One Saroyan scarf done

I'm in the winter doldrums I think.  Everything seems gloomy and gray.  Work is work.  Nothing exciting there, which at times can be a good thing.  Children are children with all the resulting drama.  Permanent teeth are trying to come in on top of baby teeth who seem really happy to remain tightly in place.  Not a good thing, dentist appointment for older daughter is now scheduled. 

Had drama involving my prayer shawl for a friend over the weekend.  Now I'm the one needing prayers.  I attmepted my first grafting of anything more than toes of a sock.  One extra exuberant pull of the needle and lace yarn prompted the needles to fly out of my hands and stitches to come tumbling off of them all helter skelter.  I sat in disbelief at what just took place in a mere second.  I'm pretty good at fixing mistakes.  this?  not so much.  I sat and cried.  Looked at the mess and cried again.  Got my tiny steel crochet hook out and slowly worked through the tangled mess and got the approrpirate stitches back on the knitting needles, but in a poor imitation of the actual pattern.  I took a deep breathe and starting from the other end tried a different grafting technique.  Success!  Until I realized in complete mind numbing paralizying horror that this particular form of grafting does not move or give.  Nope,  not moving one tiny inch, it is completely solid.  So my shawl which will block out to at least twice its width, is now trapped by this one imovable row of firmly bound off stitches.  More crying.  I put the shawl into a basket and promptly took a 3 hour nap.  Talk about exhaustion!  Did I mention I cried?  Later that night, I painstakingly worked and slid my knitting needles into the stitches in the row below and above the now horribly in flexible row.  Where once I've sufficiently recovered my wits, I will undo that row and end up once again with 2 separate pieces of knitting.  So oh yes, I can go through this torture all over again!  Lord help me, why do I love knitting?  sigh....and no pictures.  I couldn't do that. 

I did finish this.  My Saroyan scarf is complete.  It is getting rave reviews at work.  (Please avert your eyes from the papers piled under it and next to it.....that was the biggest "open" space I could find at my desk.)  You can't really appreciate the silver threads that run through this Dream in Color yarn.  I especially like how it looks in the evening, with the silver glinting off the waning daylight.  Ok, so we have no "waning daylight", it just gets dark.  But I do like how it looks at night in the soft glow of my Ott light!

and just so I can really try and remove the horror of tangled white lace weight yarn from my mind, a close up of the pretty leaves...that is the ticket...focus on the leaves....

Spring is in the air

OK, so that might be just a bit of a stretch, but the air feels softer and less biting...the sun is out longer and actually has some warmth to her.  While we still have mounds of dirty black encrusted snow, much has melted, leaving edges of the lawns showing.  No green grass yet, but you can at least see the grass.  Much to my dog's delight.  Have I ever mentioned that Gadget was a rescue dog?  We drove to St. Louis to pick him up, so he is most likely a southern boy and when he first experienced a true Minnesotan winter, I'm sure he thought we lost our mind, expecting him to do the most private of things OUTSIDE, when it is -30, with a foot of snow around.  So to make both of our lives easier and to accomplish the shortest amount of time outside in such unbearable weather, I've taken to shoveling the grass, yes you read that correctly.  I shovel the grass, just so he has a "place" where he can do his business without having to actually walk in the snow.  What I do for my dog.

But since this is a blog primarily about knitting, here is what I worked on this week.  pardon the blurry pictures, I'm not sure what happened...surely it couldn't be due to me trying to photograph my own hand and while that alone would have been hard, I made the decision to put the glove on my right hand and try to photo it with my left hand....sigh....this is a fast and easy knit.  I don't have the ends woven in, the top hem done which would revel the cute picot edge or even the thumb.  So there is just a couple hours at best left to do on mitt number one.  But the color.  Oh man do I love these colors.  And it is Casbah yarn which gives it a feeling of decadant softness due to the 10% cashmere.  I loves them...here is the Rav link to find the pattern.

I still haven't grafted Liz's shawl.  I don't know what my problem is, I can graft, but the thought of grafting over 90 lace stitches is way more daunting than grafting 9 toe stitches on my socks.  But this is it, she will be in office next week and I am going to give it to her.  And since I don't see the practicality of giving her two separate pieces of rumpled knitting and saying here you go, I will get this done.  Pictures....probably....fear?  most definitely.....completion?  Absolutely.

Gotcha Day, Urgent Care and a Missing Pug

The last week has been intersting, filled with a celebration of Emily's sixth Gotcha Day, Anna's participating in the 30 hour Famine, my visit to Urgent Care, and the disapperance of a pug.  And in between all this, knitting was done!

