The Present

Excuse me while I take a momentary break from the past to, well, complain about something in the present.

So for the past, oh seven years (since I learned how to knit), Chris has been asking me for a sweater.  And not just a plain, basic, run-o-the-mill sweater.  An every day, who cares if it gets dirty sweater, but an intricately cabled sweater.  A fancy sweater, an HEIRLOOM sweater. 

When he started med school, I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll make him that intricate sweater and give myself 4 years to finish it.  It can my my Med School project."  And I gave him fair warning, that I would make him said sweater, but I would take as long as I wanted to finish it.  Because, and this is the material point.  I'm not very good at cabling.  I seem to have a natural affinity for color work, it comes quick and fast for me.  But cabling?  Cabling is HARD.  I have to really focus on what I'm doing and I can't ever zone out, I have to keep reminding myself which row I'm on and look at the stitches that I'm knitting because some of them change and some of them remain the same.  So at the time, I thought this was a reasonable plan.

And then I started it.

Back in early May, I found this beautiful pattern.  It's an Alice Starmore (she's an AMAZING designer from the Hebrides in Scotland) and I have most of her pattern books, but I've put off knitting anything from them because I just didn't feel like I was a good enough knitter to try them.  But I thought, I have four years to figure it out!  It'll be fine!  So I knitted up a gauge swatch (and got gauge for the first time EVER), so I cast on.  I worked the cuff and got the cables started and was feeling pretty good about it, so I thought I'll pack it to Utah with me, we'll be in the car a lot, it'll be nice to have something to work on.  So I did that.

And the yarn...the yarn is this pine, muddy green, but looking at it in the sunshine out in Utah, it just came alive with flecks of emerald and gold and orange and teal in it and it was so pretty that I really was completely surprised by it.  So I kept working on it.  (If you follow me in Instagram, you'll have seen pictures about it.)

I got about 5 inches done on the front, and then started the back because I knew if I finished the front and had to start all over on the back then I would just dissolve into a puddle of defeated tears.  So I finished about 5 inches of the back and then set it aside while I finished the winter sweaters for the kids for this year (don't worry, they got plain, boring, run-o-the-mill sweaters).  And I lost the momentum.  And worse than that, my anxiety about working so many cables came BACK.  So then it just sat there, in my knitting bag, intimidating me.

I finished the sweaters for the kids and was worrying about Na Craga, so I just left it alone and I asked Chris what kind of socks he wanted for Christmas.  And you can probably guess what his reply was, "I'd rather have the sweater, it'll be more useful to me on campus...please?"  So I confessed that I was feeling a little intimidated by the sweater at the moment, and then I did what any slightly overwhelmed mother-home schooler-knitter would do and I cast on another sweater for Lilu.  It was a simple little pullover, it took me 2 weeks.

But at that point, I could avoid it no longer, so I went back to Na Craga.  I pulled it out, I looked at how much I had knitted and how much I still had to go.  I thought about the skills that I was going to have to LEARN before Christmas, because there are all of these things that I'm required to do that I've never done before, and back in May when I gave myself four years to knit it, it all seemed do-able, but now, in August, when I'm trying to finish by Christmas, it seems really scary!  But I've been working on it...and here's proof.

The bigger piece is the front, it's about 2/3 of the way finished, and the smaller piece is the back, it's exactly where I left it in June.  I still have all of the neck shaping, 2 sleeves and a collar to knit, and then I have to figure out how to assemble the whole monstrosity.  Before Christmas.


Pray for us sinners.


(I told Christopher on Sunday that I may never knit him anything else EVER again.  And he promptly said, "I'll ask for something simple next time!"  Hah.  As if there's going to be a NEXT time.)

I am well protected from the monsters...

So, my very sweet, shy and cautious boy has never wanted to dress up for Halloween.  He doesn't want to go Trick or Treating, he's very skeptical of Halloween generally.  But two years ago (this would be 2014 now) he wanted to go to the Trunk or Treat festivities at church, but he didn't want to dress up.  So Chris and I packed up Cameron and Lilu and they had fun going from trunk to trunk, but they skipped the scary ones.

Then last year (2015) he asked me (about 2 weeks before Halloween), "Mommy, I think I want to dress up this year."  And I fought the urge to lay my head down and CRY.  Seriously?  I've had 7 years of EASY Halloweens, and this year, THIS year that Daddy is in med school and Mommy is drowning, THIS year is the year you want to dress up?!  But I was very grown up about it, I said, "Really?  What do you want to dress up as?"  And he thought for a moment and said, "Percy Jackson." 

We had read the Percy Jackson books for bed time reading the year that we studied Ancient History because he was completely obsessed with Greek Mythology, and he especially enjoyed the stories about Poseidon.  So I thought, "Well, it could have been worse."  So I started to think about what we could do for a costume that would require minimal creativity and monetary expense.  And because Lilu MUST do everything that Cameron does, it immediately escalated into "I want to be ANNABETH!"

After a few hours of searching on the internet, I came up with a plan that I liked well enough.  I ordered Camp Half-Blood t-shirts from Etsy, and I bought the stuff to make them bead necklaces.  Chris watched a tutorial on how to make a wooden sword and we got to work.  I painted the beads to match the descriptions in the books, and once Chris had shaped and sanded the swords down, I painted them in the garage (in the aptly named Antique Bronze).  When the day of the Halloween Carnival arrived, I thought they looked pretty awesome (for a totally apathetic mother)!

