the house ready to have friends over for dinner. Can you picture these elite athletes as hosts?

There's Gillian Gymnast, cleaning her house with perfect form and grace, nary a hair out of place nor a splatter on her clothes, using exactly the right tool for each task and getting the house white-glove clean. She cleans precisely as her mother taught her, right down the type of cloth she uses for polishing the door knocker, and her roast chicken is exactly the same (and very good) every time.

In the next house is Tillie Track Star. Unconcerned with her own looks while cleaning or the exact design of her tools, she concentrates on efficiency, getting the house company-ready in minimum time so she can knit, get dressed, and try a new recipe for dinner. Sure, there are a few dust bunnies left hidden under the couch, only the high-traffic areas got vacuumed this time, and the spice rack isn't in alphabetical order, but who cares! Bottom line: The house looks great with minimum stress.

And around the corner, we find Petunia Pentathlete. She cleans by the seat of her pants, using whatever tool or cleaning product is available to do the job. As she wipes the bathroom sink, she is suddenly interrupted by sewage erupting from the bathtub drain. Petunia chuckles, takes a photo to show her friends later, checks an online reference to help decide whether to call the plumber, tackle the problem herself, or hang an "out of order" sign on the door, and then moves on with her afternoon. Maybe the whole house didn't get clean this week, but she did her best and didn't stress out, and still enjoyed the friends who came for dinner -- take-out this time, for goodness' sake!

May your days be as relaxed as Tillie's, but when the wheels come off, may you have the grace under fire of Petunia. Happy housekeeping!

A Celebration of Omnivory

2008-08-20T16:08:00.002-06:00

This week DS turned four months old, which is when most kids get over the food sensitivities that contribute to colic. My DS was sensitive to dairy and soy in my diet, so I cut them out when he was a few weeks old. I also never reintroduced chocolate or citrus after starting my elimination diet.

But this week, I brought them all back, and he's doing great! Yippeee! I got back chocolate, orange juice, ruby grapefruit, Mexican food, Indian food, goat cheese, soy milk (I make my own at home -- soymilk maker, anyone? -- and use the bean pulp to make awesome, fluffy homemade bread)... so many things! I'm loving it. I get to be an omnivore again. (Okay, still not eating beef, hydrogenated oils, or most fish, but those were already off the menu for their own reasons.)

The funny thing is, I wasn't missing this stuff that much for its own sake. It's actually possible for me to live happily without cheese! Who knew?! The hard part was that anytime I went out to eat or ate food provided by someone else (potlucks, parties, etc.), I had to grill them about the ingredients. Do you know how hard it is to get restaurant food without dairy or soy? Oy vay! So, socially speaking, my life just got a lot easier. And less expensive, since I can stop buying packaged rice milk and bread.

Also, I can go back to having more vegetarian meals, now that dairy and soy protein sources are both available to me. Legumes would normally have been a fallback for me, but unfortunately, the food components that make most people gassy also get into breast milk, so DS suffered when my bean intake became significant.

Now that I've made my first post-colic batch of soy milk, maybe I'll continue the celebration by learning to make my own cheese.

Knitting? Spinning? Mostly casualties of the Olympics, which I'm watching in bits and pieces online. Though now that my giant-size DS has outgrown his infant car seat (You know, the one that's supposed to be good until they're 6 months old? And he's 4 months?), which we could bring into the house if he fell asleep in the car, I'm carrying my sock knitting in the car for those times when he falls asleep and I have time to just park in the shade and knit. Unfortunately, when I finished my first sock, I tried to graft off K2, P2 rib from memory instead of looking it up. Now I'll have to take it out and do it over, 'cause that sock is not stretchy enough to make it over my heel. Feh. But you know, making my own cheese would totally make up for it. :)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Selling My House

2008-07-22T21:12:00.003-06:00

My house has now been officially on the market for almost two weeks. No offers yet, though a few people seem pretty seriously interested. The process of getting it ready for showing was truly arduous, especially for someone with my history. There was one room in the house that had never been fully unpacked and set up for use. It was half-full of boxes, files, disassembled furniture, and spinning and knitting supplies. D'you think it's telling that that room is the only room in the house where I have some personal space all my own?? Oy, I loathe the last stages of unpacking. All those decisions -- Do I keep this? Where does it go? And the self-recriminations -- Aargh, I already bought a replacement for this because I couldn't find it! How could I leave this in a box for a whole year? Why do I hang onto so much junk? And so on. Totally paralyzing.

I had to decide, over and over again, not to pay attention to those awful voices in my head. With a lot of help and moral support from my cousin, who is working this summer as my babysitter/organizational assistant, I slogged through the hardest stuff, pitching the junk, filing the files, packing up the craft supplies I won't be able to use before we move. Then in a couple of days on my own, I got through the rest. The room -- a den with my desk in a little nook -- is beautiful, peaceful, CLEAN. And so is the rest of the house.

Getting ready for showing was sort of like a Manhattan project. A Herculean effort to get the house ready to be that special fiction that house-hunters want to see: spacious, clean, uncluttered, and depersonalized, to allow maximum imagination of what their stuff would look like here, and how gracious their life could be in such a beautiful, sparsely furnished home. When I get moved to the new house in a month or two, I think I want to put the same level of energy into getting the house set up for the life we want there. No more of this not finishing unpacking until it's time to pack for the next move stuff. I'm hoping this next house will be a long-time landing place for us. I want every room to be usable. Know what I mean? My cousin says she LOVES unpacking. I hope she has some time on her hands!

Meanwhile, back at the current house, we get calls for showings every few days, often on short notice. That means we pretty much have to keep the place immaculate all the time, which is an extremely foreign way for me to live. Relatively uncluttered, functional, comfortable -- yes, I strive for that and often achieve it. Immaculate and ultra-pared-down? Sorry, that girl doesn't live here.

But then this voice pipes up. She's been getting louder over the two weeks or so of living in a semi-staged house. "Wouldn't it be easier to just clean up the lunch dishes now, while they're fresh, instead of checking email or paying the bills first? Wouldn't it be nice to just relax tonight and not worry about doing cleanup chores after the kids are in bed? C'mon, darlin', just do it now. You won't be sorry." And this voice? It comes from inside my head. I can't blame my Mom, who's hundreds of miles away, or even DH, who's on a business trip again. Sure, I could have internalized my Mom's urgings, but it doesn't sound like her. This is me, folks. Or maybe I'm being haunted by FlyLady.

Do I always listen? Nope. I stopped writing in the middle of that last paragraph to do the last of dinner cleanup, at 9:30 p.m. That gentle urging proved irresistible, albeit belatedly. But you know, in the old days, I'd put off the dinner cleanup and the litter boxes until after 10:30, when I should really be getting to bed -- or hours later on a bad night. I guess the triple pressures of DH being gone, the house being for sale, and the housekeepers we tried to hire for the for-sale period not returning our calls, are doing some good. I can't claim I'm doing all this great cleaning-as-I-go alone: DH and my cousin have also put in a lot of work. But the good news, my friends, is that I am doing it at all.

Creative Block

2008-07-03T23:09:00.003-06:00

I'm in one of those periods where I can't think of anything interesting to write about, and I'm not even in the mood for knitting or spinning much. I'm doing okay with my house and my kids. Maybe it's that I've been rereading the fifth Harry Potter book. Rereading novels doesn't do much for my creative side. But I'm done with the book now, so it's time to jump-start the writing thing again.

So here's a meme. It came to me from sockpr0n, who I noticed on Ravelry because of her GORGEOUS handspun socks. I wanna do that someday.

What was I doing 10 years ago? In 1998, I was single, but had begun searching in earnest for a mate. (I found him in 1999.) I spent the first half of 1998 working as a science writer and editor at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and the second half at grad school, in the Master's and Credential in Science and Math Education program at UC Berkeley. I ended up finishing the credential but never finishing my master's project.
What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Get my house listed for sale (already closed on the new one, but tenants are there through July); do bedtime for both my kids (DH was out playing competitive badminton this evening); get a neighbor to move the camper parked in front of my house before any potential buyers come looking; do the grocery shopping with my 2.5-month-old son in the front baby carrier; look through kitchen magazines and books for inspiration for remodeling the kitchen in the new house.
Snacks I enjoy? Date/roasted almond/coconut bonbons my postpartum doula taught me how to make; chips and salsa (SOO glad DS isn't sensitive to corn in my diet, as DD was in her colicky days); hummus and pita/veggies/chips; baked sweet potato "fries," popcorn popped with oil and sugar to make a light, sweet coating...
Things I would do if I were a billionaire? Go big into microlending as a way to address poverty in developing countries and elsewhere; endow school music, art, and experiential science programs; let DH quit his programming job and do photography, electronic music, open-source software and woodworking in between helping me with the above; start a center where people could learn pre-industrial crafts and survival skills like sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving, gardening, food preservation, woodworking with hand tools, metalsmithing, etc.
Places I have lived? In order: Dallas, TX; Colorado Springs, CO; Walnut Creek, Oakland, Alameda, and Pleasant Hill, CA; Boulder, CO.
Jobs I have had? High school physics and math teacher, science writer/editor at a national laboratory, middle school life science and pre-algebra teacher, full-time mom.
People I want to know more about? Some of my fellow spinners -- do we really have the values and interests in common that I project? My sister -- she's built quite a life, and sometimes I think I don't know her all that well.

Alpaca Madness

2008-06-25T14:16:00.003-06:00

Two weeks ago I spent part of a day at the Estes Park Wool Market (Estes Park, CO). DH came along to take care of the kids and bring me DS for nursing as needed. We had arranged this months before DS was born so that I could experience this regional fiber extravaganza. I really appreciated DH's work to make it possible. And next year, I'll leave bottles -- it was challenging for both of us to be there, away from the comforts of home, with two kids who weren't particularly interested in being there.

But oh, those couple of hours I got to myself were fun! The Wool Market features a sheep wool tent; tents or barns devoted to sheep, goats, paco-vicunas, llamas, and possibly other species I'm forgetting; animal judging shows and fun events like the Llama Limbo and sheepdog demonstrations; and a giant tent with market stalls for yarn, fiber, spinning and knitting equipment, and other fiber-related treats. I didn't want to bring home a lot of bulk this year, since we're moving soon and my time for hobbies is pretty limited with an infant in my life, but I found a couple of beauties to bring home:

These are alpaca rovings from fiberinspirations.com, in beautiful natural colors, 4 oz. each. I hope to turn them into some kind of scarf or shawl, and perhaps a hat to match if there's enough. They're so snuggly soft!

I also brought home this 0.5-ounce spindle from woollydesigns.com. I had seen their stuff on the web, but one time trying this spindle in person was enough to sell me. It spins like a beautiful dream. The bent hook on top helps a lot -- why didn't I think of that? The cop of honey-alpaca singles has grown to about four times this much since this photo.

Hooray for small projects! It's much easier to spindle for 5-10 minutes between child-care and house-care duties than it is to get going on my spinning wheel (or write a blog entry...), mostly because the spindle is portable. DS even likes watching it for short periods. Think he'll be a Fiber Boy?

Hats Off to Single Moms

2008-06-25T13:58:00.002-06:00

The last three days have been DH's first business trip since DS was born 10 weeks ago -- he returns tonight. I have to say, I don't know how the single moms, especially those with more than one child, do it. Just handling bedtime for both kids the last two nights has worn me out. I've had a helper two afternoons, and DD's been at preschool two mornings, and I'm pooped. And I'm not even bringing in an income! If I were, I guess I'd have some kid-free time with the kids at day care, but then there wouldn't be any nap opportunities. Oy.

On the other hand, this has been an excellent exercise in time management. It reminds me of 1996, when I started training for triathlons. I needed to fit in six training sessions per week, two in each sport, and my life already felt chock-full. (I was single and living alone with my two cats then -- I had NO IDEA what a full life was like, my friends.) But I found that having that high-priority, time-intensive commitment forced the rest of my life to fall into place as it never had before. Suddenly I was keeping my house cleaner, eating more healthy meals, getting to bed on time -- things that had been really hard to do before.

There is immense power, for me, in realizing that I have little or no slack in my schedule. I look at what I want or need to do, all of it high-priority, and how tightly it fits into my 24 hours per day. And then I realize that I can either get my s*** together, or I can watch the wheels fall off my life. Business-trip SAHM-hood with two kids triggers the getting-the-s***-together response. I'm eating well, getting the chores done, taking care of the kids (albeit with less quality time for each than I'd like because there's no DH to trade off with, and thank goodness no one's sick...), and getting almost enough sleep. And these things often don't happen as well when DH is around. Of course, when he's around I get more slack, and that slack can feel sanity-saving.

I guess it's time to take another look at what sanity means to me. Time for hobbies and lazy time with the kids, or healthy meals and an orderly house? Of course it's a balance of both. But noticing how good it feels to have the kitchen clean every evening is an eye-opener about how much the orderly house part figures in. It's as if the clean kitchen and cleared floors are a symbol to me, each night alone, that I can do this after all. It's hard, but it's not impossible, and my own character flaws, daunting though they may seem, aren't enough to put it out of reach.

My hat is off to those who pull it off, day after day.

Mars and Venus?

2008-05-22T21:49:00.002-06:00

I've been thinking about editing yesterday's blog entry to eliminate the somewhat-negative description of my husband's behavior in the second paragraph. But instead, I want to ruminate a bit about it.

DH watched me write most of that blog entry. He explained, in his defense, that the way he was brought up, surprises for things like birthdays were supposed to be magical -- completely mysterious, produced invisibly, and so on. Even to let on that a surprise might be in the offing would be to spoil it.

This correlates with comments he makes about housekeeping sometimes -- comments that really burn my grits. I'll spend all day cleaning the main level, and he'll walk in and say, "Wow, the mess magically disappeared!" He insists that to him, this would be a compliment. I'd much rather hear, "Wow, you really worked hard on this! Thank you -- it looks so much better!" And if he threw in, "I'll be sure to pick up after myself every day to help keep it nice!" well, that would be amazing. And actual follow-through? The stuff of erotic stories, I'm telling you.

But getting back to the main idea here, is this a gender difference? I can't think of a reason men would tend to want to be seen as magicians, at least more than women. Is it a software-engineer thing? DH's work is to design and program the tools other programmers use to make great casual video games. Perhaps the highest compliment you could pay his work is to say that it's totally invisible -- that is, that it makes the game programmer's work effortless because they don't have to think about the tools.

I think the reason it feels like a gender difference to me is that so much of my work, "women's work" (raising the kids, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, etc.) is most noticed when it's not done, or done poorly. Plus, a lot of people who haven't done it look at the life of a stay-at-home mom and wonder what she does all day. So to me, it's a compliment when someone who's not a SAHM notices how much work I've managed to get done in a day with one or more kids to take care of as well. It's really challenging to do the housework and still pay decent attention to the kids, especially with an infant in the mix. I aspire to do both better, and it may be a little easier when the kids are older and can help more.

But a word to the wise: When it happens that the kids are happy and the housework is done, it ain't magic. It's 70% perspiration (skipping the nap is the hard part), 20% careful planning (transitions, anyone?) and 10% dumb luck (no major crises today, thank goodness!).

Birthday Blues, and the Cure

2008-05-21T21:41:00.004-06:00

So I had a birthday. Ever try having a non-decade birthday (I'm in my late 30s) a month after giving birth to a baby, and only a week or so before the other child's birthday? Oh, and while you're on a really stripped-down diet to try to determine what's making the baby colicky? (No dairy, eggs, spicy stuff, onions, garlic, citrus, soy, wheat... the list goes on. For a while.)

Add to this mixture a husband who sometimes appears to forget birthdays and anniversaries. He seldom actually forgets, but sometimes his preparations are obscure enough to make me wonder. The night before my birthday, he actually let me get to tears about feeling neglected before he told me that of course he was doing something for my birthday. Could he just tell me, "Don't worry, I have something planned." Noooo! Well, eventually he did, I guess figuring that blowing the secret that a surprise existed was worth it to avoid further angst and get to sleep.

So on my birthday, he comes home with a pair of earrings (this hint obtained long enough ago that I'd mostly forgotten), and that evening he makes a birthday cake.

Now, did you read that first paragraph?

I'm not going to go into the details of the cake, because you can find them on DH's blog, here. Suffice it to say that it was yummy, had candles, and shouldn't set off DS's colic. And that DH went WAY out on a limb inventing it. Ever try making a cake with substitutions for practically every ingredient? Okay, he used sugar and baking powder. Still, stone soup this ain't. This is baking -- supposedly an exact science.

If that isn't enough to cure the birthday blues, well, I don't know what is. (Okay, okay, I know what is, but it's only been one month postpartum!!)