Six years ago, I was in China where I was blessed to receive a fiesty strong willed 22 month old little girl.  A scared sad little girl with eyes that seemed to swallow me.  Fast forward to today, my nearly eight year old fiesty strong willed child runs through life.  Determined.  Fiercely loyal.  We met her "fairy god mother" and the three of us wandered through a book store, Justice, and Claires after eating delicious Chinese food for lunch.  It was a wonderful time filled with memories both hard and wonderful. 

Anna participated in our church's 30 hour famine program, she and her friends made over 10,000 meals at Feed Our Starving Children and maybe, just maybe, got a glimpse of how so many others in our world today feel, hungry and wondering where their next meal will come from.  A good reminder for all of us.

My excitement involved a trip to urgent care.  That blurry picture on the left is my finger.  It was/is infected.  Very swollen and red yesterday, didn't want to bend.  I've done this before and knew I'd need a dr.'s help.  So off we went.  I do not mind waiting in the waiting room at urgent care, with it's first come first serve.  No problem.  But really, when you put me in the back in a tiny exam room, painted in a pea green color, with no magazines etc (and couldn't knit do to sore finger), please do not leave me in there, for any longer than 10 minutes.  I waited in that tiny claustrophobic nauseatingly green room for 35 minutes before the dr. finally came in, looked at my finger and agreed it needed to be drained.  I knew that it would be more painful to numb my finger than to simply make the small incision and drain it. (remember, this has happened to me before)  So a fem minutes later, I'm walking out the door with a less throbbing finger, more medicine to try and get rid of any remaining infection, and wondering if I could knit later in the day. 

After taking a nap during the afternoon, I finished this.  Which was just started on Friday night. It looks somewhat like a hot water bottle holder but it is actually a baby cozy.  and those are cute little owl cables at the top of the snuggle sack.  I think I will add emboridered french knots for the eyes.  And the color is so much prettier, it looks like a peacock feather when the sunlight hits it just right.  It is a blueish green with hints of purple.  Winter nights make for bad pictures.

And the last bit of news is Gadget disappered this morning.  He was snuggled in with Emily sleeping, I got up to take my shower, usually, as long as he has someone to snuggle with, he will stay in bed and wait for me to get out of the shower.  Not so much today.  I got up, Emily sound asleep, but no pug. I call him, look everywhere upstairs, no pug.  Go downstairs, calling searching, no pug.  Race back upstairs, calling more urgently.  Still no pug.  Drag sleeping teenager out of bed to start looking for wayward pug, when I see the dust ruffle move on my bed.  And shortly after see my pug come out from under my bed.  I now have proof he lost weight while my mom has been in Alabama.  Because he couldn't FIT under my bed before.  But happily after much loving and squeezing, our morning continued with no further drama.  Here is how Gadget normally sleeps, on a pillow, curled up tight, with hair extensions on his back.  What?  Your dog dosn't have extensions?  Or a pillow?  Yup, that is how it rolls at our house....

Rustic Roving

I finished plying the grass/hay filled brown roving I was inching my way through spinning.  I've never treadled once, stopped, plucked out hay, treadled twice, stopped, plucked out grass, over and over and over and did I say pull out grass?  Yup, I did that forever, but I'm amazingly happy with the end result.  A bulky, soft and lofty, wonderful deep dark chocoloate (not milk chocolate) brown yarn.  I still have a good ounce - ounce and a half left to spin up but I got two good sized skeins of this wonderful rustic yarn.  I still get such a surpise over what my end result yarn will look like, I thought this was going to be much thinner yarn, but instead it turned out to a nice heavy weight yarn.

The girls and I have about 2 weeks left before mom returns from her month vacation in Alabama.  While the weather hasn't been as warm as she hoped, she seems to be having a great time.  She has seen my niece and her family two times already and will go see them one more time before heading home.  The girls and I are playing some fun marathon Monopoly games each week.  We leave the game set up on the dining room table, eat our simple meals while we play.  Fun to see my 13 and 7 year old having fun, together, at the same time.  Wait, I must get picutres of it next time!  Just as proof we can all have a good time not only doing the same thing, but, gasp, actually doing it at the SAME TIME!  Will wonders never cease....

Tonight I will spin a bit, I need to continue with this deep blue, Neptune, I call it.  A nice change from the brown roving and the white of the prayer shawl.  Maybe I better start praying for me, so I will actually FINISH the prayer shawl....I'm close, I'm on the last border section...just taking a lot longer than I expected.  Why, when I'm not knitting on it much, I think it is taking too long, is just another knitting conundrum in my oh so logical world...

