Bad knitting moment

I have been dutifully going round and round on my scratchy wool, stockinette stitch pillow cover, since my other projects are stopped at points which require some thought. Yesterday, I brought it with me as I took Thing 2 to the chiropractor. I sat in the lovely waiting room chair, picked up my knitting, slid the stitches into position, adjusted my fingers and SNAP! My size 5 Denise interchangeable knitting needle snapped cleanly off from the cable to which it was attached. So not only did I lose the pair of size 5 tips (one now is plugged up with the plastic from the cable and I can't get it out) and the cable, but I had to sit and wait for 30 minutes WITH NO KNITTING! I did manage to survive.

I have been eyeing the Hamony interchangeable needles from Knitpicks. I think I will invest in some size 5 tips and a set of cables now! At least some good has come of this! I still have the rest of the Denise set which I have been using and enjoying for years, so I supose that I don't need the whole set of Harmony needles just yet...

I am thankful!

It is lovely sitting in my nice warm house watching the snow drift past the window. I was going to do a little shopping, but I really hate to drive in snow if I don't have to! I missed the whole thanksgiving with the family thing because I wasn't feeling well (I hate throwing up on road trips!) so I have had a couple of days of quiet. I am very thankful for my family, and for all the things that we have been blessed with. I have also been thinking a lot lately about how grateful I am to be able to make things with my hands.

That brings me to the above picture! This is the shrug from Interweave Knits 2005 summer issue and it would really like me to finish it someday. I started it not long after I fell in love with it, but then got side tracked with the wedding gift mittens I pictured in another post. This shrug is knitted from the center back to the cuff, then the provisional cast-off is removed and the second half is knitted. This shrug is exactly half done. Maybe I will take a few minutes to pick up the stitches later today. I actually really enjoy knitting lace, but it does take all of my concentration, which I cannot spare most of the time. My current mindless knitting project is a pillow that I am knitting in the round in stockinette. I don't even have to look at it as I knit.

Anyway, I dyed the yarn for the above shrug, so I thought that I would share a pic of the yarn in a ball and in the skein. I have been very pleased with how it looks knitted up. I use KnitPicks yarn for almost everything. They carry good quality yarns and the wools are soft!

The Shoes

A warning: this post has nothing to do with knitting.

It has to do with something that I never thought I could do to discipline a child.

I believe in finding consequences that are very undesirable for the child. With my son, he would rather misbehave and have all of his toys taken away than behave and get to have his stuff. So we actually bought him a Gameboy so that we would finally have some leverage. That worked for him because he really wanted it and didn't like having it taken away.

A few months ago, my 5 year old dd was kicking the back of my seat on the way to somewhere (church, probably) and was generally being a brat. So I threatened her "If you don't stop that right now I will take away your shoes!" Now these are no ordinary shoes. They are lipstick red sandals with a bit of a heel. These are the shoes that my 7 year old dd saw in the store and she just could not leave without them "But mom, they are lipstick red shoes! We have to buy them!" And so I caved and bought a pair for each girl, even though we had been shopping for a more practical cream colored dress shoe at the time. Anyway, the 5 year old (we like to call her Thing 4) kicked the seat again, this time slipping and actually kicking my elbow (ouch!). When we got home, I took away the shoes, and put them on the top shelf of my closet.

The shoes were mourned. When Thing 3 was putting her sandals on, she would wonder aloud if Thing 4 would ever get her's back. When Thing 4 was wearing something red, she would ask if she could have her lipstick red shoes back. I held out. Recently, I told her that if she apologized, she could have her shoes back. And she did. Now she wears those shoes anytime she can, whether they match or not! Yesterday, she dressed for church in a coral dress with a pink sweater (handknitted!) and the lipstick red shoes. What a (colorful) picture!

Which led me to ponder on how strange it is to be able to take away a pair of shoes as an effective punishment (I will point out that she did have several other pairs to choose from-I didn't leave her barefoot!). When I was a kid, I could have cared less, as long as I had something to wear. At least when I was 5. When you have kids, you go into it with some preconcieved notions, that are often quickly dispelled. Each kid is different from the other, and more importantly, often quite different from you! It's all a great adventure, anyway!

