Breaking News!

Actually, I have lots of breaking news.

Number One. I met a deadline! Knitted three preemie caps and sent them off before the deadline. (I know!) This is part of the Knitters Cherish Life project, which grew out of a Ravelry group’s musings for a positive pro-life project. What did we do before Ravelry? I don’t remember.

Number Two. We had a blizzard last night, but it didn’t bring us any snow. If it did, that snow just kept going and is in Michigan by now. We just have bitter cold, frozen side streets, and no school.

Number Three. I cast on for a second sock. (I know!) Poor hubby has been so anxious for his second jacquard sock he has actually bought me more sock yarn in the interim between Sock One and Sock Two. Sock yarn for a different sock, that is. He picked up two skeins of Crystal Palace Panda cotton/bamboo (in Sable, and soft! soft!), and a set of Crystal Palace bamboo dpn’s. I have almost an inch of ribbed cuff so far.

Number Four. A fiberrific solution to the sagging U.S. economy, as reported here. Enjoy!

I’m pretty happy with my knitting right now. My list of FO’s for 2008 is longer than my list of things that need to be finished from 2007, plus things like un-knitted mittens for myself and Big Tom. There are a couple of hats sitting in the Think Tank, to be sure, but they’ll come out soon, I’m sure of it.

Stay warm — knit faster!

Mystery knitting revealed!

Add one more item to the list, or is that scratch one off? This morning it was between 20 and 25 below zero (Fahrenheit) with wind chill, and I realized that yet again my nearly-nine-year-old was poaching his future-four-year-old brother’s handknit mittens to wear to school.

I cast on almost immediately! And just as quickly deviated from the pattern (Fittin’ Mittens by Nancy Lindberg) by creating a 1×1 rib instead of a 2×2 rib. I made an extra long cuff (what he really wants are fingerless gauntlets, but cf. temperature, above), knit the thumb gusset nearly from memory, and am now proceeding up the hand. I don’t know if I will have a pair done by the time the bus comes tomorrow morning — in fact, I probably won’t. One wonders, then, why I didn’t just wait until the weekend so he’d have a pair by Monday without the sense of urgency.

I don’t know. Just had to cast on one more thing, I guess.

And while I was happily whipping out all this 1×1 ribbing on three dpns, I had to wonder why my sock output is so low. Two single socks of two different pairs, for two different people. When really, today, I was essentially knitting a worsted-weight sock sans heel. And I like knitting heel flaps, so what’s the problem? Socks have less cuff ribbing than these mittens do, really.

Here I have this dear husband who has so far brought back yarn from Los Angeles, Maine, and Madison (Badger game barter!), and stated that he wants to be the guy at work who wears only dress socks handknitted by his wife no matter what color they are or whether they go with his outfit or not. You’d think I’d be cranking out the socks right now.

Perhaps I need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

Maybe it’s the lack of wine, ever since our Biggest Loser Home Game Challenge started. On the other hand, I’ve lost seven pounds in three weeks, so wine begone!

Here. Talk amongst yourselves.

OK, no guesses. It’s a washcloth, people. I made another one, too, but it’s not for me, it’s for my XSIL who’s on medical leave from work for the rest of the school year. I think she needs more handknits.

Kick in the gut

I’m still recovering from last night’s heartbreak. It’s tough to come so close without sealing the deal, yet still remember that this was a team with no expectations of getting anywhere this close to the Super Bowl.

Not to mention that they weren’t doing poorly until I pulled out the Packer Hat to start working on the decreases for the top. Sigh. Sigh. Big Deep Sigh.

If you are not from Wisconsin, the one thing you have to understand today is that Packer fans are deep believers in the Jinx. Did we all do our part? Did we all do the things we did the last time they won? Was I standing in the right place? Was I knitting like last week, or not-knitting like last week? Was it too much to expect us to win after Brett Favre was on not one, but two covers of Sports Illustrated?

Nobody, but nobody wants to blame the Packers themselves. Somehow, after how hard they worked to get this far, it just wouldn’t be fair.

It’s tough to get going again, but I still need to finish the hat, as well as all the other things I flung myself into when I said I wouldn’t.

Here’s the current list:

Knit one, purl two hat: waiting for me to figure out the decreases.
Packer hat: top being knitted, then the brim.
Giftknit scarf: in progress.

Need to knit:

Second sock for DH.
Mittens for Little Man.
Fingerless gauntlets for Eldest Son.
Mittens for Self.
Second sock for me (Salt and Pepper).
Blanket/stole for Mom.
Many, many more socks for DH.

