Knit, knit like the wind!

I’m not sure how this happened. I was perfectly happy with working on (or not working on) my few Christmas knitting projects, then everything just exploded.

I cast on for a Marquette-colored huge lap blanket for my husband. This is supposed to be finished in time for the tip-off of the first game, November 8. So far, this looks doable.

I pulled out project yarn for two three additional Christmas projects. One of which “needs” an orphan ball of white mohair, how does my mind come up with this stuff? Oh yeah, they might need to be done by Thanksgiving.

I swatched for (and thus internally committed to) the NaKniSweMo project for November. (Upside Downers from Patons! In Plymouth Encore!)

I decided to finish two lap quilts for Christmas presents. One is in the quilting stage, and the other has a half-pieced top. They’ve been dormant for a year and a half.

I have two freelance clients hoping I will get work done before Thanksgiving.

Did I mention we’re going to Ohio at Thanksgiving? One knitting meetup, one possible child handoff to the ex and his family, a huge family meal (not at Mom’s house!). But, at least eight hours of driving each way, so prime knitting time.

Le sigh. But I’ve been sneaking various podcasts into my brain, so even though I’m not caught up from when I loaded up the iPod about two months ago, at least there’s progress. I’m scared to sync the thing up with the computer. You have 32 new podcasts. Would you like to download them now?

On the plus side, I’ve been taking a lot more photographs of my current and past projects for my Ravelry records. If you’re Rav-enabled (now there’s a Freudian slip!), there’s a lot more to see there now. Please come and visit! I even rescued a picture of the Packer Hat from the blog and reclaimed it on my hard drive. Flickr is helping me save it now. (Is there a way I can post my WordPress media library contents to my free Flickr account and thus save all my previously blogged photos? Hmmmm?)

Over and out, it’s time to cast on.

Finishitis outbreak

This house is wholly contaminated with finishitis, so if you’re in need of a little mojo just raise your hand.

Yesterday it was the Red Scarf. Once I figured out who I wanted to give it to, it sped along like a banshee. Now it’s done, washed, blocked (it turned out to be just 50% wool but what the hey, it was curling, it was worth a shot), rolled, and stuffed eased into a container and almost ready for giving. Just needs a tag and a bow.

Today it’s the Ravenclaw Scarf. All knitting is essentially done. I just need to bind off the stitches, knot up all the joins, and sew the ends shut. The pattern calls for fringe on each end, but I don’t think that’s essential for boy Ravenclaws, do you?

In addition, I finished the T-shirt quilt on Friday, and it was shipped out to the recipient today. Picture… eventually.

Now I’m cranking on a Secret Project that I’ve had going for a while. I have six skeins of yarn to go, and just switched from Skein One to Skein Two.

And now that I’m thinking about it, I think I only have four projects on the needles right now — the Secret Knitting Project, one acrylic mitten (waiting for me to learn mirrored increases for the thumb gusset), the Packer hat, and Tyrone. I’m not making any predictions, mind you, but it sure would be nice to get each project over the little hump that it’s on, and have everything off the needles by the end of the year.

That still leaves me with three quilts to finish, though, so maybe I’ll need to come up with another plan.

For the new year: Mr. Beth has proclaimed that I am not permitted to cast on for anything that does not start with S-O-C. Loopholes, anyone?

Three sides live

Yesterday we had a snow day. It was the kind of day that (apparently) makes kids think that whenever there is snow on the ground, there won’t be school. It didn’t look bad at all in the morning, but when the Eldest came running back to the house, we began to think something was up.

“Mom! Dad! This guy in a purple car said there’s no school today!”

After telling him not to trust everything told to him by guys in purple cars, we turned on the TV and the radio and eventually heard that school would indeed be closed. This isn’t as simple as you think. The school told us that cancellation news would be on the Madison radio and TV stations (no call letters given), and if we lived in Jefferson “proper,” I’m sure that’s how we would have found out. But our phone exchange and cable package are actually tied to the Milwaukee area, so it did take a while for the news to come across.

We’ll become better parents eventually. I swear, someday we will.

Meanwhile, with everyone at home (except for Dad, who hoped in vain that he would get a snow day) we watched as the snow started to fall, then changed to freezing rain, then switched back to snow and piled on. At about 3pm it all stopped, and I got out the snowthrower to help our landlords with our driveway. They even rescued our mail from the mailbox, which had been knocked from its perch earlier by the snowplow.