They look pretty happy, right?  Let me tell you, tooling around with two kids armed with wooden swords makes you feel pretty safe...

Look at how ferocious they are!  I can't imagine where they could have learned THAT. 



But this picture is probably my favorite.  It totally sums up this child's role in our family:

She makes us all laugh.  When we're stressed out and overwhelmed, when everyone is tired and fractious and impatient, Lilu pulls a mug like this or says something odd and goofy and gets us all laughing again.  She does her fair share of crazy-making, but she does MORE than her fair share of happy-making too.

Back to It

This time last year, my Grandma got sick.  It was the beginning of the process of her dying, and while we were all hoping for her sake that it would be swift, it wasn't.  It was very hard to watch.

I learned to knit 5 years ago, partly because I wanted to be able to make clothes for me and my family, but also because I wanted to make my Grandma proud of me.  I always thought that she loved my sisters more than me.  And in our last conversation, she told me that she knew I thought that, but that really it was just that she had had more time with them than she had with me.  Yes, it was heartbreaking, but also good because it gave us both the chance to tell each other that we loved each other now and it was ok.

My knitting this time last year was all fairly simple and it was such a painful thing to go and see her so changed from what I was used to, that I need a MUCH more distracting project, something that required my total concentration.  So I started an intricate pair of Latvian mittens for my sister-in-law.  I made it through the cuff before my Grandma passed away, and then I was just too sad to face them.

They languished in my Bin of Unfinished Business through the Spring, in the storage unit, through the Summer, and just last week I got them out again.  We're going to Savannah for Thanksgiving and I'm determined to finish them before we leave.

They are intricate and pretty.  The colors that Kristi chose play in interesting ways off of each other.  But looking at them makes me sad.  I shall be glad to give them a home where they will be looked at and worn, and make the receiver happy instead.

Concession Speech

Last Saturday I declared that I was ready and able to rise to the challenge of my Pile of Sewing Projects.  There was a baby gift to be assembled, a birthday dress to be finished and a pile of cozy flannel nightgowns to be put together.  I put on soothing music, I opened all the blinds so as to make the apartment as bright as possible, and Christopher took over the task of occupying the children.

I worked for an hour.  I gathered and pinned and sewed and unpicked.  And unpicked.  And UNPICKED.  Until I had an epiphany.

I was beaten.  Defeated.  DONE. 

I chocked the birthday dress up to a "learning experience" and promptly threw it away.  I had gathered that skirt FIVE times.  I had stitched it to the bodice THREE times.  I had unpicked more than I ever care to unpick ever again.  I acknowledged defeat and left the field of battle with shame, but with my sanity still (sort of) in tact.

I moved on to the baby gift.  And I cut and pinned and stitched until my machine jammed at which point, expletives were thought a-plenty, though, I remain proud of the fact that I did not utter them in the presence of my children.

At that point I moved on to LAUNDRY.

But my sweet husband, unjammed the machine and proceeded to do the first step in assembling for me.  I later returned, finished the gift and then wisely packed the whole mess AWAY.  Far, FAR away in the very top of my closet until I can regain some composure.

So as you can see, my skillz are not quite so MAD as some would mistakenly believe.




I'm going back to knitting.

The Year in Making

I feel like I worked consistently this year on various projects.  So in a way, I feel like I should have more to show for it than I feel like I do.  Here's the tally of what I did this year,

• 4 pairs of sock for the Boy.  He's outgrown all four pairs now, so they're packed away and he's wearing the 1 new pair I knit for him in December.  I have 1 more pair on the needles for him, but I think I've learned my lesson, I'm not knitting him that many pairs of socks until his feet stop growing.
• 1 Red Sweater for my Boy.
• 1 Cream Sweater for my Girl.
• 2 hats for my Girl (one pink and one white)
• 1 pair of mittens for myself (I'm working on a hat to match and the hat is about half way done, which is why there is no picture)
• 1 pair of socks for Chris (also no picture as they haven't been washed yet.  But they were DONE by Christmas!  And that is the material point).
• 1 Baby Surprise Jacket that I gifted to some friends at church.
• 2 other baby sweaters for two other friends who both had boys.
• 1 hat to match one of those sweaters.
• 1 Bronte-esque shawl for me.  This was a stinging defeat, since I didn't get gauge, I did the math and figured out how many stitches I would need to make the shawl the size I wanted it to be, and when I finally bound off (with 800+ stitches!) the dumb thing was STILL too small!  But it was a good lesson to learn, because in trying it on, I realized, I'm just not a shawl girl.  It seemed like a practical idea at the time (because I could also just wrap the thing around a cold child and presto! warmth), but there was no way that I was going to put it back on the needles and continue to increase it out.  So I ripped the WHOLE thing out, balled up the yarn and set it aside.
• 1 pair of knee-high socks for me.
• 1 sweater started for me and about half way done, but then abandoned so that the children could have sweaters for winter.

And that's it.  But the really frustrating thing is that it's winter and I am cold.  Chris has a fleece jacket that he wears all the time.  The kids each have their sweaters.  My sweater that I made last year...well, it's pretty trashed actually.  Partly because I made so many mistakes that annoy me and so I don't treat it as carefully as I would if I hadn't made those mistakes.  And partly because I have small children.  I basically live my life in a washing machine set on AGITATE.

