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.

Bugs went missing

I was sitting with my laptop early this morning and watching Tim Minchin and Only1Noah.  Boo was in the TV room watching cartoons and I had not seen Bugs yet.  Then I looked up at the clock. It was too late for Bugs to be sleeping. He wouldn't go to bed on time if he didn't get up soon and tomorrow is a school day. 

So I strolled into his room and his bed was empty.  His covers were on the floor.  I picked up his covers but he wasn't under there. I ran to his brother's room and our room on the chance that he woke up and crawled into another bed.  Nope and nope.  I started to panic (as I am apt to do) and I ran through the bedrooms again. I looked under the beds, around the closets, and under all covers again. What will I tell his father, should I call the police, OMG where the heck could he have gone! Would he have gone outside, could he be in the basement, maybe the back deck.

 I started yelling his name as I checked the bathrooms. Screeching when I turned the corner and there he was, coming out of the TV room.  He had walked right past me earlier while I was glued to the computer. I picked him up (hard to do because he is 7 and all legs) and I said, "I thought you were kidnapped by Aliens!" He looked at me and said, "Mom, Aliens aren't real." Touché.

Fair-isle Fingerless Mitts Get Fingers

I mentioned earlier in the week that I have been working on a fair isle project.

It is a project for a gift that was completely finished in June 2011. I followed the pattern exactly.
Heather's Mitts by Spilly Jane


 (There are three because of a gauge error.  The first one was practice)
The pattern is great but my friend here has small hands and they trumpet out. Plus she mentioned that it would be great if they had convertible mitten tops.  So, I stole them back, frogged out the top, re-knit the ribbing and then picked up the stitches on the back and knit up the top.





Then I will do the second. It is lots of fun because I had to make my own choices on lots of it. No pattern to follow. :-)

Computer stuff

I have been taking computer training this week for work. It has been very interesting at times and at times it has almost put me to sleep.  I did learn Binary, which is so much easier then people make it out to be.  It is simple addition.  If you can add 128 & 64, you can do Binary. Why do people act like it is this big secret?

On another note, my knitting widget (in the right corner) is lying.  I have not knit only 127 yards since Jan 1st.  I just normally don't put in my totals for knitting until I finish a project. I will soon have more when I weave in the ends of my socks. Then I will only have two projects on the needles.  Time to cast on a whole bunch of stuff and get overwhelmed.

Regress

When my mother stays overnight with me, no matter if it is one night or many, I start to revert to my teenage ways of sitting and watching her work. She does the dishes, laundry and seems to have a blast doing it. 

Her favorite part seems to be reading bedtime stories to the boys.  It is the one thing I am happy to take over after she goes home.  Harold and the purple crayon, Good Night Moon, Llama Llama, I could read children's books out loud for hours.  My real favorite is The Long Long Letter by Elizabeth Spurr. It sees to be out of print but I got a second copy on Paperbackswap because we have loved our first copy to death.

Do you have a favorite children's book that isn't well known? Please share it in the comments. We are always looking for new books.

Easily Amused

I want to training today. I got to drive a work car with work gas and a work toll pass down the toll road (which is normally way too expensive to drive) to a training place that had free parking.  Then their kitchen had free bagels, donuts, soda, filtered water and TWO Kureg coffee machines with tons of different flavors of tea, coffee and hot chocolate. Then they gave a voucher for $5 off to go out to lunch and my work paid for the rest of lunch.  Plus there is the whole thing of getting paid to be trained and work paying for the training.

My friend said I need to get out more.

Check, Check, Check, Check, Check

Today I slept in, fed my one kid, did 3 loads (so far) of laundry, knitting on my fair isle mittens and washed the socks that still need the ends woven in along with 1/2 a week of wool socks and under garments.

Katniss Socks

Then we went to the pool where we met up with my Dad and Bugs. We had tons of fun and I ended up walking 5 laps in the pool with 35 lbs riding piggy back. Now I am working on my blog (including posting yesterday's entry.) If you read Friday's post you will know that I have worked on all 5 of my goals for the day. Woo Hoo. Now to go to a Super Bowl party. TTFN!