Brenda

Swatch mitten cuff (soon to be frogged...)

I wanted to post a quick picture of my poor mitten! You can see the beautiful yarn (Thanks Holly!), that I would most certainly run out of if I continued as originally planned. Once I have taken a quick count for gauge, I will frog the thing and start again.

Knitting time has been at a minimum. The kids have been keeping me quite busy. Yesterday there was no school, so I took the three girls shopping for new coats and jeans. Gives new meaning to the phrase "shop 'til you drop"!

I posted some hand dyed sock yarn at my etsy store today, along with some very soft bamboo fleece throws that I hand dyed. www.dye4fun.etsy.com I am absolutely in love with bamboo fleece! It is fabulous to touch, and dyes wonderfully. I have been keeping my eye open for some naturally colored bamboo yarn to try (since I'd rather dye it myself...). I've also read about cutting polar fleece into thin strips and knitting with that and I have been wondering how that would work with this bamboo fleece, since it really is quite a bit different than polar fleece. I really must try it one of these days...

I started a new project Monday, finally starting in on the yarn I got from the Spin to Knit exchange. The yarn is so beautiful- a grey Romney skein and a blue Romney-Gotland blend skein. I started knitting mittens using a mitten pattern from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. The cuffs are oversized to fit over a coat sleeve, rather than under. I have the cuff done and really like the look, but I am going to have to frog it and start over. I didn't knit a gauge swatch- I planned to frog if it wasn't like I wanted, since my yarn is limited and impossible to get more. I like the gauge I am getting, the fabric is a comfortable weight, so now I need to do some calculations and figure out where to go from here. Definitely smaller cuffs. I would just keep knitting, but I won't have enough yarn for the design as planned. I could knit just one truly beautiful mitten, but that really isn't the point...
Brenda

My two projects

Today has been kind of low key. I've been going through kid's clothes and getting rid of things that are too small, moving on hand me downs that have been grown into.

I did find a few minutes to knit. I only have two projects on the needles right now. The first is mindless knitting- what I was working on earlier. It is a cushion cover in stockinette stitch worked in the round. It is a lovely shade of blue, but the yarn is kind of scratchy and I don't really enjoy working on it. I bought the yarn at a local harvest festival a few years ago, intending to make a felted basket out of it. Turns out the darn stuff will not felt. It is too scratchy for anything that I would want to actually want to wear, and I don't have very much of it. Hence, the cushion cover that it is finally on its way to becoming. Someday. Once I get another project going, I'm sure it will fade into the background. Unfinished.

The second project is actually half done, and has been for awhile. It is from the Summer 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. It is a shrug with a leaf lace pattern that I fell in love with. I dyed several skeins of yarn for it and took right off knitting (yes, back in summer of 2005). Then 2 of my brothers got engaged and I decided to make hand spun, hand knit mitten sets with a joined mitten for hand holding for each happy couple. That project took me a long time- though it turned out well. I have worked on the shrug a bit since then. I actually enjoy the lace, but I need full concentration, which is in short supply here most of the time. Now that all the kids are in school, I should be able to get back to it. It is worked from the center back out, and is currently waiting for me to undo the provisional cast on and pick up the live stitches to continue on to the second half...

Life in general...

Halloween was a great event at our house this year. The evening was not too cold- the girls didn't have to cover up their costumes with bulky coats, or put on multiple layers underneath! By the time we were done, the wind was picking up, so it did get chilly, but what a beautiful night. When we woke up Thursday morning, I was surprised at the puddles. It had rained hard sometime during the night. That made the beautiful evening the night before even more amazing!

I have spent much of this week dyeing various things. Today I wanted to just relax and do some sewing, but being a bit fuzzy headed messed up my sewing machine. So I spent much of the day driving to the sewing machine dealer and letting her figure out what I did, and then fixing it, and then coming back home. The dealer is 45 minutes away (yes, that is the closest one...).

So now I am going to go fold laundry, and then maybe I'll dust (it really has to be done when it reaches around 1/4" deep). I probably can't mess up those two things, at least not irreparably.

It is definitely not a good day to start a new knitting project!