In keeping with the main theme of this blog, I should also note that two days ago, DH took care of DS and DD both (well, I ended up nursing DS a fair amount, but still...) so that I could host an evening gathering of spinners and knitters at our community house. It was a nice substitute for the monthly knit/spin-in at the yarn store, which will have to wait until DS is either not nursing so often, or can travel better.

Cared for? Yes. Still sleep-deprived? Yes. But that's a different post.

Who Needs Cashmere?

2008-05-14T10:11:00.004-06:00

Have I touched knitting needles since I went into labor?
No.

But I've thought about it. Here's one of my conclusions: When people lust after super-soft cashmeres, alpacas, etc., part of the reason is that they haven't had enough chances to handle a baby's feet recently. Or stroke their cheek against a baby's downy hair for minutes on end while he falls asleep on their shoulder. I haven't felt any fiber that touched that level of softness, and folks, I've handled qiviut within recent memory.

I'll give the fine fibers this: They are a lot lower-maintenance and, even at a king's ransom per ounce for qiviut, less costly than a baby. (This is especially true when the baby in question spends his first week in the NICU -- thank goodness for health insurance! This hospital stay is the sort of thing that could have made life very hard if we had been in a different stage of our financial lives.) Don't get me wrong; I'll take what I have, sleep deprivation and all, thanks! But the fibers may help ease the transition when my babies aren't babies anymore. And they don't need 3 a.m. feedings.

They don't, right?

Baby Accomplished

2008-05-03T22:54:00.003-06:00

Hey there. Not much time for blogging, what with a newborn and all, but here he is:

Nice, eh? The birth was great -- totally unmedicated and fabulous. I would do it again if I wanted another child. Unfortunately, DS had neonatal pneumonia and a small host of other related issues, so we spent a week in the hospital. Fortunately, our local hospital has about the best NICU setup you could ask for. Anyway, now we're home and have the wireless version of our baby. Life is good. Except the sleep part.

FO: Mittens for Afghans; Charity Knitting

2008-04-14T10:41:00.004-06:00

It started to feel a little pointless to work on one more pair of wool socks for myself, with summer coming soon. I mean, it's good TV knitting and all, but who has time for much TV with a baby on the way?

I looked up charity knitting on Ravelry and found that handmade items often don't make it to their intended recipients. Afghans for Afghans, however, kept coming up as an organization that handles this well.

Because it gets quite cold in Afghanistan, and because washing machines are rare, Afghans for Afghans asks for wool items rather than cotton, acrylic, etc. So I mined my stash for wool and found some ball ends of Noro Kureyon. I used a kid-size mitten pattern from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. It was fun to try to make non-identical but still matching mittens. Here's the result:

Mittens knit up delightfully quickly. Good stuff. These were done in perhaps 4 hours total.

This has me thinking about other charity knitting or craft projects. More locally, there's Project Linus, which collects handmade blankets for kids staying in hospitals for extended periods. They take crocheted, knitted, tie-quilted, and other blankets. Different requirements to learn (more emphasis on softness and washability than warmth), but this is a project that could be fun with a group of crafty friends, knitting squares to join, or tying a quilt together.

On the parenting side, my 3-year-old DD has lots of questions about who is getting these mittens. It's a good chance to provide some information about poverty and war, and to try to do it in an age-appropriate manner that educates without overly alarming. This is part of what makes me think about Project Linus -- it would be a chance to see more directly, or even participate in, giving to others we don't know who are in need.

Breaking Out (FO: handspun mittens)

2008-04-11T15:48:00.005-06:00

No baby yet, but I had a nice stretch of pre-labor last night, and today I'm 38 weeks, 6 days. Woo hoo! Today I had what I hope was my last prenatal visit to the midwife. Everything looks good. Next stop: acupuncturist, to see what we can do to get my body ready to roll. Medical induction isn't really likely to be an option for me because I had a C-section before, and they don't like to produce extra-intense uterine contractions in women with uterine scars. Fine with me: the mortality rate in cases of uterine rupture is high for me and higher for the baby, so I'll stick with the 1-in-200 (or better, depending on whom you ask) rupture rate with no medical induction. But that means if I don't go by 42 weeks or pretty darned close, it's another C-section for me. So let's go, kid. Time to break out of there. I know you're ready!

Here are a couple more photos of knitted stuff. I recently finished these mittens for me, which are made from my first wheel-spun yarn:

You may recognize the yarn from an earlier post: It's 2/3 brown Corriedale, 1/3 white Lincoln fleece. I like the way it knitted up. These mittens aren't as windproof as my fleece gloves from REI, but they're not bad, being quite firmly knitted, and the sizing is great. I used the mitten pattern from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns. I've also made mittens for DD from this book. I can't say enough good things about it, especially if you're knitting from handspun or otherwise wanting to flout the yarn recommendations in patterns more often than you're wanting to follow them. You just knit up a gauge swatch on a size needle that makes a fabric you enjoy, then use the multi-gauge, multi-size tables to produce the garment you want. I've also done a hat for DD from this book, substituting a fluffy brioche stitch pattern from a Barbara Walker treasury, and it worked great. I hardly ever knit from patterns that require a specific gauge anymore. Ann Budd, Jacqueline Fee, and Elizabeth Zimmermann have helped me build the courage to innovate, redesign, tweak, and otherwise break out of the blind-follower knitting role.

Oh, and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Will I ever knit socks again without adapting them to her techniques? Not so sure about that. My current project is a pair of plain stockinette socks in Trekking XXL. I'll probably do K2, P2 ribbing for the leg. Definitely TV/waiting room knitting:

They never look like much at this stage, but ah, the fit when they're done! I love 'em.

Oh, and these are my first project on my new KnitPicks metal sock needles. I got tired of shredding my bamboo DPNs -- because I'm such a tight knitter on socks, and especially when knitting yarns with cotton in them -- and I've been on a DPN (versus magic loop/2 circular needles) kick for speed and probably nostalgia reasons. So these seemed like the right next step. I got a set of 5 DPNs in each of six sizes (0, 1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3, where each is 0.25 mm bigger diameter than the one before) for Christmas from my dad. I'm doing these on the 1+ needles. I swatched on 1s, and going to 1+ felt like knitting with tree trunks after that, which was nice -- I'm trying to resist knitting at a gauge of more than 10 stitches per inch!

The KnitPicks needles are very pointy, which makes me a little prone to poking holes in myself with them as I knit. But I figure that poking myself that hard has to be a bad habit, so every time I knit something with KP needles, I go a little farther toward breaking the habit. I love how slick and fast they are, how warm they feel (just like Addis), and how little they cost. I'm looking forward to trying the Harmony wood version of the DPNs (thanks, Dad!) on a future project and seeing if they hold up to my death-grip tension better than the Takumi bamboo needles I've destroyed before.

FOs: Shining Violet Sweater, Menschkin Baby Blanket

2008-04-09T17:36:00.007-06:00

Long time no blog! I've been busily preparing for DS's arrival (due any day now), getting our taxes done, and so on. But part of the preparation has been finishing some knitted items!

For DS, there's the Menschkin Baby Blanket. This is an original pattern -- I unvented the border and hope to post a pattern for it sometime soon. It took a lot of experimentation to get it to lie flat (neither folding over nor puckering) and have no holes to snag tiny fingers. The corners are a little hit-and-miss depending on what I tried at each, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Here's the whole blanket after a wash and light block:

And here's a close-up of my favorite corner:

You can see the miters, which I did using k1-through-front-and-back to give the blanket a bit more texture. I used that a lot in the border, too. The yarn for this project is KnitPicks' Swish Superwash (100% superwash wool) in worsted weight. I love how soft it knitted up and how nicely it washed (front loader, in large lingerie bag, dried flat). So DS will have something nice and snuggly to bundle up in when he chooses to make his appearance!

I wanted DD to have something new, too, so I finished up her Shining Violet sweater, in KnitPicks' Shine Sport (cotton/modal blend), color violet. Here's the whole thing after a wash and block - it got kind of creased in the washing-machine spin cycle, and since I didn't put it in the dryer (though that is okay for this yarn), it stayed a little creased.

And here's a detail of the dear little strawberry buttons DD helped me pick out for it:

The details of how to make this sweater are aggregated in a past post, here, in case you'd like to try it out. DD hasn't let me photograph her in it yet, but she loves to wear it. It fits her slim 4T-or-so body great with either nothing or a small shirt underneath. I tried for more growing room, but it didn't work out that way.

That's all for now -- perhaps more soul-searching text on motherhood another time, but for now, actual motherhood calls, as DD is up from her nap. Ta ta...

Counting Down, and Some Real In-Utero Interaction!

2008-03-25T11:04:00.003-06:00

I just read an article on BabyCenter about "mamakus," six-word memoirs of motherhood. How about this:

Baby coming -- packing -- oops, more laundry.

Today is a laundry day, and much of it is baby stuff I've dragged out of storage, purchased, or gotten back from those who had borrowed it. Washfest. I got DH to put together the changing table (please understand -- I'm a perfectly handy person myself, but everything is twice as hard with this monster belly, so I get help where I can), so I have a place to store some of the mountain of baby wash that's already done. More exciting is the first wash for the Menschkin baby blanket, which I finally finished! Pictures when it's washed and blocked. Maybe a pattern later on -- I invented a nice border.

Now, anybody want to start a pool on what day I will actually pack my suitcase for the hospital, now that I have 3.5 weeks to go to my due date? This is proving difficult to start. At least now I have a list, having compared a couple of lists of suggestions on what to pack. Maybe today, after my things are clean, it will be easier to get it done. But I have a knitting circle at my place tonight, so maybe tomorrow...

The real excitement lately was a bit of honest-to-goodness, two-way interaction with DS-on-the-way last night. He was doing his usual stretches, pushing a foot waaaay out on my right side while I lay on my left. I decided to see if I could feel the shape of the foot or which way the toes were pointing. Not only could I feel those things, but he seemed to enjoy the little foot massage! Normally he pulls his foot back in after a couple of seconds, but when I was rubbing in little circles to check out his foot, he left it pushed out for 30 seconds or more.

There are lots of ways a pregnant mom can communicate TO her baby-inside. There are a few ways the baby-inside can communicate to the mom. But this is the first example I can remember of a two-way interaction where I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. Loud music and he kicks? I can't really tell if that's enjoyment or distress. But this seemed much clearer. I just lay there with a big grin on my face, rubbing that little foot, until he got tired of the game and went back to sleep. I wonder if he'll enjoy foot massages after he comes out.

No, really, keep your head down!

2008-03-16T10:34:00.002-06:00

Life has been busy this past week or so. If you've been reading my last few posts, you know the baby I'm due to deliver shortly was head-down. Well, over the past week and a half, give or take, he's been flipping head-up quite a bit. I've been doing exercises at home, getting chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture, and getting him back head-down at the end of most days. Now he finally seems to be deciding that maybe staying head-down is a good idea. Based on my results so far, the chiropractic and exercises seem like the most helpful factors. After each adjustment at the chiropractor, baby fairly dives into my pelvis, which was apparently quite kinked up and is getting more spacious with adjustments. My back is feeling generally better, too. This is my first time working with a chiropractor, and I have to say it seems good so far.

The exception to my back feeling better comes from my still-growing belly. Sitting still and upright or standing still for extended periods is getting quite uncomfortable. I get breathless and panicky, probably because my uterus is pressing on a major blood vessel. That makes wheel spinning, driving more than 10 minutes, using the computer, and several other activities pretty tough. So today I'm home from church (25 minute drive) and hoping to find a carpool for future weeks. I'm rediscovering our local bus system, which is good for lots of things, but unfortunately takes about two hours to get to church. :(

So blogging is probably going to slow down for a while (see "using the computer" above). I did finish the Shining Violet sweater, but it's already been worn once and gotten food all over it, so photos will have to wait until it's clean. You can see full directions for it in the "Gory Details" entry a few entries ago.

Take care, y'all. I'll blog when I can. Wish us luck for a healthy, natural birth.

Bobbins and Bobbins and Bobbins, Oh My!

2008-03-05T16:42:00.006-07:00

I'm now two weeks into my four-week Spinning II class -- I'm trying to squeeze in all the learning I can before DS arrives, hopefully next month -- and our teacher is keeping us busy! We're learning about spinning to various standards (wraps per inch and bumps per inch being the key ones so far), and tomorrow's class is on plying, including Navajo plying. I'm hoping I'll learn a thing or two to enhance my Navajo plying experience so far. So here, without further ado, are some spinning images:

Our assignment to prepare for the plying class was to spin three bobbins, one fuller than the others, in any weight we liked, as long as a 3-ply of it would fit through our orifice. I like spinning fairly fine, so these are my singles. They're from carded wool roving (breed unknown), provided in class, spun woolen-style, mostly long-draw, and as you can see, they're fire-engine red. There were several other colors available, but the red was getting neglected by my classmates, and it called to me forlornly, "You like wearing warm colors! Spin me! Spin meeee!" I'm thinking the 3-plied red yarn might pattern nicely with the natural white and brown yarns I've been spinning, neh? Or maybe it will make a nice hat or mittens mostly on its own.

When I'm spinning my own fiber on my own time, this is what happens:

This is some of my Cormo, perhaps 15 rolags' worth, spun into singles as thin as I can manage on my Lendrum fast flyer (also woolen, some long- and some short-draw) without breaking more than a few times per hour of spinning. And now I have evidence that these singles do, in fact, 2-ply up to a nice laceweight. Here's the "happy yarn" from my last post, now washed, hanging out with some friends:

The sewing bobbin at the bottom is for scale -- it's a Singer bobbin, in case you're keeping track. The white mini-skein is my test 2-ply Cormo laceweight skein, and I think it will work beautifully for what I want to do, which is a lace stole. More on that later -- perhaps much later, since spinning up that much laceweight might take a few, oh, years. :) The brown yarn is Corriedale, spun in the grease on a drop spindle and 2-plied on a wheel, and then washed on the stove for extra heat. There are about 100 yards there, and it's worsted weight, more or less. (I am too lazy to get out my wraps-per-inch tool right now.) The purple yarn is from a batt I blended from more anonymous carded wool toward the end of my Spinning I class. I Navajo-plied it, and I'm pleased. There's not enough for more than a doll hat or so, but fortunately, DD adores purple and has dolls in need of warm things.

And yes, I still knit sometimes:

Shining Violet is almost done. I've grafted one underarm and woven in most of the loose ends. I just need to pick up the neck stitches and make some neck edging (I haven't decided between ribbing and garter yet) with one more buttonhole in it. It's a little hard to see in the photo, but there's a short placket that will have a total of two buttonholes in it, to allow for DD's uncommonly large (even for a preschooler) head. DS-on-the-way has a pretty big head, too, as do DH and I. Wish me luck in labor!

I'm bummed about the sweater's sizing. I was trying for a year's growing room, but it fits exactly right now, which means DD will probably only get to wear it for this spring and maybe fall. I designed it for easy lengthening in hem and sleeves, so if she stays slim, maybe next winter/spring will work -- but it's already more fitted than I intended. Once it's all grafted together and done, I'll have to do a postmortem on my design and gauge and see where I went wrong. I already know I skipped some of the initial, slower-decreasing raglan rows that were in the pattern I was using, making the armholes less deep than they should be. Feh. Ah, well. DD likes it, and that was more or less the point. I've only used 5 balls of yarn (out of 20 purchased) so far, so a second draft is quite doable, even with extra left for alterations.

Happy Yarn

2008-02-27T14:18:00.004-07:00

Just a quick post to show you a tiny test skein of laceweight Cormo yarn I plied last night. Still needs washing to make sure it doesn't bloom up bigger than laceweight, but I am pleased beyond all reason with this little skein of "happy yarn," so called because every time I see it, it makes me happy. What more could I ask of a hobby?

I was at a small spinning group last night. I plied up this baby from singles I had spun before, carded three rolags of Cormo, and then started spinning more laceweight singles. Would you believe that in almost 2.5 hours (including the plying and carding), I didn't even finish spinning all three rolags? I have to say, laceweight makes for a nice carding-to-spinning ratio, given that carding is not my favorite part of the job.

Keep Your Head Down

2008-02-24T15:36:00.004-07:00

It's been a while since I posted. A couple of days ago I wrote a rather agonized post, none of it about knitting or spinning, and couldn't decide whether to publish it. Then, in the next day, almost everything I was writing about changed. So I deleted the draft, and here goes with what's still current.

The title is a request/admonishment to my unborn son. He's 32 weeks along now, and has been head-down at my last two checkups. Having had my first child by C-section because she was breech and couldn't be turned by any method known to humanity, I say, Hallelujah! And also, Ouch! I am ecstatically glad that this baby has a good chance of coming out in the time-honored way, 'cause C-section recovery is NO FUN, and early bonding where neither the child nor I is under the influence of narcotics is just sounding freaking beautiful. Sleeplessness, yes, most likely. Narcotics, not if I can help it.