Knitting in public

Bugs, my 7 year old son, went off to Grandpa's house today and left me home with just Boo, 4 year old son.  I asked Boo what he would like to do and he said Monkey Joe's. Imagine a warehouse with 10 big moon bounces plus video games and party rooms and you have the basic idea. Imagine also that it is 14 degrees outside on a Saturday and you can guess that most of Winchester with small children was there.

Boo ran around getting on all the moon bounces and I congratulated myself on dressing the child in brown/orange/blue and white stripe shirt.  It stood way out so I could see him from where I was sitting.  I still worried as I sat knitting, with him in eye sight.  Lots of parents were following their children around, huddled in front entrance of each moon bounce for their child to get back out.  I didn't want to do that because I hate standing in crowds but did that make me less of a parent?  Would he be safer if I followed him around?  Then my brain caught up with this train of thought.  I am a great parent and if he gets hurt, it will not matter if I am 1' away or 10' away, he will still be hurt.

Sometimes I would lose sight of him and I would worry that he was hurt or that someone was going to take him (kinda hard to do with the security system MJ's has in place but my anxiety has little to do with reality.) When this happened, I would take a deep breath and tell myself I had to finish a row before I went looking for him. Only once did he not show up before the end of the row and it turned out he was talking to a pretty female employee on his way up a slide.

So, knitting in public keeps me sane. It calms me down and it prevents me from acting before I think.

He fell asleep on the way home and I got to listen to NPR. Win-Win.

PS. I was knitting on my SKYP in the Woods socks.

Fair Isle/ Finish up/ Focus February

So, for the month of February, I am going to focus on things that have gone by the wayside.  Like my blog, my work out routine, my laundry, the fair isle fingerless mittens that need mitten tops, the pair of boot socks that just need the ends woven in. So, I am going to do a little of each every day. So, talk to you tomorrow. :-)

Reviewing my year

At the end of the year I do my very best to review my New Year's resolutions before I make new ones. So, here goes:
1. Exercise 3-4 times a week to lose weight (Angel is going on a diet and going for more walks.)
This was a success. Angel is at her goal weight and although I have only dropped about 10 lbs, I have gone down four pant sizes. I toned a lot and I can jog a 15 min mile.

2. Trim down the clutter in my house by selling or donating a big bunch of it.
I gave away tons (literally tons with a fridge, freezer, oven, 2 fish tanks and a dishwasher) of items to freecycle and goodwill but I have miles to go.  This will be a continuing process into the New Year.  I think we are going to assign a room a month to de-clutter. Hubby hates this idea but after moving his parents and mine, we have realized we have got to pare down.

3. Knit down my stash without buying a crap ton more. 
This one is open for interpretation.  I knit up 10,363 yards and I purchased  3,371 yards. Sounds great till you realize this is a "Katie" story.  Between swaps, gifts and yarn that I won, my new yarn total is 7,864 yards. Before you say swaps shouldn't count, I should confess that I swapped new yarn that I won or was gifted this year for other yarn so it still counts.  Plus none of that counts the fiber I have purchased.  I think I broke about even.  I did knit up lots of old yarn though so I will still count it as a win.

I think I am planning to keep these resolutions for the next year.  It took longer then a year to gain and it will take longer then a year to slim down.  Hugs to all and happy New Year!

Superfluous Knitted Parade

So my unexcused absence is just that.  I have not blogged for 6 months. I should go to blogger boot camp. Mea culpa.

Now, lets talk about what I have been knitting while gone from here.


This is the Ruched Yoke Tee by AnneLena Mattison out of Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece
I am going to knit this one again.  It is FAB.

 
This is Kiki Mariko by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne out of scrap yarn, mostly Lambs Pride.
I plan to make another one of these too.

TPHPE by Heather Zoppetti won me first place in the fair

 
Henry here was made from the  Wasabi the Gregarious Pug pattern by Rebecca Danger

I made pairs of SOCKS

Dragonfly Socks by Jocelyn Sertich in Yarn vs Zombies Damsel only took me a month to knit.