And since I am the cold one this year, I have declared that 2014 is the Year I Knit for Myself.

I have a couple of projects on the needles for other people (fingerless mittens for my sister in law in Savannah, and a pair of socks for the Boy), I'm going to finish those first.  I have one substantial project planned for my Sister Out West (it's going to be a Magnum Opus of a sweater), it's planned, I just need to swatch and then start knitting, but my goal is to get it done and out to her by Next Fall, so I have plenty of time to just sort of meander through it.  I will, of course, be knitting Christmas socks for Chris again.  And if I get a couple of sweaters and a couple of pairs of socks done for me, then I shall be making Chris a sweater too.  I'll have to make at least a simple sweater for my Girl as she's already out-growing her Cream sweater.  But as long as I keep it simple, it should go quickly.  (That's the other lesson I learned this year, for fast growing children, best to keep their sweaters plain and simple.)

The first sweater for me is already started.  It's plain and simple and boring but it will be WARM and that is the important point.  The plan is to break up the plain, simple knitting with more adventurous projects.  An extensively cabled sweater for me (and maybe one for Chris if I get mine done), and perhaps...I haven't quite committed, but perhaps a Fair Isle sweater for myself.

As for the sewing, the only things I finished were the pajama pants for my Boy.  I made 16 pairs in total and he LOVES them.  As in, would never take them off if only I would let him leave the house in his pajamas.  Alas, I do not.   I started a dress for my Girl, but it's not done yet. 

So, I have a pile of sewing projects to work on as well.  I still have my Girl's birthday dress to finish, and then a baby gift for the Boy's Sunday school teachers, and then I have a pile of flannel to turn into cozy nightgowns for my Girl.  Depending on how the dress turns out, I'll post some pictures here.  The bodice is done, I just need to gather the enormous skirt and get that thing attached to the bodice and the zip inserted.  It doesn't sound like that much, but I have gathered and ripped out that skirt FOUR times already.  So, you know, pray for us sinners...

Warm and Happy

May I just say, I love antibiotics.  I especially love it when they give me my healthy children back.  I don't think they're a cure all for everything, but when you have a pesky infection, they're sheer brilliance.  And thanks to that magical pink goo, my Girl is back to playing and reading and wreaking havoc, so I've been able to catch up on some of the stuff that was neglected while my attention was turned where it was most needed.

Meanwhile, the weather has cooled off, necessitating the emergence of my Girl's sweater.  And since I didn't take pictures of it back in June when I finished it, I thought I would show you just how darling it is.

 Nice of Molly to photo-bomb my Girl, wasn't it.

It's really hard to get a decent picture of this girl.  

Even when she's sitting still, she's still moving, so everything is blurry!

It's simple and plain, which suits my Girl just perfectly.  Furthermore, it was easy and decidedly relaxing, which is how it came to be the sweater that launched the Red Sweater.  I can't tell you how satisfying it is to be able to pull out seasonal, hand made pieces of clothing for my kids.  

I watched this wonderful documentary on the golden age of British knitting, and one of the things they said was that you always know where you are with knitting.  They said it's safe, secure, protective, methodical, but at the same time creative.  I whole-heartedly agree.  

It also keeps everyone warm.  And that makes me happy.

Proof

We have been enjoying the most luxurious Fall weather.  Cool, crisp mornings followed by warm and sunny afternoons and cool evenings.  Not yet cold enough for sweaters and socks, but still, after a long, muggy summer, it's been a welcome change.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and chilly, but I still opened up all the windows and doors to air everything out after a Summer of recycled and conditioned air.  The Boy declared, "I need my sweater, Mama!"  So I cheerfully went to the bin in my closet and pulled out his finished sweater and tossed it to him.  (Which was the whole point in working my fingers down to nubbins this past summer.)

And here is the proof that the Red Sweater is, indeed, finished.

As you can see it's too big.  But that was on purpose.  I'm hoping that it will last him for the next 2 years.  It looks slightly off kilter, but that's the angle of the photo.  I assure you, I worked really hard to make sure those patterns would line up across his chest.  The collar is messed up on one edge, but turned out just perfectly on the other, and by the time I knitted the collar I was so exhausted that I couldn't bring myself to rip it back and make it perfect. 

All told, we're both really happy with it.

Sucked into a Vacuum

This could be a cry for help.


Or a ransom letter.

But the one holding me hostage is an unfinished red sweater.

I have learned my lesson, never again will I allow a FIVE year old boy to dictate what kind of sweater his mother knits for him.  That was foolish, my friends, FOOLISH.

Back in June I whipped out a charming little cream princess sweater for my girl.  It worked up so quick and satisfactorily that I immediately wanted to cast on a masculine counterpart for my boy.  So, and here is where I made my mistake, I asked him, "What color sweater would you like Mama to make for you?"  And he said, "RED, MAMA, RED.  It makes me feel BRAVE."  And who doesn't want their charming and effervescent son to feel brave?

So I cheerfully ordered four skeins of cherry red wool.

Now, my original intent was to knit a PLAIN sweater for him.  Plain and red.  But then he asked me one day, one day as he was cuddled up to me, if I would knit snowflakes into his sweater.  And I looked down at his sweet face and big, imploring brown eyes and I said, "Sure, baby, I can knit you snowflakes."  And I cast on.