The "Ouch" part is what it feels like to have a fetal head jammed into my pelvis a lot of the time. I know, it will get more intense before it gets easier. For now, it just seems like I'm getting more uncomfortable by the hour. But as some Buddhists say, pain is inevitable -- suffering is optional. I'll happily take the crushed bladder, sciatica, and so forth in exchange for a decent chance of getting this child born without surgery or drugs. Who me, suffer? No way! :)

And hey, I'm actually getting a little knitting done in the midst of all the spinning and childbirth-prep exercises. I have the belly and sleeves of the Shining Violet sweater done and ready to join to knit the raglan yoke. But today I needed some brainless knitting for church, so I swatched up some handspun for mittens. It was my first time trying to do anything with any of my handspun yarn besides look at it and pet it. Here's the swatch, on top of this week's childbirth reading:

The grayish stripe across the middle of the swatch is part of the charm of this yarn (she said, trying to get used to it herself). The brown in the yarn is from a Corriedale fleece that had many soft gray locks in it. I blended them in with the dark brown as I went, but not in all the rolags. That stripe is just a section of the brown singles with more gray than the rest. I'm planning to stripe this marled yarn with some pure-white handspun, so I expect (hope) those stripes will be the most visually striking element of the design.

Knitting with the yarn was nicer than I expected. The ply has only 8 or 9 bumps per inch, so I thought it might be pretty splitty, but the plies felted together just a tad in the final washing, so I'm having no such trouble. Also, it was a total thrill to be knitting with yarn that I've taken from raw, unwashed fleece to fixin'-to-be-mittens. It took some self-restraint not to tell everyone I saw about it. (I did tell a few!)

See the Fleece!

2008-02-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

Here you go with some images at last. First, the fleece in its delivery box, bagged, with all the extra air squeezed out:

When I opened the bag, the fleece puffed up to about twice this size. Then I unbagged and unrolled it:

Here's a closeup of the great crimp:

And here's me and one of my cats with the fleece, for scale:

In the background you can see some of the furniture I had to move aside to be able to roll this monster out. It definitely smelled like ram, or so I'm guessing. I chose the portion in the foreground of the last photo, which I'm guessing is from the hind section of the ram, to wash this afternoon, to put my scouring to the acid test for eliminating odor. (Just to be clear: I'm not seeing dung tags -- the fleece is well-skirted. But that section definitely shows more dirt than the others.) The fleece came out smelling much better. It's drying now.

If you've ever scoured a fleece, maybe you can identify with this: I can't not fiddle with a fleece while it's soaking in the HOT soapy water (perhaps my faith in chemistry falls short, but I just want the whole thing to be underwater, darn it, and fleece likes to float!). And as you may know, heat plus soap plus agitation gives you felting -- not so desirable in fiber you plan to comb or card and then spin! I restrained myself as much as I could. When the fleece is dry and I try carding it with my new, fine hand cards (thank you, DH!), we'll see whether my restraint was sufficient. I may try rewashing part of it: I think I put too much fleece in my mesh bags, and so my washing didn't make much of a dent in the dark tips. Worst case, if I trim them, it's less than a quarter inch of staple lost, so I'd still have at least 4 inches over most of the fleece. Suggestions welcome!

Gory details: Shining Violet Sweater; and The Fleece Arrives!

2008-02-14T21:43:00.006-07:00

My giant Cormo fleece came in the mail! I haven't had a chance to spread it out for a picture yet, but it's huge: 9.27 pounds of Cormo fleece from a ram named Ken. It smells a little different from the other raw fleeces I've worked with so far, but my spinning teacher (who should know, having frequented wool markets for years) assures me the smell is just sheepy, from last spring's shearing, and nothing to worry about with normal scouring. Maybe it's ram vs. ewe. Who knows? I took a hunk of it to my local handweaver's guild meeting this week, and everyone who looked at it said some variation of the same thing: "Wow, that crimp is amazing!" This is a wonderful fleece. It's from Cormo Sheep & Wool Farm in Orland, California. Sue, who runs the enterprise, is great to work with. I'm thinking of trying to spin 2-ply laceweight from a bunch of the fleece to make a lace stole for spring days and cool summer evenings. In about 4 years, when I get all that spun up and knitted while taking care of an infant/toddler. Wish me luck. :) A Norwegian-style sweater or two may also be in this fleece's future. My husband says it's so big, we'll be wearing pants made of the stuff. Can't you just picture him in some nice wool longies?

Okay, here's where I use this blog for a purely selfish purpose, though maybe you'll get something out of it, too. I'm recording all the construction details of my current knitting project, a purple sweater for DD made from KnitPicks' Shine Sport in Violet. I have 20 balls of this, but I hope to need only 5 or 6 for the sweater. All this note-taking is in case I like the result well enough to make another one like it later, perhaps for DS or a friend.

I'm using construction techniques based on Jacqueline Fee's book, The Sweater Workshop. I love this book. I have never knitted in the same way since reading it and working the sweater sampler. I'm much more keen on designing my own stuff now, or altering patterns as needed to be more what I want to knit. I recommend it highly.

So, for a sweater somewhere around size 4T or 5T (growing room for DD), I cast on 135 stitches for the lower edge of the sweater on size 5 24" circular needles using a long-tail cast on (my gauge is 5.75 st/in in stockinette). I knit in the round in garter (1st round purl, 2nd round knit, etc.) until I had four garter ridges, ending with a knit round. Then I switched to stockinette. In the first stockinette round (that's the second knit round in a row), I increased 15 stitches, spaced evenly around, to keep the garter from flaring or folding up too much. Then I worked until the length seemed right: about 8.25 inches, to get to within one inch of DD's armpits with some length to grow into. This much took exactly two balls of yarn. I left the belly part of the sweater on a cable to come back to.

I cast on 34 stitches for the sleeve and worked in garter as for the lower edge. (I tried to do this magic-loop style, but found it a pain, so ended up working the cast-on and garter on DPNs and then transferring to magic loop to continue.) In the first stockinette round, I increased 4 stitches, 2 one stitch in from the underarm line and 2 more evenly spaced around the wrist. Then I knit in stockinette, increasing 2 stitches in every 4th round, each increase 1 stitch in from the underarm line. When I had 60 stitches, I knit straight until the sleeve seemed long enough -- 10 inches, though this may need to be rolled up until DD grows a bit.

I unknit 6 stitches from the underarm "seamline" of each sleeve and then placed 12 stitches at each underarm on a piece of scrap yarn. I also unknit 6 stitches at one seamline of the body and then placed 12 stitches at each side of the body on scrap yarn. Then I worked a joining round, working all the non-scrap-yarn-held stitches of both sleeves and the body into one big round. On the next round, I placed markers at each joining point, using a different-colored marker at the right front join to remind me of the beginning of each round. I knit for a total of seven rounds (counting joining round and marker-placing round) with no increasing or decreasing.

Then I started the raglan decreases: as I approached each marker, I would knit to the last 2 stitches before the marker, k2tog, slip marker, k1, and SSK. I did this every other round, with alternate rounds knit straight around. I realized in hindsight that I should have worked 8 rows, decreasing only every fourth row, before starting the every-other-row decreases. As a result, the armholes are more fitted than I intended.

When I had 46 stitches between markers in the front, I started the short front placket as follows: Place a yarn marker at the center front. On a decreasing row, work all four raglan decreases and knit until there are 3 stitches left before the yarn marker. Turn so the inside of the sweater is facing you. Cast 6 new stitches onto the left needle using a cable cast-on. Purl all the way around on the inside, back to 3 stitches beyond the yarn marker, which can now be removed. Turn so the outside is facing you. *Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in back. P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, then work a raglan decrease round up to the last six stitches (the placket). For those stitches, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Turn so the inside is facing. Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in front. K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Purl the rest of the way around to the last six stitches, then K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1. Repeat from * for an inch and a half or so, then work a buttonhole: as established, except at the beginning of an outside row, Sl1, P1, K1, yo, K2tog, P1, and proceed. This makes a small buttonhole, and you'll need a button that's round or nearly so to avoid catching on the edges. After the buttonhole, proceed as established with raglan shaping until 20 stitches remain between markers on each arm, stopping at the beginning of an outside-facing-you row.

Now start the neck shaping: Work the six placket stitches as usual and slip them onto a DPN or stitch holder. Work an outside row as established above up to the last six stitches. Slip those, unworked, onto another DPN or stitch holder. Turn and purl back around. (There's no catch-up row in this description, but you could work one with a separate piece of yarn to make the placket come out exactly even.) Continue with the raglan decreases and placket as established above, but start each outside row with (Slip 1 as if to purl with yarn in back, K2tog) and end each outside row with (SSK, K1) on the last three stitches. Work 8 rows this way, then cut the yarn and secure the end.

I used a K1, P1 rib for the neck. I would have done it on smaller needles, but I didn't have any handy, so I stayed on the 5s. Here's how it goes: Join in a new piece of yarn. Knit the 6 stitches from the DPN on the right front placket onto a size-5 circular needle, whatever size you like. Knit into the slanting neck shaping (I picked up 7 or 8 stitches), then knit the live stitches from the back of the neck to the circ. Knit into the left neck shaping and knit the live stitches from the left placket. Now you have one complete outside row knitted. Turn. Now count the total stitches you have. You're going to decrease some stitches on this next row, and you want the final count to be an odd number of stitches so that there's a knit stitch (looking from the outside) next to each placket. To accomplish this, I knit the inside row of the placket as established, then (P1, K1) 4 times, P2tog, *(K1, P1) 4 times, K1, P2tog, repeat from * around to before end placket stitches. As you approach the placket stitches, if you don't find your seventh-to-last stitch will be a purl, fudge one more P2tog in there to make sure it is. Turn. Work plackets with K1, P1 ribbing in between (knit the knits, purl the purls) for 1 inch, working one more buttonhole on an outside row after the first 3 or 4 rows. Bind off loosely in pattern.

Put the twelve underarm stitches on each side that you held on scrap yarn (actually 12 from each sleeve and 12 from each side of the body) on 4 DPNs, size 5 or smaller. Use kitchener stitch (explained and illustrated nicely here) to graft them together. You may need to darn around the edges of the grafting to avoid holes, but if you worked as I did, you have plenty of ends with which to accomplish this! Weave in the rest of the ends, tack down the bottom edge of the left placket to the inside of the sweater, and sew buttons (after checking they fit well!) behind the two buttonholes.

Voila! If you skipped the same 8 rows I did, you likely now have a sweater that fits a size 4T-or-so kid like a glove for about three weeks. :)

FOs: Baby Yoda Sweater, handspun; Getting in shape for childbirth

2008-02-09T12:41:00.001-07:00

Yes -- the Baby Yoda sweater is done!

And y'know, right after I wrote my last blog entry, I discovered my first few seams were. totally. wrong. I had sewn the left cardigan front where the right should be, and then blithely sewn the right sleeve on. How did I manage such a boneheaded maneuver? Well, I had bound off the neck stitches and left the shoulder stitches live on that side, instead of vice versa (they were right on the other side), and I didn't check the slanting neckline.... Enough excuses. It was just boneheaded. So I undid the incorrect seams and put everything back together the right way on Sunday, in one marathon stretch so I wouldn't give myself an excuse for further procrastination. And now it's complete:

I checked in with my spinning teacher, who works at my LYS, about colorfastness. She said there had been some dyeing issues with Toasty Toes, now resolved, and that I could render this sweater colorfast by soaking it in a strong white-vinegar solution for a couple of hours before I wash it. Good enough.

I now have another project to occupy my idle hands. Having made a hat and scarf for DH, a pair of socks for myself, and a sweater for DS-on-the-way, it's time for something for DD. She's getting a purple spring/fall sweater, from Shine Sport (KnitPicks) in violet (of course). I'm planning a front-placket sweater with the "fancy buttons" specified by DD, along the lines of what Jacqueline Fee outlines in The Sweater Workshop, but with a higher percentage of stitches for the sleeves, to make it fit a child. DD is going on 4, so I'll aim for about a 5-year-old size for growing room, and I'll keep a couple of skeins of yarn for lengthening sleeves or hem later on, in case that will extend the wearability. Right now I'm a couple of inches short of the armpit, working bottom-up:

This is the second most boring knitting project I've ever done. The most boring was a stockinette cowl in pashmina, and there the fiber helped make up for the hours of unbroken stockinette. I asked DD if she'd like some cables or something, and she declined. I told her I might insist on a cable up each sleeve or some such if I'm going insane with boredom by that point.

Also, as promised, here are photos of my first four skeins of handspun, all washed and with the twist set, with pennies for scale:

These have all been described in previous posts. From front to back, they are: white Lincoln, spun in the grease on a spindle and 2-plied on a wheel; white Lincoln, spun clean and Navajo-plied on a wheel; and two skeins of brown Corriedale/white Lincoln, spun clean and 3-plied on a wheel. All but the first came out nice and balanced, though I had to run the Navajo-plied yarn back through the wheel to remove the extra twist from my not being able to keep up while plying. Here are some close-ups:

Mittens, here I come, with the three clean-spun skeins. I'm still spindling some greasy Corriedale to match the Lincoln, and I hope to make a hand puppet of those two.

In our last class of beginning spinning (not counting the dye class, which I'll have to do later, when I'm not pregnant), we learned how to spin worsted from top, predrafted or off the fold. Spinning off the fold doesn't quite click for me yet, but worsted feels pretty good.

In my non-fiber life, I've started a Bradley childbirth preparation class, and I'm liking it a lot so far. It's easy to hear, "Eat well and exercise regularly" from my doctor and not end up doing it. But in the Bradley class, my marching orders are very specific: so many servings of each different kind of food per day or week, so many reps of these exact exercises every day, and so on. And I'm doing well so far -- there's nothing like a daily chart to reactivate my good-student compulsiveness from my school days. The exercises ramp up in reps or duration for the first six or seven weeks of class and then hold mostly steady until the due date. We'll see how I do with the more strenuous demands. But already I'm feeling stronger and more energetic. Besides the exercise and good food, part of the energy is likely coming from getting to bed a bit earlier, since bedtime now involves a nightly 20-minute massage from DH for relaxation practice. Yeah!! I'll go to bed for that!

Yarn, Glorious Yarn!

2008-02-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

I hope all the photos today will provide sufficient distraction from the fact I haven't finished the Baby Yoda Sweater yet, despite the tone of my last post title... :/ It will get done, never fear.

But meanwhile, the spinning has been glorious! In those two half-days at DD's school, plus an evening and morning at home, I spun enough to have a total of 1.5 bobbins of dark Corriedale singles, and 1 full bobbin of white Lincoln singles, all fairly fine. Oh yeah, and in between those two school days I took the plunge and bought a spinning wheel!

It's a Lendrum double-treadle folding wheel, the same as the loaner wheel I had this week, and I love it. I bought the basic package -- what you see here, plus 3 more bobbins and a lazy kate. I'll probably add the plying head soon. Oh, and if you noticed the Scotch tension band hanging loose, don't worry -- I was just winding off the last of my plied yarn!

That's right -- today in class I finally got some good guidance on plying. I 3-plied some of the singles as two dark, one light. I haven't washed the yarn to set the twist yet, but it's promising in terms of balance. Here are some pictures:

If you're keeping track, this is my second finished handspun. I'm very pleased. I'm thinking mittens. For me, so there. :P

When I got home, I couldn't stop. I split up my remaining 0.5 bobbin of Corriedale and plied some more, same as the first skein (but only about 60 yards):

I had a few yards of Corrie singles left over. They're now wrapped around the center shaft of my niddy-noddy and happily being used as skein ties.

I still had half a bobbin of white Lincoln singles, and I didn't feel like trying to split it equally onto 3 bobbins, so I tried Navajo plying for the first time. (This isn't covered in my current spinning class, though it will be in Spinning II, so once again, no blame to my teacher for these -- though she gets credit for answering my, "I'm sorely tempted to try Navajo-plying my leftover Lincoln" with, "Go ahead and give it a try!") It took a little while to get the hang of it; I broke the singles twice and so have two big, snarly knots I'll have to cut out when I'm knitting. I also had a hard time keeping up with the wheel, even on the lowest drive ratio, so the yarn was quite clearly overplied when I skeined it. Fortunately, I'd gotten some advice on that in class today, so I ran it back through the wheel real quick-like, the other direction, to take out the extra twist, leaving a little to set with washing. Now I love it!

Sorry, I forgot the standard penny for scale. I'll get it into the post-washing pictures.

I'm hoping these two yarns will work together, maybe as mittens with a little colorwork or a few stripes. The white is a bit thinner. I'll have to see how much each yarn fluffs up with washing.

