My fling with Lorna

After many starts and stops I have finished a pair of socks for myself.

Does it mean you knit too much when you finish up one project and as you're casting on another your husband says "Now what are you knitting?" I really think it was because I cast on for a shawl I'm knitting for a school auction and not another pair of socks since he so kindly stocked me up on Lorna's Laces while we were on vacation. I love knitting with Lorna. I love the stitch definition, I love the softness and on this pair I loved the colors, they didn't pool or make weird designs (you know, not the designs like patterned yarn makes, but weird random designs that look like mistakes). Soon I'll cast on another pair of socks, but first I have 4 hats to finish up with pom poms and ends worked in so that I can drop them off at the hospital, then there's the school shawl thingy and...well....there's always a project of 20 that are calling my name.

A New Place to Stash Stuff

I inherited my grandmother's desk. When I was a child this desk was always in the corner of the den in her tiny house. She kept dice for Yatzee in the drawer with the pens and pencils and assorted mailing return labels. The desk has three drawers and in them she kept letters. When she died she had 92 years worth of old letters. I'd love to say that I've kept every letter that has ever been sent to me, but I haven't. I have kept a great many of them tho. So, now the desk is crammed in a corner of my living room. The largest (bottom) drawer houses school supplies, the middle one has a paper trimmer in it. The cubbies have knick knacks, but they will soon be replaced with things like envelopes, tape, things the younger children like to get into but are not supposed to. They are not allowed to dig through this desk. It is for writing (which means homework can be done here), it is not for stashing (except for the drawers and they are mine all mine and I may fill them up with yarn, except the school supply drawer. The school supply drawer is what keeps me sane).

The girlchild is in half day kindergarten this year which means 3 hours by myself. I thought to myself when she climbed on that big bus the other morning (I swear she looked even smaller than she is when she climbed aboard the bus with a huge smile on her face) that I could get some knitting done and lots of stuff done that I can't do with her "helping" me. And I have. Sort of. Today is her 4th day in school and I know that I'll get into the "groove" again. It's been years (8) since I've had 3 hours on a daily basis to myself. I've had 13 years of children in school, but precious few without them underfoot constantly. For the past 3 days I've walked the dog for an hour, knitted for about an hour and did housework for about an hour. This morning I went grocery shopping and I have laundry going. I have gazed upon my knitting this morning. Especially the two baby hats (knit at the same time on one long needle), I need to get them finished and to the hospital. The doily thing is actually a washcloth, I am thinking about making a few and giving them to a sister in law for Christmas since she said she loves hand knit washcloths. But the pressure, I promised myself last year I wouldn't knit up a bunch of Christmas gifts because you know how it is. You tell yourself you'll knit all of these gifts in August, or September, after all you have months before the holidays. And then you find yourself a week before Christmas crying over your needles and nothing is shipped, heck nothing is even wrapped. But still......

Girlfriend's sweater

I finished girlchild's sweater. I really like it for the most part. I used Knitpicks "swish" which was lovely to knit with. I had ordered 7 skeins, and unless the kids hid a skein or 3 I used about 6.5 of those skeins. I have steamed the life out of this project because, for some reason, the edges roll more than a bear in a circus. I ripped the bottom out 3 times and then gave up because I was afraid that the yarn would become exhausted from all of the ripping. I don't know that I'll ever knit this particular pattern again, but I know that there are elements of it that I will use again. All I need to do is slap a few button loops on it and a few buttons and she'll be ready for her first day at kindergarten.

A boy turned 16

That would be my middle boy. And to celebrate him turning 16, after he spent the morning at the high school finishing up his registration, I took him to the Department of Revenue (I don't know why they just don't call it the "Department of Motor Vehicles") to get his learners permit. Being the mean parents we are, we didn't allow him to get his permit last year, he didn't have the grades and he won't be able to drive to school until next year anyway. We spent a lovely 20 minutes at one office only to find out that we needed to go across town, I knew that the line was too short at the first office. I'd been told expect to wait 2 hours. So when they called our number after 20 minutes I should have known. So off to the next office where we waited in line for half an hour just to get a number so that we could go wait (the receptionist makes sure that you have everything you need before you're given a number). Once we were issued our number we sat down and I got a good almost 2 hours of knitting done (in between listening to kids...mine...complain that they were tiredboredhungry).

I don't have a picture of said knitting, it still looks like a hunk of pink yarn. I discovered while I was knitting away that I need to rip out the bottom of it as I don't like how it's hanging. I think I'll try an attached icord when I get to that point. At the moment I'm working on a sleeve. What is the project you ask? It is Wendy's "Girlfriend Swing Coat" I am hoping to have it done for Girlchild to wear to her first day of school next week (of course it will probably be too warm to wear it, and perhaps it will clash with her planned outfit, not that she's excited about going to school, but we'll see.....) and once it doesn't look like a pile of yarn, I shall post a picture!