Knitwise it wasn’t a good day for catching up. I’m chugging away on a Secret Project of a new type to me, the kind where the stitches increase and increase and increase until, whammo!, you’re done. I’m not up to Whammo yet. And since I have several more skeins to add before I get to Whammo, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a Secret Christmas Project.

Something happened on Ravelry a couple of days ago that I thought was pretty funny. Some knitters were kicking around the idea of an Elizabeth Zimmermann KAL with her Knitter’s Almanac, and I mentioned that I was going to be pretty busy in January (writing a book and all), but if someone gave me a copy of the Almanac for Christmas, I’d jump in when I could. A knitter replied that she had two copies and would gladly swap one for something.

She lives in Devon. England. I live a few hours from Pittsville (WI), home of Schoolhouse Press. I wonder how many miles this book will have on it before it comes “home”?

I also checked out her blog. Note that we have the same spinning wheel except for the finish (mine is more like honey). Ain’t Ravelry fun?

But here’s the Really Big News: Last night I finished the third side of the T-shirt quilt. In order to make it easier on my back, I kept the quilt folded up except for the part of the binding I was sewing down. It brought the work closer to me and, apparently most importantly, I couldn’t see how much further I had to go until I was almost done. At that point, I had five inches to go, and couldn’t not finish.

One side left, vacuum gently, press the binding edges down, pack and mail.

Piece of cake.

And did anyone catch the Anthony Bourdain Holiday Special the other night? It was a riot, especially if you’re the kind of person who thinks The Ref is a good Christmas movie. If you can’t catch this On Demand, or in a rerun, I’m so sorry. It was extremely snarky and rude, and very very funny.

Spam Post of the Day

Contrary to popular belief, the end of the year is one of the best times to look for, awesome descion

Halfway around

Three cheers please, last night I made it across the second edge of the T-shirt quilt. So, the top and bottom have their bindings sewn down (with some fudge room at the corners where I’m not sure how the final finishing will go). SO, I have to pin down the other two sides and keep cranking, then it’s back to Christmas knitting full time as soon as I get that quilt in the mailstream.

Next month I am putting knitting on hiatus (except for mittens) while I put together an even more important and long-delayed project. However, since I’m one of those poor unfortunates whose soul feels she can cross it off the list as soon as she’s talked about it, I don’t dare talk about it. When it’s done I will be promoting it heavily, so don’t worry, I won’t let it pass you by.

So, hmm, what else is there to talk about? This week has, so far, been about tragic losses. Not mine, but people I am just one link away from in the Kevin Bacon game. A beloved pet, a newborn baby, a classmate from high school. Love and pain are being all mashed together, and that’s not even counting the tragedies I’ve been finding out about on blogs.

I don’t have any answers. I just wish I could knit faster, and I wish that knitting faster could heal the world.

Getting there

I bound off a project last night. Woo-hoo! Then I started weaving in the ends. Grr this acrylic, it’s never going to felt together like wool. And once I finished one end, I was all excited until I counted the ends on the other end of the scarf. Eleven. Thank you, STRIPES. But I can take care of all that today and it’s one more present completed.

It also means I didn’t work on the quilt. So I *must* get back on the quilt bandwagon tonight and press on, hard.

In the meantime, the kids are shocked (“shocked, I say!”) to discover it’s COLD outside and the WIND is BLOWING. This will be a long and entertaining winter, for sure. I am looking forward to when they finally accept the concept of layering. (“Long sleeves? But Mom, I’ll be wearing a jacket!” “I don’t need gloves, I have pockets!”)

Three of my four children were, indeed, born in Wisconsin. I was one of those “uphill both ways to the bus stop” kids back in rural Ohio and you’d think being raised in Wisconsin would help pass that right on. Apparently, they’ve had it too easy.

But they also have a half day today. So Little Miss gets home as usual around 11:45, then Eldest is dismissed at noon and we’ll see how long his bus takes to get here. Usually about an hour. We’ll see how much I can get done on Secret Projects before they start arriving.

Oh…. did I mention I knitted a pair of mittens this weekend? Everyone was impressed. And now all the boys need pairs, too!

P.S. I just remembered my LYS dream from last night. I was just looking for a pair of straight needles in the most disorganized yarn store ever! I think things were arranged by manufacturer, all far away from each other. There was a deli or something in the middle of the store. The colors of the needles and the yarns were beautiful, but for goodness sake, why have a dream like this??? It was so frustrating! Ever have an LYS dream? “Tell me your dream, and I’ll tell you what it means.”

What killed my blog?

No, it wasn’t the 125 spam I accumulated in the last few days (see interesting one below).