Oh, and that isn't even all! We also blended some colored merino rovings into batts on drum carders in class today, and I've spun up most of mine. Pictures of that will have to wait, though -- my good light is all gone. I don't think I'll have enough yarn to make anything human-scale, but it's hard to be sure yet. My daughter loves the colors (navy, periwinkle, and fuschia blend, chosen because they're her favorites) so much, I may need to buy more of those colors and have another go so I can make her something from it. After this fun experience with drum carding, I was thrilled to learn that joining my local handweaver's guild ($30/year) entitles me to rent a drum carder, the one I used today in fact, for $5. Per month. You can't beat that with a stick!

I'm thinking that the soaking times when I'm washing all this yarn will be a good time to catch up on the housework that's been neglected this week....

I need another knitting project. My hands get all fidgety when I'm waiting anywhere. More on that when I get one going. Happy fiber, everyone!

Try Not; Do or Do Not; There Is No Try

2008-01-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll recognize the title as Yoda's words to Luke during the latter's training as a Jedi. Yes, the Baby Yoda sweater is nearing completion. I've knitted all the large pieces (still one I-cord tie to go) and have done about half the seams. I don't particularly love doing seams, but they are so satisfying that I don't keep around unseamed items long-term. Thus the Yoda quote. After seaming, I'll just have the neck border to knit, and it's on held stitches, so there's no picking up of stitches to procrastinate about.

(Who, me? Block before seaming? Oops...)

I'm still not in love with this colorway as knitted, though I loved it as skeined. :( But I've had great comments from people who've seen it in progress. Since it's a baby sweater in very non-femme colors and I'm obviously pregnant, it prompts a lot of questions about whether I'm having a boy or a girl. It's a boy, since you asked; but my tendency has been to knit in unisex colors for DD, too, partly to amortize my knitting effort over more children and partly to encourage her to enjoy a variety of colors and ways of being in the world.

The spinning continues. I now have dates to spin in all three of the kindergarten classes at DD's Waldorf school -- more guilt-free spinning time, hooray! I'm doing a lot of hand-carding this weekend so I'll have enough fiber to spin while I'm there -- the carding is a bit tedious, but should be worth it for all that good wheel time.

This week my loaner wheel from spinning class is a Lendrum double-treadle folding wheel, and I love it SOO much more than the Schacht Matchless single-treadle I was using last week. Mostly I love that it starts and treadles so easily and doesn't walk away from me while I spin. This may be mostly a single- vs. double-treadle thing; I don't want to write off Schacht without trying one of their double-treadle wheels, so I'm hoping to try the Ladybug before we're done. Schacht is my oh-so-local spinning wheel producer, so I like to buy what I can from them. But I don't know if I can buy a wheel that doesn't have a large bobbin available for plying, so the Lendrum is a stronger contender at this point. I'd rather have a starter wheel whose limitations aren't immediately apparent to me -- there's not much room in my house for multiple wheels!

I also want to try out the Kromski Sonata, which poses a problem, because no store within hours of me stocks them as far as I can tell. But the other day at my LYS, while I was waiting to ask my spinning teacher a question, she was talking to someone who owns a Sonata (she bought it on the Internet) and was helping a friend shop for a wheel. I brazenly asked this total stranger if I could come try out her Sonata at her home, and she said yes! We have a date in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and I'm ordering a big ol' fleece to work on. I'm hoping this is not serious folly for someone who doesn't yet own a wheel! But I think that if spinning doesn't work out as a hobby for me long-term, both the fleece and the wheel should have good resale value. The fleece is a 9-pound monster from Cormo Sheep and Wool in Orland, California. I'm psyched about having something to spin that will yield yarn soft enough for next-to-the-skin wear by my picky family, me included -- Cormo is the same micron count (fineness) as merino wool, but with longer typical staple lengths for nicer spinning. If only it were superwash. (Sigh.) Ah, well. Still fine for hats, scarves, and probably enough wool for two or more adult sweaters, though I'll have to see how much of the weight washes out as lanolin. And of course all that's in the future, once I actually process and spin the stuff up! I'll probably swatch some of it and try washing it as I do my socks, in a lingerie bag, cold water front-loader machine wash, air dry. If that works, I'm golden. Baby wear, here we come! I'll be sure to post photos of the fleece when it arrives.

The Handspun Monster Emerges, and Knitting Meditation

2008-01-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I plied, washed, snapped, and dried (with light blocking) my first skein of handspun. I spun this on a spindle (here's the entry with a picture of the singles on the spindle) and plied it on a wheel. We haven't had our plying lesson in the spinning class yet, so my teacher gets none of the blame for this. Here you go:

This is about 1.25 ounces of Lincoln fleece (an award-winning fleece!), hand-carded and spun in the grease, and apparently severely overplied (2-ply). The light blocking? Yeah, without that, even after the hot water wash and snapping, the yarn twisted completely up on itself. I'm not sure if blocking buys me any balance long-term. Something to find out, I suppose!

I'm spinning some dark-brown Corriedale under the same conditions, though probably by the time I ply it, I will have learned a bit more about plying. I hope to make something out of both these "first yarns" that will be some kind of fun. Maybe a striped purse for my daughter. The Lincoln, at least, is too scratchy to want to wear near the skin.

In the meantime, I spun another hour and a half or so today on the wheel, and I'm starting to get the hang of long-draw spinning, sort of. At the end of every rolag, I end up with a ring of fiber and assorted lumps that weren't there to begin with. Hmph. That will be a good question for class.

In current knitting, Thursday I cast on a Baby Yoda Sweater (pattern by Cari Luna). So far the Toasty Toes is not living up to my hopes in terms of how the colors work together, and the dye is getting on my fingers, which I hope doesn't bode ill for washability. Here's what I have so far:

The colors, though kind of muddy when all knitted up together, are much richer than I was able to capture in a photograph.

I'll keep going and see how things shape up. It's not a project that should take a long time, so the risk is low. And I'm using the knitting as a meditation for my mom, who went through back surgery on Friday and is in the painful part of her immediate recovery. Since she's hoping to visit the grandson this jacket is for (my son, due in April) when he's born, and this should be near the end of her period of activity restrictions during her recovery, it seems like the right kind of project for such meditations.

Hypnotized

2008-01-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling distinctly indistinct. Sort of foggy. I just spun for about two hours, nearly continuously, on a Schacht Matchless single-treadle spinning wheel on loan for my spinning class. Our homework was to spin for an hour straight, to get a good rhythm established. Here's what I spun:

It's Corriedale, which I washed last week and carded yesterday.

I'm finding the wheel difficult, mostly the treadling. Things got easier when I tied it to my chair legs so it would stop running away. But something still feels weird about it. I suspect I will prefer a double-treadle wheel. In my spinning class, we can take home a different wheel each week to try it out. I'm hoping for a Schacht Ladybug or Lendrum DT folding wheel this next week. I want to try out a Kromski Sonata, too, but they don't carry those at my LYS, so I'll have to make a field trip to try it if I don't fall in love with another wheel soon.

My spinning teacher warned us before she passed out wheels that the wheel we have the first week never seems to get a fair shake, because we're still working out our own technique, so anything will feel awkward at first. And I will admit it got a lot easier once I worked out some kinks in my treadling and drafting/feeding techniques. But I definitely want to try the others!

In the meantime, I still have my spindling-in-the-grease project for more portable spinning. I wound my white Lincoln into a ball (a very tight ball the size of a good-size tangerine, almost a tennis ball) in preparation for plying, and I still have the greasy brown Corriedale to card and spin. I bought a Schacht hi-lo student spindle so I could have two spindles at home, because DD (age 3.5, so I'm not holding my breath) says she really wants to try spindle spinning, and I don't really want her to try it in the middle of my first yarn project. :/ I like the Schacht better than the Louet student spindle I was issued in class. I seem to be able to keep the Schacht spinning longer with less trouble, which makes sense to me since the Schacht is rim-weighted and the Louet is evenly weighted.

Can you tell I can't think about anything but spinning right now? Time to break out of the fog and fix some lunch before I expire from the low-blood-sugar effects of fiber fever!

FO: Diagonal Cross-Rib Socks

2008-01-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hooray -- they're done! Here's the standard foreshortened, there's-no-one-else-here-old-enough-to-operate-a-camera blog shot of them. Maybe I'll get a better one when DH returns from his business trip.

The stitch pattern comes from an Ann Budd pattern in Interweave's Favorite Socks, but the construction is straight-up Priscilla Gibson Roberts from Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy. The yarn is 2 skeins of Reynolds Soft Sea Wool with just a tad left over, reinforced at toe and heel with Woolly Nylon. I hope the nylon does its job so these will last! It was very easy to work with and pleasantly stretchy.

Toward the end of the project, I finally started to get the hang of the left twisted/traveling stitch (shown on my right foot), but it still looks very different from the right. I like both, but they're different. Grr. At least the socks fit really well and don't seem like they'll be itchy. When I spend 20 hours plus or minus on a pair of socks, I want at least that consolation. (Yes, I'm a slow knitter, at least with fingering yarn on bamboo DPNs. I'm looking forward to trying my KnitPicks metal DPNs, but they haven't arrived yet. And no, I didn't actually measure how long it took me, but I think I'm close.)

You'd think I would already have cast on with the Toasty Toes, but two other projects are calling my name. One is the last 10 minutes of knitting on my baby blanket. I've been procrastinating because I realized I can't really write that pattern without redoing the blanket in miniature to make sure some of the directions are correct; I just can't be sure of the stitch counts around the miters, or the best way of starting the center square, or the best way to write the pattern where the border turns a corner. Fear not, I'll do it. Maybe tomorrow. The idea of having no UFOs hanging over my head (I'm brazenly not counting the hibernating sweater and lace scarf) is getting almost as compelling as the call of the Toasty Toes.

The other thing that's a lot of fun right now is spinning -- and I'm still just on a spindle! I am looking forward to this Friday's class with great anticipation, though. We'll get our introduction to wheel spinning and get to bring a wheel home to work with. When I got my big bundles of white Lincoln and dark-brown Corriedale fleece, I washed most of both, but reserved a few big handfuls of each to spin in the grease. Today, in addition to finishing the socks, I finished spinning the Lincoln and carded up several rolags of the Corriedale, which is looking lusciously spinnable. Too bad that it's hard to show well in a photo, being such a dark color. But here they are, my full crop of white singles so far and my first five dark rolags:

My spinning today happened while visiting my daughter's Waldorf kindergarten/preschool class. They sometimes have non-teacher adults just come and knit or spin at the side of the room during class and play time, to give the kids another kind of exposure to someone doing real work with their hands. It was pretty cool. I got about three hours of guilt-free spinning and knitting, and several kids got their first exposure to where yarn comes from. As my spinning teacher pointed out, until just the last 1000 years, give or take (and that's out of perhaps 10,000 years of spinning history), all yarn and thread was produced on spindles. Think of the Viking ships' sails! Oi, the hours of work! I dig the down-to-earth-ness and the historical grounding of this craft. Hope you dig earth metaphors. ;)

If you want to read more, here's an article I enjoyed about the history of spinning.

The Siren Song of the Next Project

2008-01-12T19:35:00.001-07:00

Have you ever seen a yarn so yummy you were kind of afraid to buy it?

I've been watching a yarn like that at my LYS. And then I noticed that the supply was dwindling without being replenished. And then I started a spinning class there, which gave me a 10% discount on everything in the store. It was time to make my move. Here's what I bought:

It's Toasty Toes, from Interlacements, in color 212, 100% superwash merino, hand-dyed by Judy L. Ditmore. It's hard for the photo to do justice: coppery golds, warm red-browns, complex dark greens and grays, and some lighter bluish bits for punctuation. Truth to tell, it wasn't my favorite colorway. That one (magentas, golds, and purples) already sold out, and the LYS isn't planning on restocking it. But hey, now that I know I'm carrying a boy, what better reason to buy a soft, washable yarn for making a masculine-but-beautiful baby sweater? I have in mind Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket, though if the yarn's dye spacing doesn't like that pattern, I'll do something else. I'd love to put some yummy buttons on it, but I fear that DS will find them literally yummy, so I'll probably go for something low-profile and really securely attached.

Now here's the lashing-myself-to-the-mast part: I'm not going to let myself start this project until my current socks are done. Just having the Toasty Toes sitting where I can see it, singing its song to me, makes me want to knit and knit and knit so I can get done, even though the left twist stitches in the second sock are pretty much kicking my butt. Someday maybe I'll learn a smoother way to do this stitch. For now, I'll finish the socks and see if washing or fiddling in other ways evens things out a bit. See, the twisted stitch comes every other row. In the right-twisting sock, it was easy to make the twisted stitches and the intervening stitches look the same. Just an easy pattern all the way around. But the left twist is just difficult to do, and it makes big stitches that contrast with the little knit stitches on straight rows. Bleah. I like this pattern, but if I do another pair, I'll just make them both right-twisting unless I find an easier method for LT. (In case you're well-versed in LT lore and can offer a suggestion, here's the one I'm using: knit through the back of the second stitch on the left needle, but don't drop it from the needle. Then knit through the backs of the first two stitches on the left needle together. This would probably be easier for a looser knitter, but that's not me.)

Here's my progress:

I've turned the heel, so I have 10 pattern reps down and 10 to go. Only the last ten have ten horizontal repeats per row instead of four. Oh, well. This is why a lot of my projects are dead simple: I need time to recuperate from stitches like this LT.

With all this whining, you wouldn't think I'm enjoying it. I am, actually, and I'll love having this pair of socks ready to wear. That Toasty Toes is just calling my name, louder and louder, and spurring me on.

I did a little more spinning today, with more greasy Lincoln fleece, while my washed-last-night Lincoln and Corriedale dries. I was reading an online description of drop-spindle spinning because I suspected there was something weird about my draw. I mean, it was working all right, but it was slow, and I was having a hard time seeing how I could use it for fatter or softer yarns. It turns out that, compared at least to the part of the spinning world that writes online and posts videos on YouTube, I was spinning in a weird way, using my top hand (the one holding the predrafted fiber) to add spin to the spindle instead of my bottom hand (the one controlling the upward travel of the twist). This meant the predrafted fiber had to be draped over my shoulder instead of around my arm, and it was prone to falling off and getting caught up in the hanging yarn or the spindle. Too much trouble! So I carded up some more rolags and tried it the other way. It seems much faster and more versatile. I think I'll stick with it.

The spinning is fun -- so much that I want to spin up this whole bag of fleece, which I suspect is meant to last me most or all of the six-week class. Hmm. I may have to see if I can buy another fleece if I'm having too much fun and run out! Next week I have a date with DD's preschool teacher to sit and knit in her class during free play time (Waldorf, dontcha know?). What do you wanna bet she'll be happy if I show up equipped for carding and spinning? Cool beans, I tell you, cool beans.

I'm Spinning! She's Knitting! Oh Yeah, Yeah, Yeah*

2008-01-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

*Maybe it tells you something about my child's taste in movies that I hear the title of this post to the rhythm of Marlon's celebration upon escaping from the deep-sea anglerfish in Finding Nemo.

The Spinning Begins
I just came back from my first spinning class at my LYS: Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder, CO. Though it's a wheel spinning class, today we started out on drop spindles. Well, actually, we started on the floor, learning how to pick out a good fleece. Then we teased, carded, pre-drafter, and THEN got to spinning on drop spindles. Meanwhile our teacher was washing one of the yuckiest pieces of the fleece, to show us how and let us see how much difference the washing makes.

I was having problems with the twist traveling up into my pre-drafted fiber so I couldn't finish drafting it, but then I got the hang of it -- I just have to make sure my spindle has enough momentum for me to let the twist up into the full length I have drafted, then spin the spindle up again before I draft more (or park and draft if the twist is getting out of hand). It was delightful. I loved the feeling of the greasy wool, the feel and sound of the fibers moving past each other, the feel and look of the fluff twisting up into yarn, and more.

Slowing down, with pictures this time:

I started with this.

Actually, this picture is of the cleanest part of the fleece, which I reserved for spinning in the grease (with the dirt and lanolin still in), while I wash and dry the rest. I have a big paper grocery bag, half full of this white Lincoln fleece, and half full of dark brown Corriedale fleece.

I used my fingers to tease part of the fleece out into a halo of fiber, picking out a very few seeds and grass bits as I went. I didn't get a picture of this halo, but it's the kind of thing that makes you want to make an Afro-style clown wig. Just a big ball of really loose fluff. Then I used these:

I carded the halo out into a more-aligned mass of fiber that looked like troll hair. This is where the first great sound came: not the teeth of the carder bumping each other, but the sshhh of the wool sliding and straightening as I pulled the carders away from each other. Then I rolled the wool off the carder, making some of my first rolags:

When I showed this to my husband at home, the rolags got his first "Neat!" response. It is a pretty remarkable change from the original fleece, and it only takes a few minutes!

