Itchy Twitchy

Another thing that I love to do besides knitting and crocheting is reading.  A few years ago, I discovered www.paperbackswap.com.  Essentially, you list books that you are willing to part with.  When another member orders one of your books, you send it to them.  All you have to do is pay for the postage to mail it out, which is usually between $1.50 and $3.00.  For every book you send out, you get one credit.  You can then use this credit to order a book from any other member.  It has been a great source for me to find some out of print books, or books I just wasn't sure would be worth spending money on.  Once you receive the book, you can do whatever you'd like with it.  Keep it, swap it again, give it to a friend...anything.  The book is yours.
Quite a while ago, I put the book Knit 2 Together by Tracy Ullman and Mel Clark on my wish list.  Yesterday, it came.  I have not been knitting much lately, simply because it's summer time.  It's been very hot.  I'm busy doing outside stuff. Mainly taking Ladybug to the town beach.  I'm always afraid to bring my knitting to the lake because sand manages to get in everything.  Unfortunately, knitting has been set aside.
Soooo, long story short, I'm aching to knit.  I spent yesterday afternoon practically drooling over some of the beautiful designs in this book.  And in the midst of one of the hottest weeks this summer, I am attracted to the adorable hooded sweater made with a wool/microfiber blend.  I simply can't make this right now.  Even though the temperature has dropped some, it's still too hot to knit a sweater made from lamb fur.  But my fingers are tingling to cast this sweater on for Ladybug to wear this fall.  What to do, what to do...

Back to Needles

It has been quite a week in my home.  Everything going on with Bud has sent us all into a tailspin. We've been doing a lot outside with Ladybug due to the nice weather. School is winding down. Seven school days left for Bud, eight school days left for Ladybug. (The first winter in my life when there were NO snow days. I think it is a New Hampshire first.)  And I recently found out that my mom is going in for open heart surgery sometime this summer.  What is one to do with all of this chaos?

Knit.
And knit and knit and knit.
And then knit some more. 

And that's exactly what I've been doing.  I have some projects going that I will share once they are completed.  The big thing I'm working on is a shawl for my mom for her hospital stay.  I brought a lot of my UFO's closer to FO's this week. I honestly think knitting saved my sanity.

Knitting Night

Wednesday nights used to be about having a few hours to myself.  That has gone by the wayside since Awana is over for the season, and the last time Ladybug went, Buddy and I had a huge blowup fight.  (And I mean HUGE.  The joys of parenthood.)  So I thought that knitting on Wednesdays was over.  Then, the library changed their hours and are only open until 8:00 on Wednesday nights now. (I live in a small town with a small budget.)  So knitting group has been moved to Wenesday nights.  Maybe tonight I can pick up my long neglected knitting and relax in the stitches.  I hope so.

Stress

As you can tell by the title of today's post, I'm a little stressed out.  There are several factors to this stress.

 Being the mother of a teenager who is almost exactly like I was at that age is no fun.  I have a fairly decent idea of how Bud works.  Not a clear idea, but I can usually figure it out. He's a lot like me in soooo many ways.  Some of them make me proud.  Some make me cringe.

I miss my husband.  I work in the very early morning.  My work day starts at 4:00.  Not long after I get home, the Man leaves for his second shift job. He works Sunday- Friday, and I work Tuesday-Saturday.  Which means we are home together on Saturday nights.  That is our only night together.  And getting up at 3:00 am to be to work for 4:00 usually means that I'm ready for bed at about 9:00.  Which is the same time we put Ladybug to bed on non-school nights.  So, it's not like we can curl up on the couch and watch a movie.  When we do, I'm usually snoring within a half hour.

I haven't been able to go to knitting group at all for the month of March.  Ladybug has basketball on Monday nights and it ends just as knitting group begins.  I could still go, but that means I have to plan dinner for 4:30 in the afternoon or 8:00.  So, no knitting group until next month.

Lastly, this knitting pattern I'm trying to design is driving me crazy.  I just want something simple to knit for my night alone tonight.  I'm thinking I might just dig out some cotton yarn and make a simple yarn over dishcloth.  Nice and mindless.

I hope you're all having a less stressed week than I am.

A Knitting Adventure

As some of you know, I published my last post on www.ravelry.com.  It isn't anything complex, and most people who have experience with crocheting in the round can figure out how to make it without a pattern, or with minimal instructions.

But, I'm very excited to have something on ravelry now. On that note, I'd like to get more on there.I have an idea for a knit hat, but since spring is on it's way, (HOPEFULLY! I do, afterall, live in New England.) I'm giving myself a deadline of the fall to not only design it, but have at least one completed project.  I love cables but have never designed anything with them.  I've never really designed anything knit. It's going to take a lot of trial and error.  And it's going to take a lot of swatching.  And frogging. But I am prepared for all of this, so it shouldn't be too bad, I hope.

The reason I'm posting about this is accoutability.  I put this out there so I have to be accoutable for the statements I have just made.  Now, there is no going back, right?  Heaven help me!  I'll keep you all posted!

A Knitting Playdate

I think that most everyone has a friend in their life that they can always remember having.  Or close to it, at least.  For me, that is my friend R.  R moved into the neighborhood we grew up in when she was 3 and I was 6.  The first time I met her, she dragged her little plastic slide into my yard and asked me if I wanted to play.  I said yes, and we have been friends ever since.  Over the thirty plus years of our friendship, we have gone our seperate ways at times and always reconnected.  A couple of years ago, we reconnected for what I hope is for good.  We have continuously e-mailed and facebooked each other since.  And every few months or so, we get together to knit.  Yesterday was one of those days.  We went to coffee shop the next town over from where R lives.