No, it wasn’t my visitors last week.

No, it wasn’t the laundry duties. (Excuse me while I laugh.)

No, it wasn’t Ravelry. But I can see why you might think so.

I think it was… the Christmas knitting.

Some of it is done. Some of it is almost done. Some of it is languishing, almost forgotten, hidden from Certain Peoples’ View (thus explaining why it has been almost forgotten). Some of it is waiting in line to see which project is chosen for this week’s Late Night Knitting at the Sow’s Ear. This is the first scheduled all-night knit but I don’t think I will be staying even close to that long. 11pm is late enough for me!

Maybe the quilt is killing part of it. I’m hand-sewing the binding, and have finished one of the short ends. It’s a squarish quilt, so the short ends aren’t much shorter than the long ends. So while I’m under mental pressure to finish these giftknits and Secret Special Projects and such, ahead of time to allow for shipping in most cases, I also have to remember to crank on this quilt even though it isn’t really enjoyable at this point. At least it’s not difficult. But the only real enjoyment will come with the final stitch. Then I will vacuum the stray hairs off it, pack it lovingly, include a Christmas card, and ship it out.

Then I can get back to the giftknits again…..

And, in the back of my head, a small voice gently whispers, “Socks. Socks. Socks. Socks for you and your husband. Waikiki footies. Chocolate brown Merino socks. Lace socks….”

My mojo is calling, and my phone is busy. It figures.

Spam Post of the Day

I will forward this link to all my friends interested in this subject! Why you so think? On the Internet it is!

Seven little monkeys

Sorry about the long time no post thing. Knit Night gets me so high, then I come back to reality and the very next day is always a hard crash. Plus, I can’t talk about Knit Night this time because…. people are reading. They will find out what I did. Don’t worry, it was a good thing. But since it was a giftknit, I can’t do the reveal yet. Grr!

QUILTwise I have entered the final stages of the T-shirt quilt. Granted, the woman I started making this for a mere 15 months ago now hates me, but I am going to finish this in time for her to give it to her daughter for Christmas. Sigh. Won’t she be surprised. I think this is the end of my quilting-for-hire business, at least until all the kids are in school.

And that reminds me, I’m swatching for gauge on the Packer hat. As soon as I get gauge I will be able to map out the pattern in my mind. I may actually write it down, too.

Meanwhile it’s a slogalong on a couple of scarves. And quilting (and some machine piecing) on two small quilts.

But the big thing today (other than the departure of Mr. Beth for Los Angeles on business, yet again) is the arrival of my cousin and his family. We haven’t seen them since, I don’t know, summer 2006? They have three kids that dovetail in ages with mine. They are coming in the afternoon, and staying for dinner and overnight as they visit friends in the Badger State.

That means that tonight, the three of us will be tucking in seven kids. I wonder how that’s going to work?

P.S. Check out the website for the new embellishment magazine, Make It Mine. This is so cool, and published by the company I used to work for, at another hobby magazine. The time is so right for this one!

Blog broke, make blog go!

Thanks to Mr. Beth who just called to tell me that all he could see on my blog was his guest post with his review of Perilla. When I checked it out, that’s all I could see, too. And when I clicked on Comments to review my spam, it kicked me out to the same ol’ site view.

At last I got into Akismet kind of sideways, deleted the usual stupid but innocuous looking spam comments, and ta dah, site restored.

No clue why. Hope it sticks.

So, as long as I’m here…. all the puppy Tstocking needs is some Kitchener on the paw, and then I’m going to pick up stitches at the top of the Tstocking and knit a white faux mohair cuff in stockinette, which I’ll turn down. (I know I could have done this differently, but I didn’t think of that until after I got started.)

Then I need to hustle on to the rest of the Christmas knits and quilts.

I am stalled on the T-shirt quilt again, but I did wash and dry the backing material. I even got a letter from the woman I’m making the quilt for. She’s probably quite upset at how long this is taking me to do. I started with the best of intentions and should have pushed through and gotten it done in a couple of months. Instead it has dragged on for over 14 months and I am pushing to get it to her before Christmas. She does not know this, because I am afraid to open her letter and I don’t dare call her. I just want to finish the project, now that I have all the materials. (And her mailing address!)

My other work avoidance is the craft store directory. I don’t know how I’ll make the time to work on this, but I simply must. I truly believe it will get a grand reception all across the state, but it is going to be a LOT of work. Now I know why Crazy Aunt Purl kept her bookwriting under wraps. It’s tough to not be getting it done when everyone knows you’re supposed to be working on it. I hope that putting it out there, a little bit, will be creating the kind of pressure I need.