Then I pre-drafted the rolags and set to spinning. After spinning maybe six of these small rolags, my spindle looked like this:

I can't seem to decide yet whether I'm spinning the finest thread this spindle can produce without breaking (don't worry, I did that too -- the breaking, that is), or something that will knit up more quickly. And I'm not sure whether that decision, in this first week of practice, will be made by my brain or my fingers! But I'm sure it will come eventually.

Many questions come to mind. My singles are soooo tight! I know plying will relax them a bit, but how much? What kind of yarn will the style of draw I've fallen into produce? Will it be something I could stand to wear, once knit up? I've read enough spinning blogs now to know it might take months or years before I am guessing well enough at the answers to these questions to adjust my spinning accordingly. But right here at the beginning, I'm having fun yet, and I don't need answers. If I can't knit this up, I'm sure my daughter will enjoy using it for something. She's three. No object escapes being made into a toy for long.

Speaking of which...

Ever Taught a Three-Year-Old to Knit?

Well, now I've begun. Yesterday I sat DD (three and a half) down and taught her finger-knitting. I've been building up to this for a while, and she keeps referring to "when I learn to knit," so I asked her if she was ready to begin. She said yes, and she caught on pretty quickly and started producing that loose I-cord you may remember if you did some finger-knitting in grade school. Her attention span didn't allow for more than a bracelet's worth at the first sitting (that's the bracelet up above), but after dinner she told me she wanted to sit down and knit with me again until bath time. That even-shorter attempt ended up being unraveled and wound back on the ball, with no protest since I let her do it herself. We'll see where it goes from here. She was so pleased and proud to be "knitting" alongside me. And her first question on seeing me spin was when she could have a turn with the spindle. I don't know if I'm the right person to teach her. But perhaps we'll figure it out! I'll have the use of the spindle for the duration of the six-week class, so maybe once I'm rolling on the wheel (so to speak), she can give it a try. And then there's that great gift certificate waiting to be spent on something. Maybe a spindle would be a good investment in DD's fun and self-esteem.

Wish us luck -- we have each embarked on a journey these last 24 hours. Here's hoping they're long, happy, and productive ones.

Baby Stepping Beyond

2008-01-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

My husband was reading my blog recently (nice, eh?) and asked what happened to my posts about the FlyLady BabySteps. Drum roll please...

I finished them!

No, my house is not in impeccable shape. Things still get cluttered sometimes. But I have basic routines that keep life sane. Now I'm in the process of tweaking those daily routines, establishing some weekly cleaning routines, and working to take care of myself rather than obsessing about the house and running myself ragged. The blechy way I've recently been feeling physically means I've pared down to the minimum on those routines, but still we are in better shape than we were when I started. The bills are paid, projects to organize and declutter the disorganized spaces in our house are progressing, and my kitchen is usable every day. We have clean clothes to wear (oops, need to start today's load of laundry to keep that true) and food to eat, at least when one of us is feeling well enough to cook it. There is a calendar on the wall that accurately summarizes each family member's commitments, and there's a slot in the back for stuff we will need for them (e.g., forms for upcoming dental appointments). And I still have time to knit, rest, and do things like visit a sheep farm (see my last post), though I need more rest than usual to get through this whatever-it-is that is slowing me down.

The slow process of setting up routines one item at a time, as the BabySteps have encouraged, has allowed me to think about what works for me and my family, and to make changes as necessary so that things make sense. My latest change was to buy and organize a cleaning caddy with tools and supplies for cleaning our bathrooms. In my previous home, we had only two bathrooms, so I just left supplies in each. Now there are three, and not enough safe places to keep supplies out of children's reach, so one caddy goes with me for the bathroom-cleaning rounds. Is this exactly how FlyLady says to do it? No. But it's what works for me, and FlyLady does urge us to adjust the routines to fit our families.

Check!

Sheep Encounters and FO: Binary Hat

2008-01-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a slow few days. I have some kind of mild intestinal yuck that's keeping my days very low-key and close to restrooms. Fortunately, I seem to perk up a bit in the afternoon and/or evening, depending on when and how much I've slept. Two cool things have happened during "on" times this week.

The first was Monday night, when I went to a Rock Day potluck and spin-in/knit-in at my LYS. Rock Day, I'm told, is the day after Twelfth Day, when spinners in England (?) went back to work. Rock seems to be another word for distaff, or the staff on which flax was held for spinning. It seems that boys in certain trades went back to work a day or two later than the spinners, so they'd amuse themselves in the meantime by setting the flax on fire. As the organizer pointed out, a potluck sounded like a great deal more fun! She also told us that the only time spinners (knitters? textile workers? Not remembering this so well...) could start a project for themselves was between Christmas and Twelfth Day. Aren't you glad you don't live in old-time England, or wherever these customs held sway?

Anyway, the potluck and knit/spin-in were great fun. There were a ton of folks there (perhaps 30 or more; I didn't count), and many wonderful projects and conversations were underway. I ended up sitting next to C., who keeps the membership files for our local fiber handweavers' guild, and who was spinning top produced from one of her own Corriedale sheep fleeces. We talked a fair amount, and I found out her sheep love to eat Christmas trees. I offered mine.

That led to the second fun illness interlude today, when I took my tree and some home-canned red pepper relish to C.'s farm, and my daughter and I got to meet her current group of lambs -- Lincoln, Corriedale, and various crosses. One pair of twins hung out close together and walked around in formation a lot. It took DD a couple of days to psych herself up to meet sheep, but she was ready, and it was great fun for us to meet, pet, and feed a fir tree to these lovelies. We also admired C.'s cashmere goats, llama, and friendly sheepdogs.

If you've never heard lambs' voices, they're worth the trip.

My current project, which was started during the twelve days of Christmas (whew!) is still the Diagonal Cross-Rib Socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks. I cast on and knit the toe of the second sock at the Rock Day event, and have made it a little farther. Here they are:

And finally finished is DH's Binary Hat, which is based on a pattern by Erica Barcott. See my last post for the story of this one. It survived its short-row surgery and now fits happily and gets worn more.

Looking ahead, on Friday I start a wheel-spinning class at my LYS! I'm so psyched! You can be sure I'll have something to say about that. I have been hanging around spinners and reading up for a month or so now, but have never actually touched either a spindle or a spinning wheel myself with intent to produce yarn. I will say that I've handled some sublime fibers at my last two spin/knit-ins, though! I'm looking forward to meeting more of the local folks who produce this yummy stuff. On Monday, besides C., I met The Redhead (here's her web site), who had a decadent merino/alpaca/silk blended batt (I think that's the right link) for spinning, as well as other goodies, with her.

New Year's Knit-a-palooza

2008-01-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my holiday, visiting my folks in Texas for New Year's. It was delicious -- just hanging out together, having four adults instead of the usual two caring about my daughter, and getting to knit. A lot.

On the bus to the airport to go there, I started a hat to go with the Ravenclaw scarf. Same colors, same needles, different design. It's undergoing major surgery right now, though, as DH figured out it's not quite long enough to keep his ears warm. I picked out a row of stitches just above the brim and added short rows around the back two-thirds or so of the crown section of the hat, to keep his ears warm without covering up his eyes. Now I just need to graft the pieces back together. Here's what it looks like now:

The inspiration for the pattern comes from the Binary Hat, a pattern I found on Ravelry. But I didn't have the pattern with me when I was knitting, so I went on my best memory of it plus Elizabeth Zimmerman's hat wisdom from her Knitting Workshop DVD, which I recently watched. I knit the ribbing on the same needles, but with yarn held double, to make it extra thick (for style) and warm (for comfort). The original binary hat says "hat" in binary ASCII code (yes, we are geeks here), but DH asked me to make his say "CPU" instead, to represent what he covers up with his hat. (Yes, we are really geeks here.) DH was kind enough to work out the binary ASCII code for me himself.

I also worked a lot on the baby blanket, which is about 15 minutes from finished, and on writing a pattern for it. I worked out an border treatment I really like. But I need to do some swatching to make sure what I wrote down for the pattern will really work, hindsight being not quite 20/20 in this case (I must start a notebook for stuff like this)! You'll find the pattern here when it's done. Here's a teaser:

When I'd done as much as I could stand on the blanket and its pattern, I turned to some sock yarn I bought just before the trip, expecting to run out of knitting. Turns out it was totally the wrong weight for the project I wanted to do. I was planning to try the Austrian Socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks (click on "view more images" and go to the sixth one shown to see the picture -- I love that Knitpicks includes pattern images in their book section!), but I got 50% more stitches per inch than the gauge. Guess I should have listened to the "sport weight" recommendation in the pattern. I ended up doing a short-row-heel, toe-up version of the diagonal rib socks from the same book. It's my first time trying traveling stitches, and I dropped several stitches early in the sock. I'm still clueless about how to repair dropped traveling stitches, but they've been fairly forgiving of my bungled efforts. Here's my progress so far:

The yarn is Reynolds' Soft Sea Wool from my LYS. It feels really yummy soft, even though it's just labeled 100% wool, not merino. I hope it wears well. I'm carrying some Wooly Nylon thread along on the toe and heel for added durability. The needles are US size 2 bamboo double points, with which I get about 8.5 st/in, so the sock is on 68 stitches in the foot, 70 in the leg to accommodate the pattern repeat. I usually knit socks on two circulars, but felt like being a little more old-fashioned this time around. DPNs are quieter and a little simpler to deal with all in all, and so far I'm not seeing major stitch ladders. Wish me luck. One of my DPNs splintered a little today, but only on one end, so I'm not sunk yet. I'm considering getting a set of Knitpicks' Options wooden DPNs with a gift certificate my dad gave me for Christmas. But I love knitting on metal, so maybe I'll order a pair each in wood and metal first and see what they're like. I've just never tried metal DPNs before, only circulars and straights. The other first here is anything but stockinette and 2x2 rib in socks. I hope they fit! This diagonal rib seems to pull in pretty well, so I'm hopeful.

An update on Simple Stripes: Many early posts to this blog showed some socks I made from Knitpicks' Simple Stripes sock yarn (75% superwash wool, 25% nylon), which is no longer on the market. I speculated at the time that this was because it felt so scratchy. But after eight or ten wearings and washes (machine wash cold in lingerie bag, line dry), they are feeling great and wearing well. Still just a smidge itchy around the ankles when I'm in a warm place, but then my skin is pretty particular about wool. So if you come across some, I say give it a try! By the way, the spit-splices seem to be doing just fine, despite the wool being superwash. Go figure!

FO: Slipper Socks; and The Joy of Collaborative Crafting

2007-12-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

Here we are, the day after Christmas. I'm relieved and pleased to report that I finished all three craft projects that had Christmas deadlines. The Ravenclaw scarf was in my last post. Here are the slipper socks I made for my daughter:

They're just socks with suede soles sewn on, constructed more or less according to Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' instructions in Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy, but with a few more stitches on the leg than the foot, and 1-inch elastic sewn into the tops to keep them on securely. The yarn is KnitPicks Crayon, held double on size 7 needles.

When DD put them on and DH saw them, he said, "Aren't they big for her?" (They are.) DD, age 3 1/2 and already the consummate knitter's child, retorted, "That's because I need to grow into them!" Don't you wish all your gift recipients were so understanding?

The other project I finished was sewing up some Christmas stockings my mom had made, one in needlepoint and one in counted cross-stitch. My mom has been doing this kind of work for years, including Christmas stockings for all of her immediate family members, their spouses and descendants over 3 years old (this work takes a while!). She's quite good at it.

Have you ever known someone that you loved dearly, but that you would never give handknits to because they wouldn't appreciate them, or wouldn't take care of them properly? I've heard some knitters opine that one should never give a handknit sweater to a non-knitter unless one also does the recipient's laundry. Just picture a woolen sweater, very clean but several sizes too small and thoroughly felted, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Well, my mom is not a knitter, but she's not one of those folks, either. Working with her (or giving her handknits) is a pleasure because each of us has, I think, a fairly deep understanding of the nature and the value of the other's work. I know about the hours of repetitive-yet-exacting work that go into a needlepoint or counted-cross-stitch piece because I've watched her do so much of it, and done a bit myself. It's an honor to be trusted to cut and stitch such a thing! She knows (or senses, and will know after she reads this) about the much-less-time-consuming, but still exacting work of turning a needlepoint piece into a Christmas stocking without ruining it nineteen ways before you're done. And each of us delights in the beauty of what the other has made. The value we place on each other's respective crafts makes this kind of collaboration uniquely satisfying, and each time I sew up a stocking (eight by now, I think) and don't ruin it nineteen ways, I breathe a sigh of relief and feel a little closer to my mom.

I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts about collaborative crafts, whether in the same craft with your collaborators or different crafts. Are you a lone-wolf knitter secretly craving collaboration, or a party animal when it comes to your creations? Or do you revel in the solitude of your craft? Say more!

Wondering what happened to the FlyLady BabySteps? Well, between DH being out of town, DH and DD being sick, and getting ready for the holidays, it's continued to be a time of shoring up progress to date against the floods of circumstance. Okay, actually I took a step ahead of the BabySteps by creating a weekly routine (one or two cleaning chores to get done each weekday), but I'm not holding myself to it yet. I was just craving some strategic structure (e.g., I vacuum on days when DD goes to preschool, not on days when she's home and I might be doing my chores during her nap) and a good checklist for basic weekly cleaning.

It came in handy when our Christmas-Eve guests were coming: I could look at it and see what I hadn't yet done that week, and just do those things, cook dinner, and not worry about the rest. Nice feeling, that! Taking a step outside the BabyStep structure, while keeping within the spirit of baby-stepping my way to greater satisfaction with my housekeeping and self-care, is a little like tweaking a beautiful knitting pattern to make it even better for my purposes. N'est-ce pas?

FO: Ravenclaw Scarf; and Hanging with the Big Dogs

2007-12-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

Finally, here it is:

The finished Ravenclaw scarf (a la Prisoner of Azkaban, pattern by Lauren Kent. I did only 12 sets of stripes rather than 14, to fit DH's desires for his scarf. This puppy is WARM, and wide enough that he should be able to wrap it around his neck and cover his ears and nose at the same time. I used five balls of Cascade 220, four in blue (color 9484) and one in gray (color 9324). Knitting this Continental-style, which I learned on this project, probably saved me 50% on the knitting time. Now I'm all set for some colorwork!

I have a hat in mind to go with this. Pictures when it's on the needles.

I have just one project, the slipper socks, remaining to finish up (probably an hour's work) for Christmas, and DD is the recipient, so no shipping time. Hooray! It seems like time to relax into the holiday.

Speaking of relaxing, I spent yesterday evening at a potluck and knitting circle on a nearby cooperative (community-supported agriculture) farm; a neighbor who is a member took me along. Some folks there were involved with the farm, and others fit in I'm not sure how.

Now, among my city friends, I stand out as a crafter and semi-Luddite (in a good way): knitting, sewing, canning a lot of stuff in the summer, and so forth. But among this group, I could tell there's a long way farther to go in that direction! Everyone there could knit (including the teen and preteen boys who came with their parents), some also spin, and I think more have livestock at home than not. Some folks were talking about going in together on an order of chicks in the spring -- one is building a new coop now, and some already have some hens. Several keep goats for milk. Much of the potluck food was from veggies grown there on the farm. The man sitting next to me, who was a great conversationalist, was finishing several pairs of socks he'd knit on his sock machine, as he told the group about a successful meeting that morning that was part of the effort to prevent the local cement plant from burning tires. (How'd you like that across the road from your organic farm? Yechh!)

I felt like such a city girl. But in a good way. A city girl who loves handcrafts, grooves on local food, and is learning more every year. It was humbling and encouraging at the same time. How often do you get to have an experience like that?

Happy holidays, everyone. May your fiber arts keep you warm, good food fill your bellies, and the people around you receive you with open arms.

Dancing as Fast as I Can

2007-12-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

I think maybe this is not just me -- the knitting furiously to try to finish a holiday present. Neh? I'd love to hear your comments about your holiday knitting quests. I just enjoyed reading a compilation of "SHE Shouldn'ts" on FlyLady's web site. (SHE stands for Sidetracked Household Executive, so these stories are about what SHEs, as opposed to born-organized folks, should NOT have taken on for the holidays!). Included were several stories of elaborate knitting/crafts projects begun in November (or later!) for Christmas use/giving. I'm hoping that since I have only one in progress (Okay, two if you count sewing up my mom's needlepoint stockings. Okay, three if you count DD's slipper socks... uh oh...), I'll be able to finish in time.

