The Sheep Heid Three

On February 15th, 2013 my friends and I started the Sheep Heid by Kate Davies. We found a group of people on Ravelry who were joining together to buy the 9 colors of Jamieson & Smith Shetland Supreme Jumper Weight yarn. See, each hat only requires 25 yards of each color and the yarn is sold in 188 yard skeins. It is rather difficult to get the yarn in the US so joining together actually saved on shipping too.

Anyway, we chipped in and got 3 lovely kits in the mail from the lovely woman in NJ who coordinated the whole thing and then smartly told the next group who came along to "do it yourself." We knit along but there were some bumps in the road. We had to tink and frog a couple of times and put it away when life got too distracting.

This hat combines 9 natural colors of Shetland sheep (no dyes used.) They have cute names like Moorit and Gaulmogot.  Did you know that Shetland sheep actually come in 30 different colors?!?  I didn't until I bought this pattern and made the hat.

This is us, a year later, we are all wearing our hats. Great job, Kerry and Kathryn! We did it!

Running Short

I have been knitting the Op Art baby blanket by Melissa Dominguez published in Knitty 2008 in Rowan Softknit Cotton and Halcyon Yarn Casco Bay Worsted for my new Nephew who is due any day now. I did stockinette on all the rounds but the last stripe.  Garter stitch in the round is slightly evil.

I am on row 6 of 16 in the final stripe (which is white) of this baby blanket.  Last night, hubby commented that it is almost done. I said "Yep and I will have a lot of black left but not much white."  I pulled the cone of black out to show how much is left and then pulled out the white ball that was looking deflated. A little too deflated. 

Tiny ball and big blanket.

I checked my math with my trusty food/ yarn scale. I had used this 50 gram ball to do 7 rows, I have 10 more ever increasing rows and it now weighed...GULP...20 grams.

I ran to the computer to buy another ball.  I found a coupon in my e-mail that gave me free 2-3 day shipping from Paradise Fibers. They are the super fastest shippers and I knew I could count on them.  I even got a notice that it shipped today! "I am going to have it before I finish knitting up this ball!" I danced around the house.

Then I saw the weather...we could get anywhere from 5-18 inches of snow tomorrow night. Sigh.
USPS says, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."  However, I believe I may be knitting on something else to get me through the storm.

My Mom "LIKES" me alot.

When I logged on to Facebook this morning, I saw that I have 5 notifications.  Three of the notifications were telling me that my mom "liked" something I wrote.  Sometimes, I think she uses the "like" button to mark where she has been, like my dog on a walk around the block. We have 55 friends in common which means anything I write, she sees. Most of the "Favorites" on my projects on Ravelry are from her. She has my first knitted washcloth and my Kindergarten art smock.  She has retired and moved to my hometown. I see her almost every day. She will be the first to read and comment on this blog post. To say she is my biggest fan is a bit of an understatement.

I was talked to my co-worker from China and she said, "You are lucky. Your family is so close. They all love and care for you." Her family, including her husband, is all in China except for her daughter, who my co-worker raised alone. 

I read my favorite Ravelry board, Selfish Knitters.  Lots of them have narcissistic mothers and they are just now as adults learning to tell people "no." Their mothers think the world revolves around themselves.  It is a very child like attitude that is hard for me to understand in mothers.

Then I drove home and thought about it.  My commute is my time. I listen to NPR and Pop music with no comments regarding my taste or political leanings. I call my best friend for a nice phone chat that is not interrupted by, "MOM! He is touching ME!" It is kinda nice.

I was so deep in thought, I lost track of time and ended up in the slow lane. I looked at the clock and realized I wasn't going to make it to both day cares before they close.  CRAP!  I picked up the phone and called the only person I knew who could help.

"Mom? Would you pick up the boys from daycare?...Thanks...Yes, Subway sounds nice for dinner...Yes, after dinner I have to take both boys to Bugs' Cub Scouts because Bear is at work and then I have to go to the grocery store...Oh...Yes it would be nice if you could take Boo AND go to the grocery store while Bugs and I go to scouts...Thank you, Mom, you are a life saver."

She wouldn't even let me pay for dinner or my groceries.  She makes me wish that real life had buttons.

