The faster I knit, the slower I go

Girl child decided she wanted this dress after I bought the book "Hand Knits for Kids" by Lucinda Guy. This is the dress featured on the cover of the book. It is the one that sucked me in. I am not a great color knitter. I have spent all of my life knitting things where changing colors is relatively simple (stripes and such). I've knit a couple of Christmas stockings and a Hello Kitty purse. I must have forgotten my inability at this changing of the color mid row thing, because here I am again. All in all I think the dress will be cute, and I've learned a lot. And it has dominated my knitting time lately (well, it and a Christmas gift for the husband), but at least it hasn't gotten boring.

Small hands

Fingerless gloves for a 4 year old princess sure do knit up fast. Now Robert wants a pair. I never thought I would see the day when my 15 year old son would be interested in yarn. Not, naturally, for him to knit (perish the thought of him knitting!! He doesn't think it's "cool"), but he was eyeballing some alpaca on the Knitpicks sight that would match his fleece jacket saying "Mom, could you make me some fingerless gloves to match this jacket, and that alpaca is so soft". Maybe for Christmas, if I get on the ball and get my other Christmas projects finished. Who knows.

Computer boy (the hubby) brought me home a ball winder (it says "wool winder" on the box....whatever).....late for my birthday. I think he was tired of watching me hand wind hanks of yarn onto toilet paper rolls. Sweet guy (I can't believe he braved a yarn shop!) The kids and I rolled a couple of hanks into little cakes to be knitted eventually.

Today B has off of school so we shouldn't have to rush like we usually do to get to karate. Computer boy and I have a racketball court reserved while B is in karate and K is bouncing on the bounce house the Y puts up on Friday evenings. Then our weekly trip to Whole Foods and then home......

Online Friends are the bestest.....

Several years ago I was drug kicking and screaming into the computer age. I saw no use for email, web pages, and never could figure out why I'd want to "chat" with someone on the other side of the nation (or planet for that matter)! We moved 3 states away from family 14 years ago. I kept in touch the normal way, phone calls and snail mail letters (which I still love to find in my mailbox). As my family was dragged into the computer age (my husband is a computer guy so we were pretty on the ball computer wise), I (grudgingly) learned more about this thing called email. Then I discovered Amazon, but that's a whole 'nother story. So I started emailing the few family members with email. Friends I made here moved away, so I started emailing them too. Pretty soon I was introduced to "the web". Good Lord!! You could look up anything! You could use it kind of like a gi-normous encyclopedia. Slowly I learned that there were web sites you could join, message boards!! You could BUY stuff on the internet and have it shipped to you, things you couldn't find in your little town and ordering stuff on the web is so much faster than waiting for the paper catalog!! A couple of years ago I discovered this thing called a blog. I found other people's blogs. I found that I cared very deeply for people who live all over the world, whom I don't know other than what they write on their blog (I'm still not a "chat room" kind of gal). I have found out things about the area I live in that I would never have discovered (a wonderful knit group, yarn stores, vacation spots etc).

All of this above brings me to this. We all have birthdays, whether or not we wish to or not. Husbands may manage to miss this day (he's trying, really he is, he did bring home a divine cake), but friends, even the online ones you've never met always seem to step in, as did Heather my dear online friend who lives too far away, but someday I do plan to pack up the camper and head east. A wonderful historic sock book, that even if I never knit a pattern from the book (I at least plan to use several of the stitch patterns from it and some of the toe treatments and some different heels than my standard.....okay, there are several patterns I'm planning.), is incredibly interesting and one I'd thought about buying for myself. 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces!! The color is incredible the yarn is....amazing. I've never bought myself Lorna's Laces, partly because only recently have I found an actual store that carries it, partly because....well...I don't really know why. She also included some most wonderful knitwear wash. AND a pattern for a beautiful scarf/shawl (how did she know that I have some yarn wanting to be knit into a shawl, but hadn't found the perfect pattern yet?) And the card was just something that fits in to what my family would send me. She is officially my sister of the heart.

And now for the knitting portion of this blog. Miss K has asked for some fingerless gloves. In pink. She is so tiny I should have them both done by tomorrow night barring some other thing that needs doing first.