The knitting project in question is not a surprise anymore -- there's no way I could have finished on time and kept it a secret -- so here's a photo:

Recognize the Prisoner of Azkaban - style Harry Potter scarf, in Ravenclaw colors? (Hey, here's an unabridged CD version of the book for listening while knitting! I used to do this while quilting, but hadn't gotten there yet for knitting...) Perhaps from the knitting + blogging combination you already figured out I'm a bit of a geek, without even knowing about my physics background or my obsession with home canning? Well, here's letting you know that it runs in the family. The scarf is a special request for my husband, who got me going on Harry Potter and oh so many other series of books, mostly sci-fi and fantasy. I found the pattern, by Lauren Kent, on Ravelry -- here's a link to it on Lauren's web site.

Progress on FlyLady's BabySteps has been stalled for the past week or so, as I nursed DD and DH through their respective winter bugs and rested a lot to avoid getting sick myself. Now everyone is well (knock wood), so I'll be trying to get back in the groove. The good news: I haven't needed to backslide, just to stop adding new things to my routines for a little while. The next step I'll be taking is to reorganize my Control Journal a bit for three daily routines: One for before I leave the house in the morning, one for late morning or afternoon, and one for before bed. My morning routine was getting unwieldy and not so doable, so moving some items to the midday routine should help prevent discouragement and the attendant temptations to Give It All Up. 'Cause you know, giving it all up doesn't keep my house looking nice, and I'm getting to like it looking that way.

Moving Right Along

2007-12-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

Are we having fun yet?

Yep. These slipper socks are almost done -- I'm going to put some 1" elastic in the tops and fold the yellow bit to the inside, sewing to form a casing. Then I might need to deal somehow with the fact that the slippers are more than an inch too long for DD's feet. She enjoyed wearing them around the house today anyway. Maybe it's not such an issue. But suggestions are welcome!

Further knitting pictures may have to wait a bit, at least as long as my current project remains a surprise to the intended recipient. Suffice it to say that it's made from Cascade 220 wool. Lots of it. From a pattern I found on Ravelry. (My invitation arrived today! Callooh, callay! They really made it through the 3000 or so people ahead of me on the waiting list quickly!) And I'm taking the opportunity to learn to knit Continental-style. I think I'm already faster than I was on a typical "throwing" day. I'm craving colorwork, you see, maybe some Selbuvotter mittens, and I like to do fair-isle knitting with one color in each hand. It helps if I can do that without my left hand going all crampy, and today all was good.

Early Openers
Today is Day 22 of my FlyLady quest to incorporate sanity into the upkeep of my house. So far, so good. I really like the pacing of the BabySteps -- they don't add a new daily chore every day. Those are spaced out nicely with reading essays and just learning things, so the whole deal doesn't feel like an exponential increase in work. Recently one of the essays sent on the FlyLady list pointed out that a lot of housework chores feel like they're going to take forever. Yeah, what she said. Often that thing I'm procrastinating on for an hour takes all of, oh, seven minutes to finish once I actually do it. Remembering that, plus remembering to ask myself why I'm doing this, has been great.

I went away for this past weekend, and something novel happened. When I got back, the house was orderly. And this time it wasn't DH, obsessively cleaning while alone in the house. All the human inhabitants were with me in the mountains. It was me, just doing those daily basic routines before I left, that meant I didn't have a pile of dishes, or major detritus from laundry or packing, greeting me when I got home. It felt like an early Christmas present. Wahoo!

Day 16: Why Is This So Easy?

2007-11-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

Crafty Pursuits
The knitting has been on hold for a few days in favor of sewing, so I could make this dress:

DD is very happy with it, though only time will tell how much wear it will get. The hem is a lot straighter than it looks in this picture! It has some growing and moving room for sure -- but one of the things I like about kids at this age is that they look great in anything! If you've read past posts, you know DD's crazy about purple, and this dress is an attempt to replace a previous favorite purple dress that is being rapidly outgrown and has been so well-loved it has its own map of permanent stains... you get the picture. Vital Stats: New Look (Simplicity) Pattern #6309, made in cotton quilter's calico with satin ribbon trim. Has a zipper in the back, but otherwise quite easy.

Ever seen the movie Kiki's Delivery Service? The dress in question is a "Kiki dress," and it even formed the basis of DD's Halloween costume last year. I love the movie, originally done in Japanese by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) because it avoids the Disney/Hollywood formula of good vs. evil, and is slower-paced than many American kids' movies. More like real life, in other words, though there's adventure as well. It's about a young witch in traning who, at age 13, must leave home and find her own way for a year as part of her training. There's adventure, self-discovery, supportive family relationships, chances to talk about cliquish social behavior by some adolescents, and so on. It's not a movie I thought a 3-year-old would particularly enjoy, but I don't find anything objectionable in it, and she experiences it at her own level.

Fluttering On
The daily BabySteps from FlyLady have been pretty easy these past few days. I've been carrying on with the routines established so far, and have added making my bed in the morning (my half, really, since I'm usually up before Tim -- maybe he'll catch on!) and doing a mission from Kelly each weekday. The missions are tasks of 15 minutes or less, and they focus on more detailed cleaning and decluttering in a different area of the home each week, known as that week's zone. The idea is that if you do each zone for one week each month, along with various types of daily clutter control, things stay more or less company-ready all the time. The other daily BabySteps have involved reading essays available on the FlyLady web site.

It's a little disquieting that it feels easy. But I guess that's what the Baby Steps are all about -- it shouldn't be overwhelming to establish these habits! I'm finding that with things far less cluttered, it's easier for me to see what needs to be done (like taking out the trash or recycling, or moving something to the garage, etc.) and just do it. When things were more cluttered, these tasks would get lost in the clutter and neglected. Things are in good enough order now that I actually find I've spontaneously done some of Kelly's missions before she assigns them. Cool.

One part of the before-bed routine FlyLady suggests has been extremely helpful, with DD attending preschool for the first time: laying out clothing for the next day. We have to get an earlier start than we have for our various activities in the past, so DD and I agreeing on what she will wear the next day, and my thinking through what I will wear, has been a great source of peace and efficiency in the morning. We need all of those that we can get! I'm hoping that since we're establishing some good routines now, things won't be quite so crazy when the new baby arrives.

Wish me luck! I wish you the best.

Day 12: Finding My Needles, My Family Room, Myself

2007-11-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here it is, Day 12 of the FlyLady BabySteps process (I took a break in the middle to get more sleep into my schedule), and things are going great. Yesterday's BabyStep was to add a page of inspirational quotes to my control journal -- the notebook FlyLady suggests to keep track of routines and other important information. Here are a few of mine:

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -Eleanor Roosevelt
(guarding against judging myself according to the expectations of others)
"Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family." -FlyLady
(guarding against perfectionism)
"Don't try to catch up -- just jump in where you are." -FlyLady
(guarding against overwhelm)
"Why do I want to do this?" -Me
(looking at my own goals rather than anyone else's shoulds for my home and family)
"I can do this." -Me
(go, me!)

Today was easier: Keep doing what I've been doing, and delete all the emails in my InBox from FlyLady. Check.

Meanwhile, I've been using my decluttering and room-rescue time to work on the family room/my office in the basement. I have cleared out more than 20 boxes of stuff in the last six days and organized it on those great shelves we installed. I ordered some magazine files and paper storage boxes, now on the way, to corral runaway piles. I might need a few more miscellaneous containers, but it's looking good! I'll show you some pictures once I get things containerized.

I'm ecstatic to have all my knitting books, yarn, and tools -- plus the same for quilting and sewing -- in one place! And I found my set of double-pointed needles!! (You can see some of them in the photo below - they're KnitPicks Options metal double-points.) That might be the best find yet, among many great finds in all those boxes -- missing toys, CDs, tools, craft materials, and much more. And now, there's actually space for the couch we want to put in the family room for lounging, sleeping, and watching the occasional video together. Hurrah!

Okay, victory dance done for now. Here's some calmer stuff:

Working on some cotton/suede slipper socks for DD to wear inside at school. The kids get muddy on the play yard there, so they change to slippers when they come inside. The plan was to use some blue and purple (natch) Mission Falls 1824 cotton for these, but after several tries, I just couldn't get it to be soft enough to feel right, so I'm using some KnitPicks Crayon, also cotton, from my stash. DD heartily approved the rainbow color scheme I have in mind. Should be suitably psychedelic. The slipper soles are from my LYS, Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins.

Finding myself? Well, my husband Tim has been reading a book called The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play, by Neil Fiore, and he's sharing choice bits with me as he reads them. One bit he shared yesterday is the effort to move from "push" motivations (I have to, they're making me, I should) to "pull" motivations (I want to, my goal is, I'm deciding to). Most people are much more eager to start or carry on with a project if they're motivated by "pulls." It goes well with my quote above, "Why do I want to do this?" The answers to that question are illuminating and motivating. And I have to tell you, unpacking is usually one of my very least favorite jobs. But now, I want to do it -- I yearn for it! -- because I'm tired of using the corner of the living room couch as my office. Once this family room/office is usable, I'll be able to do my email, bill paying, blogging, and other computer stuff there while DD plays in the family-room part. It's almost a room of my own. And frankly, I'm a little envious of my husband's office! Tim works from home, so he needs more stuff and space than I do for my desk work, but darn it, I need some too! Now I'm getting it. So there! ;)

Another Finished Object and Free Pattern: Menschkin Child's Hat

2007-11-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, with DD still recovering from her cold, I had several hours to knit, so I made this:

[Added 11/29/07: DD has been wearing this hat for her hour-long outdoor playtime at school for a week now, with temperatures around freezing, and she has willingly kept it on and been warm enough. Success!]

Free Pattern: Menschkin Child's Hat

Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino in colorway 108 (a worsted weight yarn), held double. I used almost all of 2 hanks.
Needles: I used US size 9 needles (5.5 mm) for the hat and size 7 (4.5 mm) for the earflaps. You'll also need a darning or tapestry needle and a small crochet hook.
Gauge: My gauge was 4.25 st/in in stockinette with doubled yarn. For the earflaps, it was 5.5 st/in in garter stitch with a single thickness of yarn.
Size: The hat fits my daughter's head (20-inch circumference) with just a little growing room.

I usually prefer to knit in the round, but I haven't found my set of KnitPicks Options double-point metal needles since my move, so I used some Takumi bamboo straight needles and worked back and forth.

CO = cast on (I used long tail cast on, nice and loose)
P2tog = purl two stitches together
SSK = slip one stitch, then another, as if to knit. Put the left needle back through the front of both stitches and knit them together from this position. Or use whatever decrease makes you happy and tell me about the results!

Main part of hat:
Holding two thicknesses of yarn together and using the larger needles, loosely CO 90 stitches. Work back and forth in K2, P2 rib for 2.25 inches (right side rows *K2, P2, repeat from * to end; wrong side rows *P2, K2, repeat from * to end). Then work stockinette stitch until hat measures about 5.5 inches from the bottom edge. (If I had it to do over, I would have made it 1-2 inches deeper, or even 3 inches to allow a good turned-up cuff -- but with deeper ribbing in that case. The earflaps were added because the hat didn't cover DD's ears! I might also have decreased by dividing the stitches by 7 instead of 8, so the ridges at the decreases would lie flatter to the head.)

Decrease as follows, starting with a right-side row:
Row 1: *K9, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 2: Purl all stitches.
Row 3: *K8, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 4: Purl.
Row 5: *K7, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 6: Purl.
Row 7: *K6, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 8: P2, *P2tog, P5, repeat from * to end of row.
Row 9: *K4, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 10: P2, *P2tog, P3, repeat from * to end of row.
Row 11: *K2, SSK, repeat from * to last two stitches, K2.
Row 12: P2, *P2tog, P1, repeat from * to end of row.
Row 13: *K2tog, repeat from * to end of row.

Using a tapestry or darning needle, run one thickness of yarn tail through all remaining stitches twice. Tie to other thickness of yarn tail. Use one thickness to stitch back seam with mattress stitch. Weave in ends. I attached a tassel to the top; use whatever pompon, tassel, or loop for hanging the hat on a hook that makes you happy.

Earflaps:
With a single thickness of your hat yarn and size 7 needles (or two sizes smaller than whatever you used for the hat), CO 3 stitches, leaving at least an 8-inch yarn tail. On each row, knit through the front and back of the first stitch and then knit to the end, until you have 20 stitches. Then knit all stitches (garter stitch) until you have 14 garter ridges (28 rows) from the beginning. Do not cast off. Pin earflap in place with hat on head (to stretch ribbing to size) and sew live stitches to the inside of the ribbing with a whipstitch, about 1/2 inch above bottom of ribbing. Secure end and weave in. Leave the cast-on yarn tail hanging. Repeat for other earflap.

Ties: (Please note: this hat was made for a 3.5-year-old child who knows how to handle ties without strangling. If I were making the hat for a younger or less careful child, I would have extended the earflaps on 7 stitches or so and used a velcro closure under the chin, or -- more likely -- just made the hat deeper before the decreases, and omitted the earflaps and ties.)

I used a different yarn for the ties: I happened to have Mission Falls 1824 Cotton on hand in colors 203 and 404, which just about exactly match the Artyarns colors. I figured the cotton would be less itchy for an under-the-chin tie, so I used it as follows: Cut six lengths of yarn for the ties, each about 16 inches. Group them into two groups of three in a way that pleases you (I used two magenta and one blue for one tie, and two blue and one magenta for the other). Take the three yarn lengths for the first tie. Using a crochet hook, pull an end of one yarn length through each of the 3 stitches at the bottom of one earflap, from outside to inside of the earflap. Pull each yarn length through an entire CO stitch (i.e., at least two thicknesses of yarn, not just one) for sturdiness. Then take the pulled-through ends on the inside and knot them all together (tie a single overhand knot with all three held together). Pull the knot snug against the inside of the earflap, and then braid the 3 yarn lengths. Knot the ends together. Use the yarn tail from casting on the earflap to secure the knot inside the earflap in a non-irritating position (like straight up on the inside) and then weave in the rest of the yarn tail. Repeat for second tie and earflap.

Voila! If you knit a hat based on this pattern, please send (or link in comments to) a picture!

If you wish to pass this pattern on to others, feel free, but please include the entire text from the title to the end of this paragraph. Pattern by Deborah Mensch, published at http://knitmensch.blogspot.com

Finished Objects and Other Things I'm Thankful For

2007-11-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy five days since my last post!

Home Organizing
Tim had most of the week off from work, so we took advantage of our combined energy after a family visit on Tuesday to dig into the mess that is my office and will someday be a family room as well. This is the room with the least storage capacity compared to what it needs, so we covered one wall with wall-mounted shelves. Tim spent about 45 minutes creating a jig for attaching the shelves to the shelf brackets just right, and then did the 12 shelves we installed in about 90 seconds apiece, with me and DD acting as the assembly line -- DD furnishing screws as needed, and me transporting shelves to and from the work area and mounting them on the wall. Since we finished the shelves, it's actually become fun to go through the boxes that have been sitting in that room for, oh, five months now with nowhere to go. We're finding all kinds of lost treasures and getting rid of a fair amount of stuff, too. My yearning for office supplies is being satisfied, and there's space to organize them at last! There's still more work to do, going through the rest of the boxes and finding appropriate containers for magazines, knitting and sewing tools, etc. So it's not a finished object, but I'm grateful for the progress (this, plus the other end of the shelves that I couldn't get in the frame, is something like eight boxes worth of stuff):

Holiday Food, Nice and Easy
Part of the reason we stayed in doing this project on a gorgeous snowy day (5 inches Wednesday morning) is that DD was sick with a cold and fever. That led to another project: instead of going to my aunt and uncle's house in Denver for Thanksgiving, we needed to make whatever food and festivities we wanted today at home. Tim shopped yesterday, we strategized, and we produced a modest but special meal on a family-of-three scale: a brined and roasted half turkey breast, cheesy rolls, mashed potatoes and rutabagas, beet greens, and cranberry sauce -- all from scratch except the cranberry sauce, most of it organic, and a fair amount of it locally grown or raised. Between me and Tim, we produced this all in a leisurely day of cooking, with lots of breaks to do other things like care for DD, knit, post ads to get rid of unwanted stuff, or take naps; and nobody felt like they'd been run over by a truck by the end of the meal. Now that is a day, and a meal, to be thankful for: My kind of slow food.

Did Someone Say Knitting?
Oh yeah, and I finished my Simple Stripes socks right before dinner! Here they are:

They're fraternal, in a degree that makes me happy. Clearly these socks belong together, but no machine could have made them look like this. :)

The next project will be some sewing, a dress for DD to wear to the child dedication service at our new church in a couple of weeks. She picked out the fabric -- purple, of course. In fact, if you look at my newly-arranged yarn basket for knitting projects in my immediate queue (most of which are for DD), you'll pick up on a subtle pattern in her color preferences:

If you guessed that the red and earth-toned yarns are for others besides DD, you are correct!

Having this basket in our newly-cleared stairwell makes me happy beyond all reason. It's like a promise to myself of yummy knitting for weeks or months to come.