As I worked the sweater I became concerned.  It was looking a little bit small.  But I was a third of the way through it and didn't want to push the panic button, so I did what any reasonable woman in denial would do, and I took it to my sister.  I asked her what she thought and her jaw dropped.  Then she very gently said, "Sweetie, this is too SMALL."  And then she rationally took my child and held up the sweater against his back and I had the double realization that A) my child, my sweet, cherubic toddler is now a fully grown FIVE year old boy, all arms and legs and things that are TALL and lanky; and B) I was going to have rip out this third of a sweater and start over from scratch.

Not only start over, but work without a pattern.  Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't really that hard, it just means I have to think while knitting and it's a lot more relaxing to just follow a pattern.

So my sister wound up the yarn while I ripped out the knitting.  And then I took it home, and punished it by shoving it into a bag in the closet.  In all honesty, we were going to Savannah the next week anyway and I needed to do a lot more thinking before I could get back to working on it.  So I knitted myself a pair of socks while I did the thinking.

After Savannah, I finally went back to it.  And I have been sucked into a red, snowflakey vortex of never-ending knitting ever since.

And I am TIRED.

It has been an ordeal from the get-go.  I knitted the bottom cuff plain and  for about 4 inches before starting the various patterns, and then I had the terrible realization (this was when I was almost done with the body) that because of the stranded color work, the plain section was flaring at the bottom and looked ridiculous.  So I painstakingly picked out the cast on edge and ripped the bottom 4 inches back and then re-knitted the bottom cuff into ribbing to pull the body back into line with the stranded color work.

Last night, I reinforced and CUT open the steeks for the armholes.  It was a little traumatic, necessitating a few brief moments lying down on the floor and breathing deeply.  Then I picked up and started knitting the sleeves.  I have only ever knit sleeves down from the shoulders, never up from the cuffs, but this evening as I was reading various books on the topic, I came to the realization that to achieve the look I want, I'm going to have to do just that.

I'll save that ripping out for the morning though.  I think if I rip that 3 inch of sleeve back tonight, I might just throw the whole thing out of the window.  And it's raining and muddy out there.

So if you've been wondering what happened to me this summer, THAT, my friends is what has happened to me.  And the other realization that I've come to, is that knitting a double thick, intricate sweater is a great project for MID-WINTER, not the middle of a hot summer.

In happier news, the Boy and I are starting back with school on Monday, and he'll start art classes in 2 weeks.  I am about to embark on that great initiation of motherhood, the Chauffeuring around of a child. 



Pray for us sinners. 

As you might imagine...

Every time we're going to move, or, as is probably more applicable, we think we're going to move, Burnstopia goes into survival mode.  It means we don't do much cooking, we eat out of our freezer and pantry, and it means that we clean out and chuck out.  But it also means that we SHELVE a lot of projects  that require more time and energy than we have.

So the process of the past few weeks has been to tackle those projects (finally), and then to do things that I have so cheerfully put off.

• After 3 years, I finally went to the dentist.  Just like the last time, I waited until there was PAIN before making an appointment (we don't have dental insurance, so going to the dentist is a luxury in these parts), and I steeled myself for bad news (aka cavities).  No, no.  No cavities, I'm just grinding my teeth down to nubbins.  Fortunately, since the stress of moving has been removed, the pain has also abated, and now I know that my teeth are good for another three years.
• We have finally committed to swim lessons for the Boy.  I considered them last year, but he was still very shy and cautious, and I didn't want to shell out money if he was going to be a big chicken and not learn anything.  So my niece is coming in once a week and working with him in the pool here in our complex, and then Chris goes with him in between lessons to practice.  My contribution?  I made him a pool robe!
  
• Actually, I made one for each kid, since it seems likely that we're going to be spending a lot of time at the pool this summer and keeping towels wrapped around little children is HARD.  I'll try to get a picture of my Girl in hers, it's orange with bright pink trim. It's pretty awesome.  Edited to add:

 (Ok, she was not best pleased to be at the pool.  Admittedly, she has bronchitis, but she had been acting fine and it was hot and the Boy wanted to swim, and we all make sacrifices to be part of a family.  Anyway, she was a lot happier once we all got in the water.  And look at how cute her little robe turned out!)

• I have been defeated by a pattern.  It stings.  I have assumed that my determination would allow me to knit pretty much anything I wanted.  It was my determination that carried me through Fair Isle and Cables, but Lace?  Alas.  I was trying to knit this darling, lacy baby bonnet for a friend of mine who is having a little girl.  After SEVEN attempts, Chris talked me out of any further attempts.  I think he feared for my sanity.  So my friend will have to content herself with a baby blanket (already sewn up, I just need to write out a card), and I will have to sit down and work through the elements of the bonnet separately.  WHEN I finally master it's royal fiddliness, I shall post pictures.  

Chris had a great time at the Beach for Memorial day weekend.  And boy, was I relieved when he came home.  For some reason, when he leaves the state it acts as an invitation for all chaos to break loose.  The Girl climbed out of her crib (for the first time) and promptly fell on her noggin.  She had a lovely goose egg on her forehead for the week after.  But I think she may have learned NOT to climb out of her crib.

