The Man I Love

I wanted to knit my husband a sweater a few years ago. I should have noticed that I was the only person who seemed excited about this prospect. I found a great pattern and a nice yarn but, alas, the yarn and pattern were not a good match. I knit the whole thing only to find it did not hang correctly and was way too bulky. By then I was already getting subtle hints and I never even showed the sweater to DH.

DH is a wonderful man, but he is picky about his clothes. Very picky. I can't even buy him clothes off the rack without exchanging them. He wants to be as nondescript as possible. A handknit item might make him "standout" and he doesn't feel standing out for any reason is a good idea.

So imagine my shock when he asked me to knit him something! He tagged along with me to a LYS I've been wanting to visit. He sat down among some books and showed me a pattern for a Christmas stocking and asked if I would make it for him. I was stunned, but immediately recovered and showed him what yarn he should select (Cascade 220 of course) while I looked at his pattern. I am knitting something for my man.

Now I am gently bringing up the idea of a sweater. A plain oatmeal or gray sweater. Maybe a tweedy gray...with a simple textured pattern...or a subtle cable...or a simple aran sweater...with several cabled patterns weaving up the torso...a full blown fishermans gansey!

Do you think that would make him standout?

Pathetic Excuse

I'm very busy these days. I realize there are very few people who are not busy and I do not presume to assume I'm busier than they are, but I have been too busy for blogging.

It's easy for me to snatch bits and pieces of time here and there, but I use it for knitting mostly. Especially when the holidays come around and those bits and pieces are harder to come by.

I have a close friend who is always in awe of my knitting and where I find the time. I am in awe of how beautifully clean and sparkly her house is. It's simply a matter of priority.

I have completed and brainstormed a few projects. Pictures will follow.

And in other news, our house is finally in escrow! Yay! We close before Christmas (just barely) which means Santa will have an easier time finding my ThYO a gift.

Life is a Highway

A certain Disney Pixar movie came out on DVD this week. My ThYO has been in love with this vehicular movie since he saw it in the theater--three times. So my FIL came up for the evening and brought the movie along.

I knew FIL would get the movie. I had been hoping to save it as a Christmas present but DThYO had been under the weather all day and it just hurt my heart to see his little flushed cheeks and glazed eyes. The movie made him feel 150% better.

Meanderings

My house is in chaos. Not my household, my house.

I realized this when I looked up from my naptime knitting. It makes sense that my house is in chaos, because for the past couple days my knitting has been in chaos. I have been swatching, frogging, starting, frogging and in general going nowhere. Even my WIP's can't hold my attention. What could have been causing all this cluttered knitting? AHA! A cluttered house!

So, I took some of my precious naptime and sparkle-cleaned the most obvious culprits. And now I have a teeny tiny grudge because I had to clean up the supplies that were used by my Boys to make my birthday card. I waited three days, and no one picked up. That just isn't fair.

But now the house is reasonably clean and now maybe my knitting will become inspired again.

The System

I am an organizer. I am not necessarily a cleaner but I am an organizer. I'm also a very mathematical thinker. I come up with logical ways to accomplish things. It helps me preserve my sanity.

Several months ago I did a yarn inventory in Excel. I was curious about what I had and how much and I thought it would be useful to have a list of some sort.

I had over two hundred balls of yarn. YIKES!

I have groups of 10-20 that are dedicated to projects, groups of 5-10 that are dedicated to projects in the making. Piles of yarn that have no project but I got enough so I could do a project should one come to mind.

Then there are the randoms. This was what genuinely shocked me. There were the odd balls that were left over from completed projects. Balls from projects that I scraped. Balls that I loved or wanted to try that never made it past the speculation stage. Random balls from when my mom cleaned out her stash. The list went on and on.

But I love yarn and my hobbies are the one frivolous expense I give myself.

So I came up with a solution to help me deplete my stash but still buy yarn:

For every two balls I consume/sell/give I can buy one ball.

That's it. That's the system. It's simple. It's motivating. It's easy to moniter in Excel. And best of all, I now only have 127 skeins/balls/cones of yarn in my inventory. I have made progress!

Too many calories, too many years.

Today is my birthday. As a rule, I do not like large festivities surrounding this day. I prefer to spend my energy on Halloween and Christmas.

The traditions I have regarding my birthday:

• My dh makes the cake of my choosing. He does not bake and half the fun is watching him fumble around in the kitchen.
• There is only ONE candle on mommy's cake. I have young children and I need to start that tradition early before thay learn to count past thirty something.
• I do not have to wake up early or change a diaper.
• We have the dinner of my choice.