(The yarns are, clockwise starting with the red: Knitpicks Swish Superwash in Fired Brick, Artyarns Supermerino in colorway 108, LOTS of Knitpicks Shine Sport in Violet, Trekking XXL in color 180, and Mission Falls 1824 cotton in colors 203 and 404. Oh, and some gray suede slipper soles in the back.)

And the Sleep...
With all this, plus a respectable amount of sleep, under my belt, I'm feeling ready to re-embark on the FlyLady BabySteps quest, starting with Day 10 tomorrow. Today I did my Day 9 decluttering in the family room, a satisfying and high-value target. And while we were cleaning up in advance of the family visit on Tuesday, I did my best to actually put things away rather than stashing stuff in closets or other out-of-sight areas. There is now an immensely satisfying lack of clutter almost everywhere in the house, and the family room/office is improving quickly. A bonus: Having the place uncluttered inspires better putting-away habits. Today when I came to the 2 minutes of putting out hot spots in my morning routine, I looked around and realized it wasn't going to take two minutes. That, my friends, is progress.

I hope Thanksgiving has found you all warm, well fed, and enjoying the company you're in.

Cleaning, Knitting, and Sleeping... but not in that order!

2007-11-17T19:13:00.001-07:00

About the House...
My FlyLady efforts have been flagging over the last few days. The next couple of BabySteps called for adding a 5-minute room rescue (clearing a path in your worst room) and 15 minutes of daily decluttering (sifting stuff to get rid of some or all of it) to my routines. I just didn't make the time for it. Yesterday, as I was helping DD get down to sleep, I thought about why, and listened to the messages coming from my body. I was starting to feel a little depressed and short on motivation for anything. I'd kept my basic routines as established going, but adding anything seemed like too much. Why?

"It's the Sleep, Stupid."
My body made itself clear in its own Clintonesque fashion.

Yep, this pregnant body needs more sleep. Something like 9 hours per night plus a short nap seems ideal, but how often do I get that? Probably one day in ten at best. That's not depression I'm feeling, it's fatigue. So I've cut myself a couple of days' slack and decided to take a later BabyStep as my current mission: Establish a regular bedtime and stick to it. I've tried this before, and it's very challenging for this night-owl mom who cherishes her after-DD's-in-bed time alone and with DH, another night owl. But when I've succeeded, life has been pretty beautiful. Getting DH on my side always helps. In one stretch a couple of years ago, we had a deal that I would not scratch his head (which he loves, as it helps him relax and fall asleep) unless he was in bed by 10:30 p.m. That upped our on-time percentage a lot! He would even nudge me gently toward bedtime -- there's nothing like some loving nudges to get me headed to bed a little sooner, especially if they come with help on the night's last chores. We have to become co-conspirators against our behavior patterns that keep us up later than we should be. And 10:30, I'm sorry to say, is probably about right. Wish us luck.

Knitting in Public
I've knitted through a couple of meetings since my last post, and I have turned the heel and started up the leg on the second Simple Stripes sock. Here is the pair:

Alas, for my next two meetings I'm serving as facilitator, so I probably won't get in any knitting there. But there's always church tomorrow. I'll just have to watch whom I sit next to. Last week, when I pulled out my knitting, the person next to me made it clear (very politely) that she wouldn't want to sit next to me if I were knitting through the service. She was there first, so I moved. I can imagine a few reasons she might have that preference, but in retrospect, I wish I'd asked her why, so I could stop the guessing game. In years of knitting in church, I've had that reaction perhaps once before.

So, in my meeting today, I tried a new tactic. I asked before we got started whether anyone would mind if I knit, explaining that it takes only a tiny fraction of my attention, and it tends to filter my contributions a bit, thereby keeping me from butting in as much as I might do otherwise. That was apparently the right thing to say -- I got a wholehearted, "Please do!" from everyone present. Nothing like the right framing, eh?

Simple Stripes Sock Specs: the Whats, Hows, and Wherefores

2007-11-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is partly a place to track and share gritty knitting details, here is more than you ever wanted to know about the Simple Stripes socks, shown here in their current stage of completion:

Yarn: Simple Stripes, formerly offered by KnitPicks.com, 2 balls from my stash. There doesn't seem to be a color on the ball band. They are 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon. Each ball is 50 grams/231 yards, and the advertised gauge is 7-8 st/in on size 1-3 needles. Guess that makes me a pretty darned tight knitter.
Needles: Addi Turbos, US size 2 (3.0 mm). I meant to be working on size 1, but just discovered I wasn't. Go figure! I like to do socks on 2 circulars for ease of try-on and to avoid ladders -- it works great for me. I tried the "magic loop" with two socks at once on one huge circular, but I didn't like the amount of rearranging I had to do between half-rows, so now I stick to 2 circs. Also, I like the satisfaction of finishing one sock quickly, even though I then have to do the second sock. And the magic loop was partly an effort to save on needle costs. Now that KnitPicks sells Options Needles, which I adore, this is not an issue for me. But I still use the Addis in sizes 1-3 that I bought in pairs before Options came out, and they are great. (NB: I have only tried the metal Options needles in sizes 5-11, so I can't vouch for the bitty ones or the wooden ones.)
Gauge: 10.25 st/in, so I used 80 stitches to fit my size 7.5 foot. Do you know, when I got out my knitting today, these needles actually seemed large to me? What a great feeling!
Proportions: 80 stitches got me a circumference of about 7.75 inches. I used 7 inches as the length from the tip of the toe to the beginning of the heel turn. These are my actual foot measurements -- I like slightly snug socks, so could have used slightly smaller numbers, but I'll be machine-washing these, so I expect a little shrinkage to produce sock-fit perfection.
Pattern: Basic crew sock from Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy, by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts, with stockinette for the foot and 2x2 ribbing for the leg. For the number of sts between YOs when turning the toe and heel, I used her percentages for an average foot. In hindsight, perhaps my toes should be considered sharp.
Direction: Toe-up. I prefer to knit socks toe-up for four reasons:

Knitting toe-up makes it easy to figure out how long a leg I have enough yarn for.
I like the ease of trying on the sock for custom fitting as I go.
I often find the leg portion boring, so it's extra-motivating to have it be the home stretch.
There's no problem with cast-off elasticity because PGR provides graft-off instructions that make an extremely flexible ending for 2x2 ribbing.

Getting the stitches of the provisional cast-on from the scrap yarn back onto a needle after I've completed the toe is a bit of a hassle, but I LOVE the totally seamless finish that results.

I like PGR's short-row toe and heel for simplicity (I had a hard time figuring out the instructions at first, but now, after a few socks, it goes easily), smooth "seams" (no real seams at all, but I mean the increase/decrease line on the sides of the toe and heel) and ease of replacement. PGR recommends switching to larger needles halfway up the ribbing, but I didn't do that this time, for three reasons:

I like the pattern produced by the self-striping yarn to stay consistent all the way up the leg.
I don't plan to wear these folded over much.
They fit fine with the same size all the way up. If they were longer, I would need to do some adjustment with either needle size or increases, but then I'd probably choose a non-self-striping yarn, or at least one with more amorphous transitions.

Joins: Against all the advice I found, I spit-spliced the yarn when joining for striping adjustments around the heel. I know, it's superwash. If they start falling apart on me, you'll hear about it here. I really appreciate socks with no lumps from woven-in ends, so I took a calculated risk. The joins seemed strong when I pulled on them, and they knitted up beautifully. If it doesn't work out, I guess I'll just avoid joins whenever humanly possible, 'cause I love superwash for its softness and machine-washability. (I do put the socks in a lingerie bag, partly to make it gentler on them, and partly so I won't miss them and put them in the dryer by mistake.)

So, future-Deborah and gentle readers, there you have the Whats, the Hows, and the Wherefores for this pair of socks. May they be useful. And readers, if you've tried the PGR toe/heel and have another you love just as much or more, I'd love to hear about it!

I'll resume FlyLady details in my next post. Rest assured, I'm still fluttering and taking it slowly.

Pulling things together

2007-11-13T17:18:00.001-07:00

Okay, so maybe mine is not to be an every-day blog. I'd rather have quality over quantity, eh?

It's been a busy time. We're busy deciding on a preschool for DD to attend a few mornings a week, and trying to make that transition sooner rather than later so she can get well used to it before DS/D#2 arrives April-ish. In the meantime, my need for sleep is catching up with me. I've been struggling to get 8 hours or more per night and dragging through many days, and I just read in a guide from my midwife that 8-10 hours, plus a nap some days, is a typical need for sleep during pregnancy. Time to revise expectations a little and go with the flow. It'll be good practice for having a new baby.

So... knitting has been slower, and FlyLady BabySteps almost fell completely by the wayside yesterday. Day 7's task was to add laying out clothes for the next day to my evening routine. Well, when I fell exhausted into bed, I realized I hadn't done it, so I thought through what I needed to wear and exactly where it was. Lucky for me I have a very visual memory. So things weren't laid out this morning, but getting dressed was still nice and quick, which was good since I woke up late. Ah, blessed sleep!

One reason I forgot to lay out clothing is that the list of things to do each day was getting a little long to hold in my memory. FlyLady has obviously been there, because today's task is to start a control journal -- a 3-ring binder with some paper for keeping track of routines. We are warned to do this in pencil, and just to do it, without letting our inner perfectionists get in on the action. So I am going, right now, to get my old Control Journal and write my current routines on new pages in it.

Back now. I'm so glad the instructions are so straightforward and warn against perfectionism! I could just see myself wandering around for half an hour, producing typed pages in sheet protectors, etc. That took about four minutes. Here you can see my new before-bed routine page. Underneath, in the dividers, is all the old stuff from the last incarnation of my Control Journal. I'm going to studiously ignore all that until I'm done with the BabySteps, and possibly forever. Opening it up and trying to get straight back into it was, I believe, my downfall last time around. Oh, and that stuff all around the journal? One of the migratory hot spots I'll be putting out tonight or tomorrow morning, which is currently residing on my coffee table. Looking at it, I actually know where just about everything there belongs. What a relief!

Later:
Ahhh, the first sock is finished -- and perhaps more importantly, I've cast on for the second! No Second Sock Syndrome for me.

The hot spot is out, and DD and I spent 10 minutes working to clean up her ~~disaster~~ play area. Not done, but much better. We agreed to do a little each day, FlyLady style, until it's neat again.

Hot Spots

2007-11-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

There are three hot spots for me today.

First, there was the muscle pain in my sides (?! -- okay, I remember it from last time around, and I'll take it over back pain, but what's up with this?) from sitting too long today with my big belly bump: church, and then two hours of Ultimate Frisbee spectating. I think we tried to do too much today, judging by how cranky I was by the time we got home. A nap helped.

Second, there was the hot spot I tried cleaning up for two minutes (?! -- so short!) for Day 6 of FlyLady's Beginner BabySteps, in addition to all the previous steps. It was my kitchen island, a recently commissioned structure -- really two Ikea cabinets back to back -- that hasn't seen service as a kitchen prep area yet, because it's such a natural spot to put things down when we come in the back door or clear the table for dinner. Hot Spots are places where the clutter takes over if you don't tame it. So, two minutes was not enough to conquer this hot spot, but I think I reduced it by more than it gained today.

Finally, and most happily, there was the warm feeling of getting my foot into my nearly-finished first Simple Stripes sock!

I have enough yarn for about two more stripes. Then I might splice in some of what I took out for the heel, if it doesn't seem tall enough. I'm happy that the stripes stayed just about the same width in the ribbing as they were in stockinette -- the sock has a consistent look to it, and it will stay up!

I hope there are more warm socks, sweaters, and cuddly folks than pains or messes among your hot spots this November. Cheers!

A Good Saturday

2007-11-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. DD and I went on a long walk/trike ride around the neighborhood this morning and then visited with friends, while Tim did background research on stacking our washer and dryer to give us a little more room in the laundry room. Then DD put herself down for a nap (will miracles never cease?) because she didn't want to do it my way (potty first). During her nap, Tim and I jammed on mounting shelf hardware to the wall in our basement family room, and we made great progress! I should be able to do the rest solo while Tim does his day job.

And I am soooo tired. Early bed tonight will be a must -- Tim has a tripleheader in his Ultimate Frisbee league tomorrow, and DD and I will go to church and then try to catch Tim's third game.

So without further ado, here's today's knitting progress:

The sock now fits beautifully. I'm a little concerned about having enough yarn left for the leg, but I saved some colors I cut out to make the stripes work around the heel (see that cute narrow tan stripe in the rear view?), and I may use those, even if they're out of order, rather than settle for less than a full crew sock. I opted for ribbing -- guess I'm just that kind of gal. I've been drooling over the images from the knitalong from Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave (now on my holiday wishlist), though. Maybe some of those patterns will be my introduction to knitting socks beyond ribbed crew socks. I just got some Trekking XXL in the mail (below, color 180), and I'm looking for a great pattern to try with it, though I think it would also make very happy crew socks!

FlyLady BabySteps Turn Inward for Day 5
FlyLady's Beginner BabyStep today is a more contemplative one. Besides continuing with dressing to lace-up shoes, shining my sink, reading a few email reminders, and looking at my sticky notes (check, check, check, and check), I wrote down some of the nagging, negative voices I hear in my head, and write down positive statements to answer them. This stuff is a little tender to share right now, but I will say that it wasn't the downer I expected. Writing down the negative messages only gave concrete form to what was already running through my head every day; it was almost as if I were taking control of the messages by forcing them into words on the page. And writing the positive statements was a bit of a rush! It turns out I don't spend much time in deliberate, positive self-talk. I'm thinking about posting some of my positive statements somewhere where I'll see them once in a while -- not so often they get stale, but often enough to get a lift from them and remember to say encouraging things to myself!

Day 4 and Do-Overs

2007-11-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a day of do-overs. We just had a heat-exchange ventilation system installed, and poor communication from the person who did the specifications for the system to the guy actually doing the installing meant the installer had to redo several parts of the job. Fortunately, he gets paid by the hour, and we were paying a fixed bid, so the only people hurting from this transaction are probably the ones who slipped up on the communications in the first place. Also fortunately, it is now done!

As in home improvements, so in knitting. The sock was a little too short for my foot, especially with some expected shrinkage in washing, so I frogged the heel and did it over. I made some improvements in the process -- there were two places where I took out sections of yarn to get the stripes the way I wanted, and this time around I spit-spliced the yarn instead of leaving ends to weave in. Now, if only I were paid by the hour! I'll post a photo when there's more to see. Now it fits like a slightly-loose dream, which should snug up after a wash or two.

(Here's a nice explanation by Morcatknits of how to spit-splice. Oops, Morcat says not to do this with superwash wool... Well, it seemed quite strong when I did a test pull on it, so we'll see. Perhaps this will be yet another learning experience for me.)

FlyLady's mission for Day 4 of the Beginner BabySteps is to write my routines so far on sticky notes and stick them on my bathroom mirror and above my kitchen sink as reminders.

Check. (Sorry about the blurry.)

I've done a couple of five-minute room rescues, one each day, to cut the clutter in my living room and kitchen. It's exhilarating how much improvement can be made in five minutes, and when the timer beeps, it leaves me wanting to do more! But I'm already ahead of schedule doing these at all, so I'm restraining myself. I figure wanting more is way better than feeling burned out.

Finally Loving Yourself

2007-11-08T14:08:00.001-07:00

Joanne made a good point in her comment on my last post. Looking back, I'm surprised I haven't mentioned it yet. This whole getting-the-house-and-life-in-order thing? It really only makes sense and works if you're doing it for yourself. Not for your mom, or your partner, or to keep up with the Joneses. And while I've been a habitually untidy person most of my life, I actually do harbor a desire to live differently. I get tired of walking into my cluttered house, losing things, and not really knowing where some things go. And though I do have people over, when a new friend visits for the first time, there's a little embarrassment about it.

I would love to have the kinds of habits that result in a house where I feel ease, or even pride, when showing someone in for the first time. So I'm approaching this as a scientist, if you will. The preliminary results from my first flight with FlyLady are promising, but I still don't know whether long-term maintenance of the habits I want will work for me. This current attempt at getting (slowly, with baby steps) back into the FlyLady groove is my way of doing that bigger experiment in the best way I can figure out. And it's for me -- though others in my life certainly may appreciate it!

FlyLady (aka Marla Cilley) originally adopted that handle because she was a fly-fishing instructor. But after she started her housekeeping email list, one of her readers suggested that FLY should stand for Finally Loving Yourself, and FlyLady picked it up and hasn't looked back.

So... about Day 3
Today's instruction is "Do what we have already done." This pushes my "faster, faster!" buttons, but I'm going with it. So, dressed to shoes: Check. Sink shined: Check. And to keep things interesting, FlyLady also asks Day 3 flybabies to read this essay and to spend 2 minutes reading some of the emails that came today from the FlyLady crew. Check.