Darn that Ravelry, I also want to do the Fog sweater for DH and the Sunday Market Stole for myself. When I’m not writing this book, that is, or digging out from all the snow. (Yes, update your dance cards, it’s snowing in Wisconsin again. Why couldn’t this have happened yesterday at about 5pm?)

I just knew I was peculiar

I saw this link for “Get your own peculiar aristocratic title” at RevJen’s blog, and I just had to click.

Your Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:

Her Noble Excellency Elizabeth the Festive of Old Tonbridge Wafers

Wow, who would have known it?

This is just a quickie (i.e. the kids are awake and want me to do stuff). I’m getting mired in the book but finding more people to help me. Help is good. Learning to ask for help is even better. When I first conceived this book I wanted to be the one who called every store and typed every letter. Now I am smarter!

I’m still casting on for whole slews of things (none of which, I suspect, were on my List of Things I Shall Knit This Year), though I totally frogged one project and started over, and I had to tink back through several rows of colorwork on the Packer Hat when I saw two stitches from the Fair Isle section that never got picked up. I hated going backwards, but it was The Right Thing To Do. I’m almost ready to shift into forward gear for that one.

And I got the photos from the camera moved to the computer. It’s a little progress. Then I could see that all the pictures were too blurry to use for anything. !@#$%!!!!

More later, after I get Mr. Hyde some more applesauce.

Snow in January in Wisconsin

Apparently this is an amazing big deal, but it’s actually snowing right now. I just thought I should tell you.

I’m starting to get in a rhythm for the book, but it’s one of those deals where you look up one thing and find four or five more you ought to know… kind of like “browsing” through Wikipedia or wandering into a new yarn store. Oh lookie over here, did you know about this? And I sent out 25 e-mails last night for stores to verify their data, and I’m starting to hear back from the store owners.

The best thing that happened tonight was, after about five sessions of signing up for visitor information to be sent from various Convention and Visitor Bureaus (after searching for them in the first place), I stumbled across the website for the ASSOCIATION of CVBs in Wisconsin. Do I want them all to mail me information? Boy do I ever!

I don’t know what I’ll do with all this free time.

Oh, that’s right, I’ll knit. I haven’t been posting pictures but I have been starting and finishing stuff. (Check out my new page for FOs.) You simply won’t believe what will be the next project to come off the needles — probably tomorrow.

Any guesses? No hints! OK, one hint, it is something I have never made before.

Missed me!

People, we had a tornado warning this afternoon. Even the Weather Channel folks were shocked. But the tornadoes in southern Wisconsin were still far enough south and east of us that Chateau du Chocolat was never in danger. We got a couple of downpours, but never even any thunder. Tomorrow’s forecast is for rain changing to snow, so you never know. (All our previous snow got melted off after three days with the temps in the fifties, so we are ready to have our snow back and say goodbye to this stinking wall of fog.)

This puts the kibosh on my plans to sneak out to JoAnn’s tomorrow and hunt down alpaca sale yarn. My mother found some at her local store in Ohio and wondered how much she’d need for a sweater. I’m still a little boggled at alpaca yarn being at JoAnn’s to begin with. If you are out and about in the next few days trying to score some, please leave a few skeins at the Watertown store for me.

I have finally made something with a little bit of my long-hoarded alpaca yarn (Classic Elite, Inca Print). Last night I started, and this afternoon I finished, one fingerless mitt. I love it, but I bound off the thumb a little tight, so it takes some work to get it on and off. I think the kids were more in awe of it than Mr. Beth was. It was a super quick knit that I just made up as I went. I started with the pattern from Wendy Knits, adjusted for a different gauge, then did my own thing until I got to the thumb gusset. Once I get some pictures taken, and uploaded, and posted, you can tell me how you think it worked out.

This violated the rule I had made the day before, about finishing a UFO before I cast on for something new. It was actually more of a guideline, really. And as I mentioned before, it was a really quick knit and maybe the UFOs won’t even notice as this project flies by like a limo on Chicago’s Tri-State Tollway.

Spam Post of the Day

This one gets a special award for honesty!

I feel like a void. So it goes. I haven’t gotten much done today. I just don’t have anything to say right now. Not that it matters. Whatever. Come look at the other.

Oh, deer

So. Last night, bereft of my now-regular Late Night Knitting night, I headed east instead, to a great library where I could start searching all the phone books in Wisconsin for craft stores I didn’t already have in my database.