Time to go see what everyone else’s blogs look like. I wonder if they’re all featuring reviews of Perilla? Pretty sneaky, Harold.

Fast tracked knitting

Boy, I wouldn’t have believed this, but my new project came out of nowhere and is zooming past everything else on the needles in its urge to be done first. I don’t mind because it’s my brother’s Christmas present and it’s a really fun knit. In fact, it’s just about halfway done and I only started a couple of days ago. A new Knit Speed Record for me!

I’m even keeping on task with my IHS repeats, then switching to giftknit mode and blazing away. Of course I also knit on it during the day when the kids are playing in the Toy Room, and I took it with me last night to have something to do before the first of two parent-teacher conferences.

AND I got a box full of yarn to make something for my mother. I sent her a clipping of yarn I bought at the thrift store, and she took it from one craft store to another until she figured out what it was, and bought three more skeins. Good job Mom! Your detective work will be repaid with handknitting.

The yarn arrived yesterday, along with replacement clamps my dad made for my quilt frame. Yes, it’s time to resume my double-threat status. I have four quilts that come to mind right away as needing to be finished as soon as humanly possible. Of course, none of them will get to stay in this house after they’re done — they are all gifts. But after they get done I can start working on ones that will.

So far, so good, plus I might get a visit from Hither and Yarn author Cathy-Cate in the next couple of days. We’ll just keep our needles crossed, shall we? Maybe I should have her photograph and post all my projects on her blog. Naah, that would be cheating. But it sure would be nice to see another knitter instead of (still) my kids. Remind me again why they don’t have any school today or tomorrow?

Heaven and Hell

It was the best of trips, it was the worst of trips…. and as the cartoon caption says, “Come now, Mr. Dickens, it could hardly have been both.”

Yesterday “we” (he was driving, I was knitting on Red Scarf) got Mr. Beth to the airport in the nick of time to catch a westward flight, then I took off (with three little ones) in search of the elusive but talked-up Susan’s Fiber Shop. The short version is that I found it. The slightly longer version was that this shop is one of those that is so packed with every kind of fiber goodness that as soon as you step inside and see some of it, you’re attacked by wool-induced amnesia and you have no idea what you came in for. (I have had this happen in bead, scrapbooking, rubber stamp, and quilt shops, too…. as well as the grocery store and the thrift store…. hmm, maybe I should look into that fish oil thing. Maybe it’s just me.)

Anyway, it was wonderful. Wheels, books, yarn, sock yarn, needles, beads, videos, bags of fiber, braids of roving, back issues of magazines, kits, niddy noddies, dyes…. There were whole yarn sections I didn’t even get a chance to look at. I got my hackle, some colorful BFL to spin up, a new spindle, and a pair of knitting needles with little brown sheep on the ends. Susan herself wasn’t there (she had to pick up a ram) but she’s been e-mailing me since the visit. (Thanks Donna for all your help!)

After I got home, James the Eldest helped me make chocolate chip cookies so we could take snack to the Scout meeting. I dropped him off and bought backing fabric from the local quilt store, for a T-shirt quilt I really super super need to finish (i.e. for someone else). Then I went back to the meeting and took the other kids in with me, at which point I started having a killer migraine. The medicine was at home, of course. Somehow I made it home and got my meds in, but it was about an hour before they even seemed to start to kick in. I felt really sick to my stomach, so I took my nausea med too (warning: may cause upset stomach WTF???).

The kids helped by putting themselves to bed. The pain was horrible. I couldn’t even bear to think about knitting even though it usually calms me down. So I took out the new hackle and a gallon-bag of llama fiber and started dehairing. I got almost the whole bag done before Tom woke up and needed a goodnight snack.

It turned out to be the perfect thing to do during a migraine. I wasn’t sure I was doing it right, but this is very simple technology — basically, pulling chunks of fur through two rows of nails — so there weren’t very many ways I could botch it up. Eventually two piles started forming: soft fiber I could pull through over and over, and shorter, coarser fiber that didn’t want to do it.

The next step will be carding, after I’ve dehaired all that I have. And I’m thinking that that I will probably card the coarser fibers too, after I’m done with the fine ones. Practice is practice, and we can’t all be Mohair. (It’s especially hard when you’re a llama.)

Anyway, today I’m feeling a little better. My mouth feels like I chewed on cotton all night, and I could use some more sleep, but couldn’t we all. Maybe I’ll be able to knit today.