I'm noticing that with this deliberate, relaxed pace, I've gone from dreading my next move-in chore -- putting up wall-mounted shelves in the family room -- to being eager to get started. (I need to wait until the contractor finishes putting in a heat-exchange system today so there will be room for the initial rearranging that the shelf installation will require.) This has to be a good sign!

And the knitting...
I got in some good knitting time last night and at DD's class this morning, and I have turned the heel on the Simple Stripes sock. Here 'tis:

I'm torn about whether to continue upward in stockinette or 2x2 rib. I guess you'll have to tune in tomorrow to find out! I know ribbing works from past efforts, but I'd sorta like to see this stripe pattern continued the same way up the leg, and ribbing is bound to look different. Suggestions welcome -- ever knitted a stockinette-only (ribbing at very top only) sock in this gauge that you were happy with?

How Blogging Prevents Sports Injuries...

2007-11-07T15:47:00.001-07:00

I just had a bit of an "aha" moment about why blogging about BabySteps is helpful for me. Here's the insight:

I spent several months following the FlyLady program a couple of years ago. Since then I've made a few attempts to get back in gear, after letting my new practices lapse. I think that what unifies those unsuccessful attempts is that I tried to do everything at once. I had been able to do it before, so why couldn't I just jump right back in?

BZZZZZT. Thank you for playing, you may sit down.

I think that forming and solidifying good habits, including effective housekeeping, is a little like building muscle mass. You don't start off bench-pressing 200 pounds (at least I don't!). But if that's your goal, you start where you are and take small steps forward as you get stronger. My consistent-housekeeping muscles have atrophied, and I have to build them back up slowly if I want to be strong enough to carry the full set of routines in the long term. I peeked at the first 14 days or so of Baby Steps today, and found myself thinking, "Gosh, I could do all that today! Why should I wait?" The answer: I need to avoid the housekeeping equivalent of a sports injury that could bench me for weeks and possibly end a promising career.

So why is blogging helpful? Because anyone who reads this, including me, can tell if I'm rushing things. I need to do one day's work in one day, and blogging about it holds me accountable. (Of course, it also keeps me accountable for trying to follow the steps at all!) If I really MUST do something more on a given day, I can always unpack more boxes from our move. But I'll do it in 15-minute chunks, with rest in between, and keep checking in with myself about what I really have the energy for, and what's more likely to burn me out and hurt my progress in the future.

Day 2: Shoes

2007-11-07T13:47:00.000-07:00

On Day 2, FlyLady's Beginner BabySteps say to get dressed to lace-up shoes first thing in the morning. With shoes on, hair and face taken care of, I'm ready for anything. I don't usually wear shoes in most of my house, but I'm gonna give it a try for this month and see if it helps. So: lace-up shoes:

Check.

The purple socks are in honor of a need for laundry, though purple is also a special color in the FlyLady world.

Knitting on the Simple Stripes sock continues:

And I'm enjoying using my clean kitchen. I'm trying my mom's modus operandi: put away things Right. Away. No waiting/resting first/getting distracted. It feels weird, but then there's this clean kitchen staring back at me, and I think I could get used to that.

The 31 Days of FlyLady

2007-11-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

Do you think starting a blog inspires one to do things that might be fun to blog and/or read about? This is not an idle question. Because having started my brand-new knitting/whatever blog yesterday, now I find myself inspired to take on a quest.

Specifically, I feel like my house is a mess. Not quite a pigsty, though some might disagree. We don't have hoarding disorders or anything, but we have never been particularly tidy people. And hubby Tim has a pretty high standard for what he's willing to bring visitors into, in terms of tidiness and cleanliness. (I have standards too, but less shame.) Things are particularly bad right now because I've been sick with a cold the last 5 days and basically doing nothing whenever I could get away with it. Being pregnant, I don't like to take much in the way of symptom-relief drugs, so I mostly sat in my closed bedroom with a humidifier going, slept when I could, and knitted and read knitting blogs when I couldn't sleep. Some of this time was also spent feeding and playing with my daughter, age 3, but Tim took up a lot of slack there. He also mostly fed the family while I was sick. Thank you, Tim!!

So, we have a lot of what FlyLady calls CHAOS going on -- that's Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Ever heard of FlyLady? Back when I was first working her system a couple of years ago, I described it to friends as a sort of remedial course in basic housekeeping. Not for people who don't know how to sweep a floor, tidy a bedroom, or clean a bathroom, but for people who have a really hard time integrating those sorts of tasks into their lives on a regular basis. That's me, in spades. Maybe I'll write more on my theories about why I am this way in a later post. For today, let me just say I'm climbing back on the FlyLady train to see what I can do by taking baby steps from here (CHAOS) to there (a home I can bring people into anytime, with at most 15 minutes of picking up toys before it's presentable).

I wanted to post some "before" photos of the clutter I'm talking about here, but Tim talked me out of it. I guess inviting whatever fraction of the blogosphere eventually makes it here to view our current CHAOS was a little much for his nerves. Frankly, listening to him, I got a little paranoid myself.

So instead I'll post a photo of one part of our house that's looking decent right now, if you don't look too hard at the fingerprints on the dishwasher:

Our kitchen is, today and many days, mostly clean, sanitary, and usable. You might put fewer things on your counter, and maybe someday I'll get there too. But it serves us all right. And that's a characteristic of how we're living now: usually some areas of the home are in pretty good shape. The trick we're still working on is keeping most of the house in good shape, most of the time. Dare I hope for all of the house, most of the time? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

FlyLady has conveniently established a web page called Beginner BabySteps for people in my situation -- either just getting started, or needing to restart after not working the system for some time. It lays out 31 days of baby steps you can do in a fairly short amount of time each day to get on track.

Day 1
The mission for Day 1 is "Go Shine Your Sink." The idea is that you clean it really well once, and then briefly wipe it down at least daily after that, so it never gets visibly dirty again.

So, without further ado, here are some photos of today's work. I did the rest of backlog of dishes from when I was sick first, so I could see what the sink actually looked like. I'm still a little tired from the last of the cold, so I did it in 15-minute chunks, with 15 minutes of R&R in between. This is another trick gleaned from FlyLady experience. She's big on timers, and they do help me focus.

Here's the before photo: an old, scratched-up porcelain sink with lots of grease and other stuff mucking it up.

Here are the tools (going for relatively eco-friendly and healthy stuff, avoiding bleach and fumes for baby-on-the-way's sake): a flannel rag that used to be someone's undershorts, some creamy cleanser, and some more-abrasive stuff for the tough stains that otherwise would require bleach. Not pictured: the dish towel I dried with afterward.

I spent about 15 minutes scrubbing, rinsing, scrubbing some more, and so forth. The result: still an old, scratched-up porcelain sink, but worlds better than before.

Hooray!

The Rules...
Oh yeah, as I go along with the FlyLady Beginner BabySteps, I'm trying to get myself and the family on board by working out some rules and guidelines we can use to keep things nicer and do less crisis cleaning. Today's rule: when you're done with a dish or cooking implement, deal with it. Get it handwashed, or scraped and put in the dishwasher, before you go on to do anything else. If it really needs to soak, get it soaking. Don't put it off. I ran this one by Tim for his reaction, which was, "So, can you contrast this with what we're already doing?" Good question. Perhaps he's doing a little better on this score than I am so far. Basically, my answer was that I'd like our regular practices to be more like what we do now on a *good* day. Consistency is a big issue for us. And I think FlyLady's program, done right, will help with that. She puts a lot of thought into helping people not burn out or slip into perfectionism. And that's where this rule scares me a little: it may be too perfectionist. So I guess I need to resolve to make this my regular practice, and when I notice we're slipping, to do something a little like I try to do in meditation when my attention wanders: chuckle inwardly, say, "Gee, look at that," and then proceed to get back with the program as best I can without stressing out, SKIPPING the step of beating myself up first.

And the Knitting...
In those 15-minute R&R periods, plus some time last night, I started a new sock project. The pattern comes from Simple Socks: Plain and Fancy, by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts -- her basic toe-up sock pattern, sized for my foot (size 7.5) and gauge (10.25 st/in -- ouch! -- on size 1 needles for durability). The yarn is some KnitPicks Simple Stripes that was in my stash from a while ago, when I tried it and found it a little itchy. It still seems itchy, but I've had some experience in between with superwash wools softening up after washing, so I'll try at least one sock to see how it does. They aren't selling this yarn anymore; this may not bode well. But I want to do *something* while I wait for the yarn I need to finish the baby blanket to arrive. Wish me luck. And if you don't mind itchy socks, maybe I'll have sock swap material later on!

Why Blog? Why Knit? Why Mensch?

2007-11-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a lot of blogs by knitters and spinners over the last week, being sick at home and needing something to occupy the half of my brain that's not working the needles as I knit. I just read an entry in Yarn Spinner that got me thinking again about blogging. She posed the question to her readers, why do you blog?

My husband Tim has had a blog for a while. Sometimes I read it, sometimes not. He blogs about political stuff and other semi-random thoughts about the world. Sometimes I think he blogs about stuff that I don't have the patience to talk about with him very much. I think I wrote an entry or two back a ways under Menschkin's Mama or some such, but I've lost track.

But me, I haven't had much impulse to blog, journal, or whatever since I kept a regular journal for a year when I was 13. Boy, it's kinda painful to go back and read that now. But I keep it around, partly so I'll have a point of reference when I have adolescent kids of my own. And one of the comments in Yarn Spinner's blog got me thinking about that. The commenter wrote that she blogs partly as a record of her all-too-short life, for her kids, etc. as well as herself.

As a mom of one, with one on the way, I can identify with that motivation. I may wait for my kids to discover my blogs on their own rather than pointing them toward them -- just to give myself more time without the feeling that someone will be looking over my shoulder immediately -- but I can make sure they find out about them, assuming I continue long enough for the record to be worth reading for them.

So, here's a little bit about me at this point in my life. My real name is Deborah Mensch. I live in Boulder, Colorado, where I recently transplanted from the San Francisco Bay Area, California. I was in the Bay Area for 15 years, ever since I graduated from college. This move has been a tough transition. Our last address in California was in a cohousing community, which was a real godsend for me as an at-home mom of a 10-month-old, at the time we moved there. Even compared to our previous neighborhood, which was pretty kid-friendly and rich in other parents, living in cohousing was cool. It was like the best parts of living in a dorm for my somewhat-introverted self: I could walk out the door at most times of day and find someone for me and/or my kid to talk or play with. Impromptu playdates were easy. Child care exchanges were fairly easy. Back in the old neighborhood, I could make playdates, but it always seemed like a bit of an ordeal. Schedule around everyone's life. Then hope the date doesn't get cancelled due to someone being sick or whatever else. If it sticks, get in the stroller or car and get to the playdate. Wonder when a gracious guest would think it's time to leave. And so on.

In cohousing, instead of making a date in advance (though this is still an option, especially among families that have more crowded schedules), I could wander around and figure out who was available to play *now* or in the near future. We could play outside in the common areas of the community, or in one of our houses, or in the kids' room at the common house, or go to a nearby park, etc. Both parents could know that the comforts of home were mere steps away -- this made saying goodbye when we got tired, or needed to do something else, or saw our kids turning into screeching pumpkins, much easier. Sometimes we'd drop in and just play for the 10 minutes or half hour someone had free before a prior commitment. Sometimes I'd invite other kids over to amuse my kid while I fixed dinner. Everything was so casual, there was very little feeling of needing to be a "good host" or "good guest," cleaning up beforehand or providing food or whatever. Sometimes the little friend and/or parent would stay for dinner or a snack, but it was all very free-flowing and easy.

So you can imagine that the decision to move away from a situation like this was a tough one. I had some good friends, my daughter had some good friends, even my less-involved-in-the-community husband had some good connections there. What it took to get me thinking about moving away, besides the prospect of raising a second child in a 2-bedroom townhouse where Tim already didn't have the office-ish space he needed, was the prospect of setting up a new cohousing community that might meet our somewhat different needs better. Coastal California was kind of saturated in the places we were interested in living, so we started looking farther afield, and Boulder County looked good. There was even an available 3+ bedroom townhouse in an existing cohousing community in Boulder, so we could have the comforts of close community while we tried to build the community of our dreams.

Turns out the situation for real estate development in most of the U.S. right now is really bleak. If we build it... we probably won't be able to sell it for the cost of development. Ick. So now we're here for a while, not really planning on moving before Menschling #2 is due in April, and probably not for a year or two after that. We'll see if the real estate situation calms down a bit in the meantime. We have a cohousing community here, but the connections grow slowly. I had a lot of my life energy invested in the last community. We'll see if I can get there, here.

Whoa. That was more than I meant to say about... well, most of that. I tend to leave such subjects to Tim. Well, there you go. It's what's on my mind now.

So why KnitMensch? Well, the Mensch part is easy. I lucked into a pretty cool married name. In our case it's German (human being) rather than Yiddish (really *good* human being), but hey, I'll take it. Knitting came along for me when DD#1* was 3 months old and I needed to rest during her naps but couldn't always sleep. So I'd wear myself out trying to do housework. I needed a hobby that was portable (unlike my former love, quilting), child-safe (also unlike quilting, with all its pins, needles, and appendage-piercing machines!), and could be picked up or put down at a moment's notice (unlike... well, you get the picture). I'd done some crocheting as a child and more recently, but was beginning to get the feeling that knitting held broader horizons for me, or at least the prospect of learning something new, which is what keeps me young. So knitting it was. I remembered the garter stitch I'd learned from my grandma, put DD#1 in the stroller and got myself to the local craft store for needles, yarn, and a how-to book. I haven't looked back since.

I'm sorry to say that I've given away most of what I've knitted so far without even taking a picture of it. My first sweater for myself was such a travesty that it went straight to Goodwill. Never again will I knit a garment from 100% acrylic! It looked great and felt like sitting inside a plastic garbage bag. Now I have behind me something like:

One adult sweater (to Goodwill)
About 6 scarves (relatives, friends, did a couple on commission)
One novelty-yarn shawl
One linen hand towel (Hello, Mason-Dixon Knitting)
About 5 baby sweaters (mostly to DD#1, though one came out too small and went to a younger cousin of hers)
About 4 baby hats (all for DD#1, saving the little ones for DS/D#2 now)
One pashmina cowl (from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, for a relative last Christmas)
Two hat-scarf improvisations, for wee second cousins
One baby blanket for a beloved friend in my last cohousing community whose son was finally born just a few days ago
Myriad impromptu doll blankets and other simple doll garments -- sometimes swatches in disguise, one a consolation prize for DD#1 for not getting the abovementioned baby blanket
Three pairs of socks, two for me, one for Tim
One unfinished alpaca/silk lace shawl for whoever is in my life when it's done and can wear the right colors, and one unfinished short-sleeve cotton sweater for me (needs revision; problems with it are gumption-suckers that may leave this a permanent UFO*)
Probably several things I've forgotten, in case this doesn't sound like much for about 3 years of knitting-while-mothering

Now I have a baby blanket in progress for DS/D#2. I bought several colors of Knitpicks' Swish Superwash and improvised a pattern. Yes, the colors are pretty dark. I never got into the whole pastels-for-baby thing as a knitter. I'll post better pictures when it's liberated from the circular needle that's currently transforming it into a very bulky pouch.

I have a couple of recently-finished things I can actually show you pictures of (agh, I *will* get the hang of formatting pictures here someday soon):
Mittens and legwarmers for DD#1, knitted these past weeks in a renewed frenzy of knitting activity post-move (post home-canning season, really), especially while sick the last several days. The mittens are much-beloved, but the legwarmers have been pronounced "tickly." Maybe they'll work better over tights. Both are ArtYarns supermerino. The mitten pattern is from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (I LOVE multiple-gauge patterns, especially for a first try at a new kind of garment), and the legwarmers are improvised after a little swatching to figure out what might work. (The flared, not-in-pattern bind-off works nicely to help DD put them on the same way each time and not stretch out the ankle ends too much. See, you can pass off almost any bug as a feature! Elizabeth Zimmerman said something like that -- I think her only exception was for split stitches.)

Oh, yeah, one more reason to blog -- to get my sorry butt into the habit of documenting my knitting!! :)

Okay -- I've probably traded on being sick for long enough -- now I seem to be on the mend, and it's time to go muck out the kitchen (actually Tim has kept it from going completely to heck over the last several days) and get dinner together.

* For readers who haven't read dozens of blogs, let alone knitting blogs:
DD = dear daughter
DS = dear son
UFO = unfinished object

If I've missed any, try Google for definitions: just type define:word into the search box, replacing "word" with the term you don't know. Over the past several days I've learned a lot about knitting and spinning from Google definitions!