Roving Blizzard

February is fast slipping through my fingers.  My mom is gone for the month in not so warm Alabama and it is just the girls and me.  I relish this time, it rarely happens and for a month?  Heaven!  So I took last Friday off, the girls had school which gave me a ME day.  I got my hair cut at a "spa" salon.  I'm the type to go to Great Clips a couple times a year!  So going to the spa for a cut was sheer decadence.  I loved the parafin hand treatment and just felt very pampered.  Once home, again, just in case you missed it, ALONE...no children around!  I sat on the couch, with a happy dog in my lap and knit away.  I did work on laundry all day, Emily has more clothes than a local dress shop!  The handme downs have taken over and much culling is needed.  Which I planned doing Friday.  But instead, I just knit.  And I'm good with that.  smile...

I did get new roving in.  This is Aspen Gold from Spinderella.  Very pretty, reminds me of carmel apples. 

I also got  Oran Ja Glad.  I love the name, the color is a bit washed out so it is prettier in person.  Hate taking pictures in the winter!

And finally this is Peace o Fleece, again it looks washed out, but it is so very pretty.  I got 8 ounces of each, that my friends is a LOT of spinning.  And don't forget I have 2 pounds of mill ends in Pepi Lu Pue and a bronzey colorway as well.  Oh and a couple blue rovings.  oh my, I better get spinning....but I'm also knitting up a storm.  I'm nearly done with the prayer shawl for Liz.  I'm on the final border.  And since knitting white in the winter is a bit taxing I pulled out some lavendar Dream in Starry and started the Saroyan scarf, it is turning out quite nice I think.

Parking in the winter

This morning at work great laughter erupted when someone looked out the window at this.

Click on the picture if need be...but look closely at the 3 middle rows of cars....that is a big clue...should only be two rows!  Poor people in the middle.  Now I totally understand the difficulty in parking in lots here in the winter, no lines to guide you, it is guess your best.  But really?  They couldn't figure it out?  sigh...after a company wide announcement went out, the four people went out and moved their cars.  (and if it had been me, I would have borrowed someone else's jacket before running out there to move my car in an effort to hide my true identity!)

Yesterday I left work early and somehow my car drove to not one by two yarn shops.  I did take pictures of one of the items that leapt into my hands.    It is a really pretty blue/black with hits of a brown rusty color in it.  This should help me spin faster as I'm currently working on some dark grayish brown roving.  It has more veggie matter in it than I like as it really slows me down to keep plucking it out as I spin.  I tried looking ahead and getting it out first, but you can't see most of it until you are actually spinning...so I treadle, stop, pluck out, treadle, stop and repeat..

If you look closely here, you can see a big hunk of straw waiting for me to pick out.  But with the encouragement of the blue Neptune roving, I may spin faster....and then there is also the knowledge that I just may have ordered more roving from a new Etsy store...but that is a post for another day.  Must spin faster!

And finally, here is the first couple of skeins I made from my Pepi Lu Pue roving.  I must KNIT faster!

356 pairs of socks

What a busy last week...my mom left for a month on the Alabama coast, she will escape the February winter and enjoy the view of the ocean from her condo window and walks on the beach.  I on the other hand will be enjoying views like this and shoveling the driveway!

I took this picture of the morning skies as I walked into work today at 9:30.  The school bus was late by 15 minutes this morning, my commute wasn't horrible even though we got over 3 inches of snow over night instead of the 1 inch or less that was forecasted.  Such is life in the north.  We deal with it while shoveling, trudging through slop filled parking lots, and yet looking happily at the sparkling snow that has covered up the dirty gray piles of the past.  So in that respect I enjoy the new snow.

Knitting is moving along, I'm about 3/4 done with Liz's prayer shawl.  The one big problem with lace knitting is there really isn't anything to show, it looks the same as before, just more of it.  A rumpled swath of fabric falling off my needles.  I won't predict when I will finish it as I'm so far behind where I thought I would be.  I'll just keep knitting it and eventually it will be done.

I've spun up some Pepi Lu Pue.  It is good, I think slightly under plied, but still nice.  Pictures of black and white yarn in a dark gray world do not make for good pictures.  I also started spinning some of the local charcoal colored wool I found at a local farm just north of here.  It is a bit wiry and has more veggie matter in it that I'd like, but it still is looking decent.  And there is nothing wrong with slowing down as I spin to pull out the bits of grass here and there. 

I did make one decisison though, I need more socks.  (ok, so maybe reading about the one guy who has 356 socks, yup, a new pair for each day of the year and he washes them all in one shot made me feel like I needed MORE socks!)  I realized that out of the last 5 pair I've knit, only one has been for me.  And going through my sock drawer I just threw out 3 of my worn out hand knit pairs.  So new socks are needed.  And SOON.  I can't imagine having a different pair every day though, not even if I knit 3 times as fast as I do.  Plus given the added benefit of being my take a long project, it wasn't hard last night to look through my stash and pull out some Sockkata and cast on some basic vanilla socks.  The cuff is done and I'm just starting on the plain leg section.  Perfect knitting at lunch or waiting somewhere...while at home, the shawl or spinning will call me.  Life is good....