We didn't have coffee, but instead had some very delicious tea that they serve there.  We talked. A LOT.  R and I can not see each other for six months (as was the case yesterday), and jump right into a conversation as though no time at all has passed.  We knit. A LOT.  I worked on the poncho I am hoping to finish for ladybug by this spring.  And R showed me a couple of projects she was working on.  I didn't think to take a picture until she had put most of them back in her bag.  But she had some beautiful sock yarn that her husband had given her for Christmas a couple of years ago.

We had plans to go to the yarn shop a few doors down, but we got so carried away talking and knitting that before we knew it the sun was setting and the yarn shop had already closed.  Well, it's like I told R, we'll have to do that another time.  It just gives us an excuse to get together soon.  Although we don't really need an excuse!

The Most Amazing Woman I Know

Last April I was blessed with a day of knitting with my Gramma.  The purpose of our knitting was so she could teach me how to turn a heel when knitting socks.  She was knitting (on average) a pair of socks or mittens a day.  (I went with my parents and it was the first time in a I-don't-know-how-long that I was sitting in the back of my mom's car!)  When we got to my aunts house, my Gramma was waiting for me with two socks, knit to the heel flap, ready to teach me. She asked me if I wanted to learn her grandmother's way, or the right way.  I told her I wanted to learn her grandmother's way.  And then, something amazing happened. She started to talk about her grandmother.  I have a fairly decent knowledge of family history on my Grampa's side of the family, but Gramma never really told me much about her side. 

Gramma learned to knit when she was 11 years old from her Grammy.  (That's what she said, too. This cute little old lady sitting across from me called her grandmother Grammy.  I don't know why that surprised me, but it did.)  Her Grammy never learned to read or write, she never had a pattern to follow.  All of the measuring she did was with her hand.  The length of the cuff of a sock was the length of her finger.  Different fingers for different sizes.  Her thumb was for a child's, her index finger for a woman's, and her middle finger for a man's.  A sweater was just held up to the person to see if it would fit.  She knew the difference in the width and length of her hand and others in the family, so she could knit mittens for them from memory. 

Gramma is now in a nursing home and today is her 102nd birthday.  She is teaching others in the nursing home to knit.  She has seen a lot and been through a lot.  Just the fact that her fingers are still nimble enough to knit astounds me.  She has an amazing faith in the Lord and trusts Him with his plans for her each and every day.  My Gramma is amazing.

Finished! (#2)

As part of February is for Finishing, I completed a pair of socks that have been sitting for almost a year.  I wanted to learn how to knit socks, but quite frankly was a bit intimidated by turning a heel.  It just sounded scary.  So, I knit two socks all the way up to the heel flap and then they sat. For a couple of months. Until my Gramma taught me how to turn a heel.  After which I very excitedly turned the heel on ONE of them.  And then they sat some more.  So, after finishing my Mod Cables Hat last Monday, I dug them out.  Here is how they looked a week ago:

And here is how they look today:

                                                                                  
The one on my left foot is the first one I made.  Along with being one of my first socks I ever knit, It is also one of the first projects I ever tried on dpns.  If you look closely, (please don't, though) you can see that the one on my right foot is so much nicer.  It's amazing what a little bit of experience can do!

What have you finished this week?

Finished!

I finished my first item!  Woo-Hoo!  I actually finished it yesterday.   So this is what my Mod Cables Hat looked like on Friday:

And this is the finished product:

It's a rather snug fit, but that's part of what makes it so warm.  I needed to get it done in time to take it to knitting group last night to show it off. ( And since it was chilly on the walk there, I had to try it out.)  Hearing my fellow knitters "Oooh" and "Ahhh" over my hand knits never gets old! 

                                                                               

February is for Finishing

I recently started following a blog that I found simply by not knowing what to knit next.  Well, it's actually a little bit more involved than that, but it sounded better this way.  Anyways, I love post-Christmas knitting, because I always choose something small and fairly simple for MYSELF.  This year, I decided to knit myself a new winter hat.  (Aside from the Halloween weekend snowstorm, we had a late start to winter here in New Hampshire.)  So I was browsing through hat patterns on ravelry and came across the exact type of hat I wanted to knit.  Mod Cables Hat jumped out at me.  I had only made one thing before that had cables, and these cables looked...fairly easy.  I clicked on the pattern and was brought to Jeanne's blog, www.lifeincleveland.blogspot.com.  Let me just say that besides being a talented knitter, she is also very humorous.

Last week, she posted this:

And may I say that I am so happy that she did.  She has put a challenge out to NOT start anything new in February.  Instead, the challenge is to only finish projects that are already in progress.  Here is the best part: WITHOUT ANY GUILT.  So, here are some U.F.O. s I chose to work on in February:

                                         
Let's see how I do.

Teaching Ladybug to Knit

Just shy of seven years old, my daughter has decided she wants to learn how to knit. You can imagine my excitement when she said this. But I have only been knitting for about two years and have never taught anyone to knit. So we went to the local box craft store (It starts with an M and is a man's name) to shop for supplies. She has picked out some beautiful pink, green, blue and purple verigated yarn. I cast on ten stitches and knit two rows just to get her started. We say this ryhme to remember the four steps of the knit stitch: "Through the fence, catch the sheep, bring them back, over they leap." Somehow she now has about 20 stitches on her needle. No worries though. It's all about the process...