My Boy is reading anything and everything in sight.  It's both entertaining and alarming.  For school this year, we just did quick lessons from the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching your Child to Read.  And on the days that he was foul, we did other reading-readiness types of things (hidden pictures, alphabet games etc).  He was struggling with a couple of consonant combinations, and we were gearing up for a move, so I shelved the whole thing.  We have a learning household, so it's not like he sat around watching cartoons all day long, but we didn't do any formal work for the whole month of May.  And about 2 weeks ago he started reading signs wherever we went ("Look, Mama!  That sign says...!") and about 1 week ago, I caught him pulling books down off of his shelf and reading to himself.  Books I didn't know that HE knew how to read (Dr. Seuss, Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad).  It's amazing, it really is.  But it's also a little scary.  I have this feeling of foreboding that he is soon going to be much smarter than his Mama.

Chaos Theory

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't handle chaos.  Uncertainty, chaos, unpredictability, it all brings out my...shall we say...ungraceful side.  And since Chris has forbidden me from obsessing over all of the uncertainties in our life right now (we have 5 weeks left on our lease and still no where else to live), I have been choosing to obsess over Other Things.  Inconsequential Things.  Pretty Things, even, sometimes.

So, knitting it is!

I started this amazing, intricately cabled sweater for Chris for Christmas this year.  It really is a gorgeous pattern.  So I bought the yarn I needed, and cast on for a sleeve, figuring that if I made a mistake, a sleeve would be less painful to rip back, than a body with 300 stitches on it.  After knitting for 6 inches it became evident that the sweater MIGHT fit the Boy, but certainly would not fit my husband.  So I checked my gauge, realized (holy CRAP) that I was getting 3 TIMES the number of stitches to the inch as the pattern called for (uptight, much?) and ripped the whole thing back.  At that point, I shelved the pattern.  I would still love to knit it up for Chris, but it will call for either a) different (thicker) yarn, or b) massively reworking the pattern so that I can knit a sweater that Chris can wear or c) both of the above.

So instead, I'm working on more socks for my boy.  He has informed me that he doesn't like the socks that I bought for him at the store.  He only likes the ones I make.  Which is just about the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a while, but yeah...that's a lot of work to knit up 6 pairs of wooly socks for his feet.  His feet which are the Lords of Perpetual Growth.  But I continue to work at it.  I started a yellow pair with a brown chevron strip around the ankle.  I'm calling them the Charlie Brown socks, and they are turning out super cute.  I'll post some pictures when I finish them.

And just as proof that, while my life contains more chaos than is comfortable for me, I have not yet surrendered my sense of humor, I offer you this...


Back last Summer while I was scanning 4, 820 pictures to use in the slideshow for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, I came across this series of pictures.  It features my brother and I, and since there aren't many pictures of us lying around, it caught my attention.  (Talk about chaos, that would be having twins...two babies terrorizing around the house at the same time?  Yes.  Apparently, my aversion to chaos is repercussion for the chaos I rained down on my parents.) 

Anyway...here's the first 3 pictures:

I'm not kidding.  3 pictures, all of them basically the same.  One of us looking off, not paying attention, one of us not smiling.  Actually, that could probably describe every single picture of my brother and I until we were probably 14.  Anyway, I offer the next photograph as evidence that my inner smarta** is strong, deep, and I was BORN this way...

And voila.  I'm pretty sure my Dad was trying (repeatedly) to get our attention AND to get us to smile, you know, simultaneously.  And after the 4th attempt, I'm reasonably certain that I had had enough.  So that's what you get.

(Incidentally, there are enough pictures of me like this that my Mom calls it my "teeth are screaming at you" face.  AWESOME.)

Belated Birthday Knits

In my family we party from Thanksgiving until my birthday.  The holidays are jam packed with the usual (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years) and then you add in, my father's birthday and my sister's birthday (which are the same day!) and then mine and my brother's birthday, and now the Girl's birthday--and it makes for an exhausting but super fun level of chaos.

This year I was all kinds of caught up knitting my baby girl's birthday dress, which meant that I have just barely mailed off my sister's birthday mittens.  She lives out west and it has been a bitterly cold winter.  They keep their own chickens and she runs in addition to running her kids around everywhere.  So I asked her what would be most useful and she requested some fun, stripey fingerless mittens.  Well, I tried.  I really did.  I tried three different incarnations of the stripey fingerless mittens, and I just could not get them to work, or could not get them to work in a manner that I liked.

So I threw caution to the wind and decided to go against her wishes and knit her something else.  I kept the fingerless mitten plan, they're incredibly useful, and a way to add a layer of warmth while maintaining the use of fingers and hands.

Last winter I had purchased this lovely dark, cranberry red wool, and a ball of cream intending to knit her a pair of color work socks with a bird motif on them...but the pattern was written for toe-up and I've never done toe-up socks, so I got scared and shelved the project.  Well, two weeks before Christmas I pulled that wool out and started rifling through patterns until I found one that I had been contemplating for a while.  I knit up the cuff first and just LOVED it.  Then I started on the hand section, which was a different motif and so much harder that I couldn't even have background noise, which meant that I lost my momentum and couldn't work on them.  When I figured out what was wrong, I pulled out that hand section, got down a book of motifs and picked new ones that I liked and worked well with the colors I was working with.  I set to work and within 10 days they were done.

I washed, blocked and mailed them off last week, and they're so pretty.  I just hope she's wearing them...

And staying warm, poor girl.  I just thought it was cold here...

Finished!

This is your little Winter Parade.  Of finished knitting projects!