These 2 pairs of socks were made up in my head. The yarn is local from both. Top is Beyond Basic Knits and the bottom (Hubby socks on my feet) is from Solitude Wool.

 
Bugs is learning how to knit.

I will write more later about what's been going on. I think I am going to make Sunday my blog day.  We will see how that works out.  

And Breathe

This month has been like going into labor. There are moments of calm followed by painful progress that leads to a permanent change to life as you know it.  The only problem with this analogy is that you KNOW when you are done with child birth and every time I think I am at the end of this craziness, one more thing happens.

At the beginning of the month of madness, I was expecting to go through some big changes at work, lose a hubby to a crazy class/ work schedule and have my mother move 120 miles further away from us. All this has now happened plus

• We received Mom's stove, dishwasher and fridge that were all newer then ours which required finding homes for our old machines and install the new ones. Dishwasher still isn't quite right.
• The guy who was mowing our lawn and my mother's one acre lot quit and Bear had to take over mowing both.
• Bear took a renewed interest in the fire hall and has been volunteering at least one night a week
• I got a kidney infection and was laid up for almost a week.
• There has not been one week where I have workout all three times.
• Two friends have gotten the news that they have cancer.

There has been ups and downs but all and all I am glad to see the end of it. Knock on Wood.

Oh, when you have a Kidney infection and really good pain meds, there is little else you can do besides watching Firefly and knit on socks.






I think after this month, I deserve a pretty top and another pair of Monkeys.

Monkeys!

Right now my life is full of monkeys.

These are my Monkey Socks, pattern by Cookie A.  I frogged them out on May first (it was just a bit of ribbing anyway) to knit them for the Stockinette Zombies Two Balls KAL.  I was knitting on them at Bugs' spring concert (which means all the kindergarteners in the school to stand up on stage and sing.) I thought I kinda liked these socks and then the magic moment happened.  The kids on stage were singing "I'm a Believer" and they started doing the Jerk dance moves (which with 5 year olds go much faster.)   I realized as I was laughing at the kids that I had the pattern memorized. WOO HOO!!


Boo has a collection of monkeys and this last week he named them all.

Going clockwise and starting at the top they are: George the Big Monkey, George the Monkey Two Tags, George the Monkey No Tags (because hand knits don't have tags) and George the Monkey One Tag.

George the Monkey No Tags was made by SecretlyAMermaid but she never made a project page.

Then he named his Zombie the Podcaster that I knit him (which was previously deemed too scary to be his friend.)


This is George the Zombie No Tags.

Pretty methodical for a 3 year old.

Knitting Tip of the Day

I cast on two new projects this week.  One project is Monkey (socks) by Cookie A.  They will be pink and I am super excited but I don't have a photo to share yet. This is mostly because I have been obsessed with starting my second project.



Adriatic Cardigan By Amy Christoffers  is such a cool pattern and I just recently got enough Cotton Fleece in Prosperous Plum.  I hauled the magazine to bed with me Saturday night, read it all the way through and cast on.  I could not get past line 11 of the chart without messing up some how.   I ripped back and went to bed.  This morning I knit and ripped out lines 11-15 twice, the second time after sticking a crap ton of stitch markers in to help keep my place. The lace just wasn't looking like the photos. I went to spend lunch and did a bit of birthday outlet shopping with my mom. While out, I decided I should go to Ravelry to see who else knit this and if they had any problems.

Since I linked it above you may have already spotted the problem.  I didn't look for the Errata.  I should have been working off this chart.  So, your check list before you start a knitting project,  swatch, careful not to twist when joining in the round AND always check for errata before casting on.

P.S. My swatch for this project is a sleeve.  Since this pattern is knit sideways and starts with one cuff, I just figured I could swatch and if I get it right, keep on knitting sweater.  I would never recommend someone else do this because cotton shrinks and I never wash my pseudo swatch.  I am living on the edge.

P.P.S. I will be at Maryland Sheep and Wool on Saturday.  Stop me and say hi if you spot me.  I may be buying some fiber.  I will go into my spinning in another post.