So, I can click "LIKE"

One of those days

So, Tuesdays are my one day that I have to work full time and be an only parent.  I am aware that there are other people who do this every day but one day a week is enough to wipe me out.

My day was normal until I got home. I have two hours from the moment I get through the door till the boys go to bed.  My elderly dog peed in the bathroom, Bugs knocked his dinner on the floor on accident,  I realized a stitch was missing two rows down on my fair isle Sheep Heid hat, I found the DVD that I swore to my friend I had already returned it to her and then Bugs busted the mirror in his bedroom, also on accident.  So, after all the clean up, feeding, bathing and tucking in, I smothered my sorrows in a peanut butter & bacon sandwich while surfing the internet and listening to Boo NOT go to bed.

Then it hit me.  I remembered that I can just make the missing stitch from two rows below and then ladder it up like a dropped stitch.  Somehow, that made me feel much better (well, the bacon didn't hurt either) and I am going to bed on a high note.  

E-mail Quiz

Do you remember back in the old days when friends used to send each other quizzes through e-mail?  Like "Who are you more like, Brenda or Kelly?"
Or "Which New Kids on the Block singer is your soul mate?"

You answered the questions and got points for your answers or sometimes it would just say Mostly A you are...mostly B you are ...

So, one of these quizzes hit a nerve with me all those years ago. It was the "Are you Selfish or a Pushover?" quiz.  Really only one question hit the nerve. It said:

If you are headed to the public restroom and you know people are coming in behind you. There are 3 stalls. Do you:
A. Go in the first stall which is the handicapped stall
B. Go to the second stall in case there is someone behind you who needs the handicapped stall
C. Go to the third stall to allow others to have the first two

There were other questions like this and when you got to the bottom you found that people who picked A's were selfish and C's were pushovers.

Now, every time I go to the public restroom (yes, every time) I think of the woman (I just know it is a woman) who wrote this stupid quiz.  I know that she liked the first stall at work. She wanted it all for herself and she didn't want anyone else to use it. So, she wrote this quiz and sent it to her co-workers.  Then the other women were brainwashed into believing that they needed to use the second stall or they were a selfish person/ pushover.  I wonder how many women were affected by this e-mail. Then I wonder if I could make a quiz to convince my co-workers to clean their own dishes and not leave them in the work sink.

By the way, I was a Brenda and Joey was my soul mate, of course.

Boo Says

I think from now on I am going to have a "Boo Says" at the bottom of my blog post when my four year old says something funny or profound. To get you up to speed, he are some of the things he has said in the past:

• "You do not cut a banana with a tree trimmer. "

• "You call it a skylight, I call it a window."

• "Daddy has brown eyes like me...No, I did not get his brown eyes, he still has them."

• "If we get sick we might die but if we are dead we will not be sick." (This was sung.)

•  Boo told his stuffed bunny, "That is not good to hit, that is sad. We do not like hitting, that is why you are in time out. And only dinosaurs can kill other dinosaurs."

• "Red means stop, green means go and blue means cops."

• Boo was sharing his pretzels with me. I said, "Thanks Bud." He said, "Don't call me Bud. You can call me Sir."   

 I am not making any of this up, that is what makes it funny.

My feet got cold

At the beginning of the month, I was telling myself I just had to weave in the ends of my "Katniss Socks" (which is a misnomer because I hardly used the wonderful pattern by Rose Hiver, I took the braid/ ribbing and knit some DK toe up heel flap socks using David's Toe-up Sock Cookbook)

So then last Sunday, I washed the socks but didn't weave in the ends. They hung dry till Tuesday and then I put them on my night stand so they could mock me.  They sat their glaring at me until Friday night.  It was cold in the house and Daddy was out at the fire hall so the boys had piled into my bed.  I already had all the lights off but I couldn't sleep. My feet were so cold.  So grudgingly I turned the lights back on and as the boys happily looked at books a little longer while I sewed in the ends of the socks. (Yes I have a darning needle in my night stand. You don't?) 

They are super warm.  Like maybe too warm for my bed but they would be great for walking through the snow with no shoes. They will be great when I am sick and my feet will not stay warm.

Made from Suffolk Dorset boot sock by Solitude Wool made fuzzy with Angel's dog hair.