This year I found a recipe for sour cherry cheesecake brownies. Black forest cake kept popping into my head, but I make the best black forest cake and that is also where the recipe lies--in my head. It was too much work to write down the instructions, so I chose brownies. They are sitting in my refrigerator right now and they look really good. A little good vanilla ice cream and a dollop of hot fudge and we are good to go.

We're going to my parent's for dinner. My mom is so happy to have me back home. She quickly volunteered to make my B-day dinner--Black and Blue salad. A wonderful concoction of salad greens, a supurb cut of steak grilled extra rare and blue cheese dressing.

My stomach is already rumbling.

Need a notion for a notion.

Yesterday I was kicked out of my house by my dh. He had to help my sons make their birthday cards for me. So I went to the only place I knew I could meander for over an hour--my LYS.

I have no budget remaing for yarn--we have two mortgages going until we sell our house in Washington, but I did need buttons for my coat. Luckily, my dh (he really is a great man) had purchsed a gift certificate for me on our anniversary (he had discovered that seven is the "wool" year--isn't that cute?). So off I went to find the perfect buttons.

Alas, the perfect button was in bronze. As the coat is black, white and shades of gray this would not do. Luckily, I did find other buttons to love.


The picture kind of sucks, but I think they will look great with the coat.

Now I need a project that will use those adorable bronze buttons. Those adorable bronze with enameled edelweiss, shank buttons. Sigh. Like I really need another WIP.

Is it "Finished" finished or just finished?

I finished it. I finished my coat/parka. The Turkish patterned, Norwegian constructed, Icelandic wool project.

I can honestly say I have never finished anything this persnickety. I have always veered toward more challenging patterns but this is the most challenging one I have finished.

So now I must confess. I am not as up to snuff with my finishing techniques. I can tackle cables and fair isle and I have knit a good foot or two of lace but I am less than average when it comes to finishing a sweater.

Now I have this beautiful coat and it deserves to be blocked. Which means it will probably sit around for another couple weeks while I try to think of a way to not have to block it.

This afternoon I put the coat on and paraded in front of my husband.
"Look, isn't it nice"
"You finished it! You should wear it this weekend."
"Um, yes...no...I still need to...oh never mind."

I know finishing isn't hard. But I am very mathy when I knit and it bothers me to know that all those calculations can fly out the window with a bad blocking job. Of course, if I finished more projects, I wouldn't be as scared.

Smells like wet sheep

A couple years ago I found a pattern in an out-of-publication book for a Parka/cardigan knit in Unspun Icelandic. I fell in love. After a year, I decided I had been good enough to my yarn budget to allow the purchase of said yarn. Last March I started knitting the thing.

I love Seattle. The weather is gray a good seven to eight months of the year which is very condusive to my knitting. The one drawback (for a knitter) is that the weather never gets very cold.

So in June, when the sun began showing it's face again, I realized "I am never going to wear this." I wear shortsleeves and a light rain coat during the Winter. Why on earth did I buy all this wool? Spun from sheep that live in Iceland no less. It was quite a depressing thought, especially since I was a good 40% into the project. I set it aside thinking I might finish it for my mom. In about ten years.

Then I moved back to Colorado.

I am so close to being finished I can taste it.

Pictures will be posted when I can accomplish such a technical feat (it's more a timing/computer sharing thing than an incompetance thing).

The monster that lives in my three year old

I have a three year old. Those of you that are parents will probably sympathize with me.

Everyone has heard of the terrible twos. When my son was two, all of the sudden the rule changed: "If you think two is bad, just wait for three." How reassuring. Insert new baby brother here and now we have an emotional rollercoaster in a child who is too short to safely ride.

Fortunately, there haven't been very many comments about four. Unfortunately, the joy of four will be lost among the chaos of another two.

This must be why parents strive so hard to be grandparents.

The first blog

Welcome,

If you are reading this, I can only assume you are bored and have landed on my blog by accident.

Of course the ideal first blog would be witty and clever. I'm not an idealist.

I'm new to this blog thing. I'm still curious about why anyone would want to air their cyberdiaries but here I am.

What you can expect to find here:
Status of my knitting projects
Anecdotes from my family-a husband, two sons and a cat. All boys.

I'm a stay at home mom in a small city in Colorado. I grew up outside Denver, but I have spent the past six years in Seattle. Before that I spent a couple years in Minneapolis. Two months ago I moved back to Colorado.

My interests include, but are not limited to sewing, knitting, cooking and general creativity. Knitting is my focus right now (after kids and husband of course). Another blog in the near future I'll post my WIPs. The list is so long it would take me hours to type it up.

If you got this far, it's time for you to go back to work or go to bed.