First up:  Chris' Christmas socks.  I tried 2 different color work patterns and neither of them wanted to be knit (some day I shall have to tell you all my theory about projects and their own mystical desires to be knit or NOT, but not today), so I switched to cables, and lo, these really wanted to be knit and adorn the feet of the man I love.  They turned out beautifully, I'm really pleased with them.

Next up:  Mittens!  Chris and I divide and conquer when we're taking care of Hogan, and as Chris works evenings and puts Hogan to bed at night, I take the early morning shift.  And most days I don't mind, but the mornings have been very, very cold (nothing as bitter as it is out west, but still!) and my hands ache by the end of the walk.  After the last round (in October) I thought, "M, surely there's something we can do about this."  And then I thought, "Wait a minute!  I know how to KNIT!  There IS something I can do about this!"  And I sat down, picked a pattern and knit these lovely little mitts up.  I sized the pattern down since I have teeny little hands and they're still a bit on the big side, but they do their job so well, I might just take to knitting myself a new pair of mittens every winter!

You've seen the Gox Box Socks, but have you seen my Boy's elfin hat?!  I thought it might be a fun tradition for everyone in the family to have something wooly and handknitted under the Christmas tree, and since I was feverishly working on my Girl's birthday dress, I didn't have much time.  So I knitted up this little hat for my Boy in a couple of days.  He quested RED, Mama!  RED!  And I complied.  It still needs a button, but I'm getting there.

And last but not least, I give you My Girl's Birthday Dress.  One day in September she and I went down to one of our local yarn shops and I gave her the choice of color and this chalky lavender is what she picked out.  The pattern was incredibly simple and lovely with the yarn, but so plain that I thought, "This needs something..." and when I hit upon bloomers it was a stroke of brilliance!  The bloomers are knit from the leftovers of the yarn I knit into her first sweater/hat combination.  They're not a proper wooly diaper cover, but they are stinking cute!

Ok,  I tried to get a picture of my Girl in the dress, but she wouldn't hold still.  I'll keep trying and post it later.  Rest assured she is beyond adorable in it.

The Crafting Fates

Last time on Burnstopia, M was celebrating like a Loon because she acquired (through questionable means) a truly excellent recipe.

This week on Burnstopia, M eats Humble Pie dished out heavily by the Crafting Fates.

So this year for Chris' Christmas socks, I picked out two different color work patterns.  The first was a really cool nautical theme, and I messed that up real good, so I moved on to another geometric pattern, and I messed that up real good, so I just decided that perhaps color work was just not meant to be this year.  So I started searching for cable patterns and I found one that I really liked and cast on.

By October I had finished the first sock and I thought, "Excellent!  I'm going to get these done by December 1st and have loads of time to do other things!"  So I cast on the second and while Chris was gone to Savannah I worked diligently on the second sock.

(His only request was that they be a SURPRISE so I have to work on them when he's not around.)

So I finished the gusset decreases on the second sock on Tuesday night and I pulled out the first (and FINISHED) sock to measure against it and count the cable twist so I knew how many rounds I needed to knit before starting the toe decreases.

And I found a HOLE.  Not a little hole.  And not a dropped-stitch hole, a gaping hole with FRAYED ends around it.  A hole that looked like a BROKEN piece of yarn. I felt totally deflated.  So I went to all my knitting books searching for how to correct a broken strand of yarn in an otherwise perfect body of knitting, and lo, there was NOTHING.

So I thought and I thought and I thought about it and I figured I had two solutions:   I could darn the hole closed as neatly as possible, or I could CUT the foot off, unravel back to the start of the hole and REKNIT the entire foot.

Last night at my sister's I darned it shut.  And it looked awful.  And as I thought about it, I thought "What is the point of the gift?  Is it the sock, or is it more than that?"  And I realized, it's so much more than that.  The gift really isn't the socks, the gift is a tangible manifestation of the love that I have for him.  There is very little in our life that is perfect, but this pair of socks that I make for him once a year, THAT can be perfect.

So last night I cut and unraveled and picked up the stitches to reknit the foot.  As I was painfully picking up those stitches I thought about the women who run the bakery in Savannah, and maybe this Hole business was just, I'm reducing their profits by making my own, I suppose it's only fair that the Crafting Fates exact some form of vengeance on their behalf.

If you'll excuse me, I have TWO socks now to finish before Christmas.

An assortment of unsettledness...

I've been feeling restless and unsettled lately, which is probably why I haven't been here much.

When it happens, I spend an inordinate amount of time makin' stuff.  So here's the rundown:

• I made 103 mini pumpkin cupcakes for my awesome sister and her welcome home party for my also awesome nephew.  It was A LOT.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they're still eating them.
• I finished 1 of Chris' Christmas socks and am about 3" into the mate.  
• I'm nearly done with the first of a pair of mittens for m'self.
• I made a darling little bonnet for my Girl aaaaaaand it's too small.  Not by much, but enough to look funky on her.
• I made a cute little pink and white cardigan for my Girl aaaaaaand it's too small.  This one really stung.  And so I have dubbed it the Sweater than Shall Not be Named.
• I made another cute little pilot cap for my Girl aaaaaaaaaand it just barely fits her.  So if her head grows at all this winter she's just going to be COLD.
• I made 6 loaves of my soft and delicious wheat bread and we're halfway through them.  In a week.  ONE week.  I'm going to need more bread flour.
• I made another batch of pumpkin cupcakes for Chris to take in to work today.
• I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Chris to take in to work last week.
• I made a cranberry-orange buttermilk bundt cake for Chris to take in to work the week before that.  I'm going to need more all purpose flour, sugar and baking powder.
• I planted a bunch of herbs in pots on my windowsill.  Chris asked me why I picked the herbs I picked and I said, "They do well in dry, rocky soil and with no care whatsoever."  He laughed.  I was serious.  If anyone needs, we have a lot of rosemary.