Should I take 18 all the way to Waukesha? Naah, it’s already dark, they said there would be fog, there might be deer. So I decided to take F from 18 to 94 and take the freeway in.

Three miles later I looked ahead and saw a doe that had just crossed my path, and a yearling that was following her and about to jump into the other side of the van. I don’t know how I threaded the needle between those two, but it all worked out. (Is there a special signal to give to oncoming drivers for “I almost hit a deer”? Because I really wanted to flash an alert signal to oncoming traffic.)

After the library visit, I came home on 18. No fog, no deer, no worries. Go figure.

What I did have were 39 extra contact forms in my binder, filled out for stores I didn’t have written down already — just in towns that started with the letters A and B. Tonight I updated the database, copied out the C and D cities from the database to the binder, and sent some store data up to Kathryn (hello Kathryn!) to be verified. I already need to make more blank copies of my own form. Sheesh.

Not much knitting today, except I think the K1P2 hat is ready for a crown. I’ll take notes, as I’m planning something clever but don’t know how to pull it off yet. Then I can cast on for my alpaca mittens. My hands are d@mn cold. Maybe I should make them as wrist warmers instead. Doesn’t that sound decadent?

Spam Post of the Day

In my spam bucket I found what looked like a chapter of a hardcore p0rn novel. Yikes! Delete delete delete! And shame on the author for lusting after 14 year old girls. I don’t care how big their chests were, that’s just *wrong.* Go tell someone else about it, or even better, just shut up and go to therapy.

Calling all scrapbookers

At the same time that I’m starting to compile this massive craft store directory (stores in towns that start with A, you’ll be hearing from me soon!), I need to do some freelance work to help fund it.

And that means… scrapbooking articles! If you are a scrapbooker, especially a digital one, would you raise your cyber hand and say “here I am?” I will e-mail you back to get the contact info for the scrapbooking store in your area that offers digital scrapbooking classes, promotions, or what have you. I have leads for Wisconsin and would like to talk to great stores in different areas of the United States.

Uh… knitting. Okay. I worked on the Knit One, Purl Two hat while the kids played upstairs today. I’m not sure how much it’s going to stretch, so I don’t know whose head it will fit, so I’m having trouble guessing how far to keep going. (Maybe I should just take an effing picture and upload some images for a change.) Maybe my fellow Hog & Bloggers can help me out with it tomorrow night at Knit Night.

If there’s a Knit Night. I haven’t heard the usual anticipatory chatter about it, so I’ll have to check again to make sure it’s not just me and Heather. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

Thanks to Sharon for volunteering to help with the directory. Now if only someone could tell me which box the rest of my office supplies are in. I found three boxes of hanging folders, now I need the file jackets. I remember exactly where they were at the old house. Sigh.

The first page is the hardest

So, I’m writing this book. And as I spent one hour tonight researching a single craft store that’s going to be part of the book, it occurred to me…

This is going to be a lot of work.

I’ve been planning this book for a while. It’s a directory of all the craft stores in Wisconsin, and there are a lot of ‘em. And every time I get in the car I wish I had written this d@mn book already so I could look up directions, store hours, and who’s open on Sunday. Nope, not yet.

But soon!

This month I am verifying all my data on almost 400 stores. And if you live in Wisconsin and are close to a craft store of any type, I could probably use your help. (E-mail me! Please!!) If you don’t want to help, I could use your moral support.

Or at least your understanding that, in January, I probably will be writing new posts closer to midnight than noon. Don’t give up, I’m still here and still knitting and the kids are still trying to steer the ship. Funny stuff is still happening, and (thanks to a kind benefactress) pictures of all of the above are coming soon.

I’m also busy playing Biggest Loser: The Home Game with DH. I’m not going to publish any raw data on The Internet Tubes, but I’m willing to share the percentage of weight loss and who was the winner for the week. We’ll weigh in on Tuesdays after we watch the show (NBC, 8/7 Central). We both have to break some bad, ingrained habits so it won’t be easy. But we both want to be healthier, so this is it.

Oh! And I knit a sock! We’ll just call it FO2008_01 for now. (More details are on the 2008 Finished Objects page that I just started.) I want to make a count of everything I finished in 2007 and update that FO page, too.

And who knows, if I can get all that done I might as well put pictures in my Ravelry notebook. But let’s not bite off more than we can chew, okay?