Birthday day and other anniversaries

Today is my birthday. Tomorrow would be my parents 47th wedding anniversary and my grandparents 70th (or 71 I can never remember) wedding anniversary had 1975 happened (the year of the big divorce in my family). Every year for my birthday for many years my grandmother would say "Ted and I would have been married for x years had he not run out". Funny thing is he didn't run out on her and she kept the house while he lived in a travel trailer behind his sister's house. But the whole divorce thing is not something I wish ever to dredge up, so I'll leave it and my nana's voice in the past where that ugly scene belongs.

Today is also the marks the 7th year since dad died. I miss him every single day. Lord knows he wasn't perfect (who is?), and it took him a long time to grow up, but dad was a good person and I wish that my kids could have known him (Colin and Robert have some memories of grandpa, B and K have none).

So, at some point today I shall have a drink to dad, but in the meantime I am going to finish up my coffee and take K to the Y to exercise, run some errands and possibly, just possibly (probably) squeeze in some knitting.....Maybe even squeeze in some knitting for me instead of on the myriad of projects I have going on for others!

Cold hands, warm heart

I am not a hand model, my hands will never be mistaken for a hand models. My hands are just like a slightly smaller version of my dads hands (I liked my dad's hands). I have made several pairs of fingerless gloves, or hand warmers, or whatever you wish to call them. But, I've never made myself a pair. Finally I have decided that my hands are deserving of some fingerless gloves (and I'm hoping that with fingerless gloves I can knit, something I can't do with gloves on). Don't mind the errant strands of yarn, I've not gotten around to weaving in the ends, I'll do that when I finish the other glove, which is on my needles at the moment. The bowl in the picture is from tonights empty bowl supper. I stood in line chatting and knitting and this is one of the bowls I picked. Chris and the kids didn't get to the school where they were having the supper in time so I got to pick out 4 bowls (Robert took his ticket and got to pick his own bowl).

Snow and knitting projects

Not much to show project-wise since I finished my scarf a couple of posts ago. Just a couple of hats for the hospital. I've got a fingerless glove on the needles at the moment, hopefully I'll have two finished fingerless gloves before too long. It seems I've made everyone else a pair (the hub has asked for another pair, his met with an untimely accident while Chris was helping my brother with a building project. Chris got 6 stitches in his thumb and I can't remember if the fingerless gloves survived, I do remember blood on everything) except myself. So that's about it.

It's snowing. Tonight we're supposed to get 4 to 7 inches tonight, then 6 to 10 inches tomorrow. Then 1 to 3 inches tomorrow night. Normally I'd be thrilled. I'd be chanting "snow day, snow day" with the kids (if anything so there'd be no reason to leave the house). I'd make hot chocolate, bake some cookies and knit. So, kids, what do you think I'm doing tomorrow? Well.....funny you should ask. My son for civics class must do community service. A friend of his (whose mom is one of my dearest friends) also must do community service. So at 6:30 tomorrow morning my friend and her son are picking up my son and me and we're driving half an hour (if it wasn't snowing, hopefully it won't take us an hour) to the soup kitchen and volunteering from 7 until 2 in the afternoon. And if that weren't enough yucks for my day. Chris will pick Robert and me up from the soup kitchen and we'll drop Chris off at the hospital, because Chris is having sinus surgery tomorrow. I'll drive home, situate the kids and drive back to the hospital to fetch Chris and bring him home. Hopefully we won't get so much snow that the only way to accomplish what I need to get done tomorrow will be with a dog sled. (I can guarantee that my old golden and the little basset are not good sled dogs). I am hoping to squeeze in a little knitting tomorrow.....if anything for my own sanity!

g'night all, the snow is sticking and tomorrow is going to be a busy day, I need my beauty rest!

It's Yarn (and magazine) day!!

What a surprise it was today to walk out to the mail box and find a package!! Thank you Susie, and I'm glad that your auction went so well that your hubby doesn't have to sell his pride and joy project!! 8 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold silky wool in black.....I'm thinking some kind of sweater top (short sleeve? sleeveless? plenty of time to figure out the particulars) a bunch of Interweave knits, some of which will be sent on their way to Belgium where I hear you cannot buy them. A lovely smelling candle (I don't think I'll burn it, I think I'll put it in with my yarn so that the yarn will smell purty too), and......some of the most lovely yarn for hospital hats!!!