The Boy and I just finished reading the Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.  We finished it last night, actually, and I totally cried as I was reading the ending.  The Boy cuddled up close to me and laid his face on my face (which makes it difficult to read, but is so sweet you almost don't care) and sighed and said, "I love you, Mama."  And that's when I realized that everyone in the world should be loved the way that this kid loves his parents.  He's so forgiving and tolerant of us, even when we're trolls.  He is very like how I was with him when he was small;  he loves us so much he wants to swallow us whole.  And since I'm very familiar with that desire, I find it utterly charming in him.

He climbed into bed with me this morning and cuddled up to me, all warm and soft and sleepy.  And I thought, "it's ok.  The world is totally going to pot, but this kid is living in it, so it's ok."

And with that, I'm going to go cast on a pair of mittens for him.  And a hat.  And another hat for my Girl.  And maybe one for me.  Also that second mitten.  And a pair of socks for my sister, she lives in the ARCTIC tundra that is the mountain West.  And maybe, just maybe another sweater for the Girl...but this one is going to be several sizes TOO BIG.

Done

I finished my sweater!

Last week actually, but there are no pictures as of yet.  I keep pulling it on to walk Molly early in the morning when it's chilly out, and I'm virtually IMPERVIOUS to the cold.  It's at least one full size too big for me, so I may try to shrink it in the wash, but for now, it's like a lovely, wooly blanket with sleeves.

As I was doing the finishing work on it I was thinking back to when I first learned how to knit.

It was 3 years ago, right about this time of the year.  We had only been in Georgia for a few short months, the Boy would go to bed by 6:30 every evening, but Chris wouldn't be home until 9:00 or later (if he had after-work commitments), so I would sit alone in our apartment every night.

After I had the Boy, when I finally realized that THIS mammoth task of Mothering would be my work for the foreseeable future, I sat down and made a list of all the things I wanted to learn, but had been putting off because I was in school and pursuing a career as a lofty, ivory-towered Academic.  Some of them were more involved than others, and thus more expensive than others.  But there were a few that could be done, on my own and on a relatively small budget.

So I took myself to the only craft store in town and bought 1 ball of Patons wool and 1 pair of wooden needles.  I dug out the book my Grandmother had given me the year before and sat on the couch and tried to decipher the rather cryptic instructions.

And FAILED.  I could NOT for the life of me figure out what that woman who wrote the book was talking about!  (I've read enough now to know that there ARE books out there that are written in such a way that it's actually possible to figure out what they want you to do.)

So I did what any smart girl of my generation would do.  I took myself to the internet.

I found a great website with some wonderful tutorials and I sat at my computer, night after night, practice practice practicing until I felt reasonably competent, and then I would rip everything out and start over again.  I didn't have a pattern, I wasn't on Ravelry, I had no real, tangible goal, I just wanted to learn.

And then, as usual, I got sidetracked.  I went down other paths, I learned a few other things.  And then, when we moved back to North Carolina, I went back to knitting.

I made my first pair of socks for my Boy, and then for Christmas, I determined to make Chris' first ever Christmas socks.

And it was that Christmas that I realized that knitting was actually calming me down.  I love Christmas, but I get a little worked up trying to make sure that it's a happy one for Chris and the Boy.  But as I sat on the couch quietly knitting every evening I felt the worry and anxiety and frenetic energy of the season slip quietly away.  Those socks aren't worn much now.  I've learned so much in the 2 years since I knit them that they really aren't very comfortable compared with my more recent endeavors. 



My only regret is that I didn't sit down and learn sooner.

A Flannel Mountain

You know, Necessity really IS the Mother of Invention.


I was outfitting the Boy last month and I ran into problems when it came to pajamas.  Here's the problem...the Boy LOATHES blankets.  He says that "the blanket makes my FEET hot, Mama."  But what I really suspect is that he can't move as freely as he likes when he's asleep.  So, his pajamas need to be first, WARM.  Second, they need to be soft.  That's more for me than for him, I refuse to dress my children in colors or textures I wouldn't wear myself (were I blessed with their coloring), so most synthetic fabrics are out.  Third, (and this one is also for me) they need to be...not-covered-in-characters, so no Spider man, no Captain America, not even Thomas the Tank Engine.  I just wanted plain!  And Warm!  And soft!  But such pajamas are rarely found, and when found are considerably MORE expensive than I was willing to pay for them.

So after stewing about it for a couple of days, I hunted up a pajama pattern I bought 3 years ago with the intention of sewing up some pants for him when he was still my small and precious baby.  After looking at the pattern I felt decidedly more determined, so I headed to Joanns.

Then I spent every single day at Joanns for a WEEK.

Here's the problem.  I bought a bunch of flannel for the boy, washed it up and cut out the legs and Chris was looking at it and said, "Wow, that's really cute.  How much did you pay for all of this."  The flannel at the time was 50% off, so the amount was not very much at all and he said, "Why are we NOT doing this for the Girl too?!"  So I had to keep going BACK to Joanns to buy flannel for the Girl.  Then elastic for the waistbands.  Then THREAD.  It was crazy.