Girl child "helped" me with my hospital baby caps today. We made a pom pom for the top of one, and she promptly spilled drops of blueberry juice on the cap, so it's freshly washed and is drying so that it can be pom pommed. I think tomorrow when I cast on the next hat I shall cast on the lovely new yarn. I had thought about trying to have 2 more hats done by Monday and dropping them off at the main hospital (I am a volunteer knitter for the same hospital, different location). But Monday is looking a bit crazy. Robert and I (and one of his friends and his mom, who happens to be a dear friend of mine) are leaving here about 6:30 am Monday morning to volunteer at the soup kitchen from 7 until 2. Chris will meet me in town and I will drop him off at the hospital at 3 for his 4:30 surgery (sinuses), I will (more than likely) go home, situate the kids, or bring them back to the hospital with me about 6 (I figure that B and K would think it very very cool to have dinner in the hospital cafeteria. Robert being a teenager, probably won't think it neat, I may leave him home to eat cereal). Hopefully Chris won't have to stay in the hospital very long and I'm hoping that I can have whatever prescriptions he needs filled done at the hospital pharmacy. No, I'm thinking that I'll just wait another week or two before I turn in the knitted hats. I'll probably be lucky just to remember my knitting!

One of those days.

You know, you plan your day. A trip to Farmers Market (the last one for the season), thinking you'll pick up a few veggies for the week, a couple of errands, a workout at the Y. You don't bring your knitting with you, because, after all, you're running errands and exercising for goodness sakes! You don't need to throw in your knit bag. Besides you can knit tonight. But what you don't plan is finding pickling cucumbers at the FM, you figured that the season was long over for those. When your mom was here you gave her a jar of your home made bread and butter pickles, leaving you with only 2 jars to last until next season. (it is your mother's grandmother's recipe you're using, so don't even mention those nasty excuses for bread and butter pickles sold in the stores). So you buy a couple of dozen pickling cukes and a bunch of onions, knowing that tonight you'll be slicing cukes and onions and salting them to pickle tomorrow.....bites into the knitting time, but you really don't like store bought bread and butter pickles (you picky thing you) and you've had a hankering for them and everyone that used to make them for you is dead, leaving.....work for you if you want them. And you do. Very much.

So. You pick your son up at the bus stop and you stop in to the neighbor's by the bus stop and ask her if she'd mind if you picked her apples, as the trees are loaded and it doesn't appear that she uses them. She says no she doesn't mind at all, that she's never done anything with the trees and gives you a couple of bags so you don't have to walk home and grab bags. So. You come home with 2 grocery bags of apples (I actually may go down and pick some more in a couple of days). With which to make applesauce (I was raised on home made applesauce, and if you haven't guessed home made pickles and all sorts of home made stuff, I am spoiled that way). B is planning....apple pies, apple crisps, applesauce. The boy is disappointed because there is going to be no apple pie tonight.

Where does knitting fit in here. You see, it doesn't. K and I went to Farmers Market, then to the mall for a short errand (think shoes and socks), then over to Target. We mustn't forget the quick stop in Hobby Lobby. The Miss K just thought she'd die if we didn't go to the Y. So she went into the child care (her idea of heaven) and I rode the bikes and lifted weights for an hour. I came home fixed dinner, helped with homework sliced up cukes and onions (I thank God for the mandoline my MIL gave me because she couldn't use it). I have merely gazed upon the 2 bags of apples, they can wait until tomorrow while the pickles are in the water canner. This is a night for knitting on a hospital hat. I can knit them in my sleep. I wondered how I'd manage when I set the bar for making one hat a week. I know it doesn't sound like much. Just one baby hat a week, all of the kids but one are in school so I have more (yea right) time. But you know, I can knit gifts, I can knit for the kids or for me. But that hat a week. That's my peace of mind. Yes, I've skipped a week here and there, but I've also knitted 3 hats in a week. I love walking into the hospital with those hats. I think the feeling is much like the one my mom feels when she sees a bald woman and asks "I hope you don't mind my asking, but do you have cancer? Would you like to have one of my hand knitted chemo caps".

And now, my faithful reader(s?) I am rambling because my eyes don't really want to stay open, I'm off to sip some tea and put another couple of rows on this darling lace (simple pattern I've been knitting so long I don't even keep a row count) baby hat. G'night

And here she is!!!