Then I got all kinds of sidetracked with a trip to Savannah and the start of school with the Boy, so they were partially sewn and pinned and waiting.  Well, a couple of  weeks ago I finally finished them...

The results?


It is now almost impossible to get these children to put on actual CLOTHES.





Clarification:  It's impossible to get them OUT of their pajamas in the morning.  They live in the pajamas, which is nice and sweet, but you know, people start to look at you funny when you're children never get out of baggy flannel pajamas.

And it only took FOUR months!

Now, I don't want to give anyone out there a coronary episode, but...

Chris' Christmas socks are finally, FINALLY finished!

You might remember, I started some socks for him back in September.  I did the colorwork pattern but then couldn't for the life of me get the calf/ankle decreases to work in an attractive way, so after making FOUR attempts at it, I cut my losses and literally tossed the thing in the trash (wail!).  I then cast on these...

It's just a plain ol' vanilla sock with an Estonia folk pattern knit around the ankle.  I did nothing fancy with materials, as my main man likes his wool relatively unprocessed and worsted.  The color and toe are Cascade 220 which is marvelous stuff.  And the best part?  I finished them just in time for SUMMER.

I am AWESOME that way!

R.I.P.

Chris' Christmas socks this year have been the BANE, the BANE I say, of my existence.

Back in September, I chose a lovely (and challenging) pattern out of Nancy Bush's Folk Socks.  They seemed totally do-able at the time.  Of course...that was September. 

And then I got sucked into this vortex of aggressive nesting and baby knitting.

And now, it's 10 days to Christmas and last night, I ripped back Chris' Christmas socks to salvage what wool I could and threw the rest away.

Yes.  I threw away the entirety of the colorwork motif.  It was painful.

But also cathartic...those socks have been torturing me for WEEKS.  I ripped them back THREE times to try various decreases and I could NOT make them work.  The pattern was clearly written for people with infinite time and patience.

I went to bed last night mulling over the problem of Chris' Christmas Socks, and what to do about it.  It's TRADITION, and my man doesn't have many Christmas traditions that he likes.

So I woke up this morning feeling excited.  Excited to cast on some NEW Christmas socks for my Man.  I had him bring down my Big Bin o' Yarn and I chose different (and simpler) colors.  I then went to my stash of colorwork motifs and flipping through I found this lovely Estonian motif that was reminiscent of M.C. Escher to my mind and I thought, "I can totally still DO this."

And so I cast on.  And began the process of work work working on them.  Sure...I may miss my Christmas deadline, but by all that's wooly, if I have to knit until  my fingers bleed, my Man will have SOCKS before New Year.

Buckling Down

Hi.


I'm sorry to inform you that my time is no longer my own.  I have 24 days to finish Chris' Christmas socks.  The Christmas socks that seemed perfectly reasonable back in September, and then stalled through ALL of October and November, and now seem not very reasonable at all.

In addition to knitting my fingers down to nubs on the socks, I have a sweater to finish for one baby girl.  A baby girl that I am hope, Hope, HOPING decides to arrive in the next 3-4 weeks.  And if my dearest little hope comes true then I may NOT have 24 days left to knit those socks.

So if you wonder what's happening here, just know that there's copious amounts of knitting and swearing (alternately).  And when my hands start to hurt, just know that Part Two of the Nesting, has in fact commenced.  There is an ENORMOUS pile of tiny little baby things sitting in my bedroom.  There are, in fact, just a few more little items that I'd like to acquire before I begin the mass laundering.  Once that Mount Visuvius is laundered and folded, I'm going to get Chris to set up the pack n' play and we'll be all set.

(In funnier news, I was taking inventory of what all we had and what we still needed and I was asking for Chris' opinion and he looked at me and said, "You know what I learned watching Babies?  That in Mongolia, all babies need are a t-shirt and sandals."  I chuckled and reminded him that we do not live in Mongolia and our daughter is due in the middle of winter...so maybe she might, just might, need a bit more covering than a t-shirt and sandals.)

Trust me, if anything exciting happens, I'll blog about it here.  And WHEN I finish the Christmas socks that NEVER end, I'll post pictures!

Sewing Accomplished

Finally.


FINALLY!  I'm done.  Finished.  Long list of projects to sew--check!  and complete! 

The sewing machine and sewing box have been removed from my dining room table and restored to their proper place (in the very top of my closet).  Almost all of the fabric that I purchased for this incoming babalah has been made up into the projects it was designated for.  In all honesty, I still have some pretty-pretty flannel that I wanted to make into simple dresses for her to wear to church...but it's just going to have to wait.  I am at the end of my ever so proverbial rope with sewing.

And for all that, for all the time and frustration and sweat (I'm a nervous sweater) that went in to all of those projects, it doesn't feel like a big accomplishment.  And that's moderately depressing.  But for the record (sorry, no pictures), here's the list of what I've made up:

• 24 super soft, super bright and fun flannel burp cloths
• 6 colorful pacifier clips
• 2 nursing covers (I couldn't decide between two fabrics, and since the pattern only called for 1 yard, I bought both) (also, I wanted to experiment with the tutorial, if I liked it and it was easy (it was NOT), then it was going to be my go-to baby shower gift.)
• 21 super soft, teeny-tiny, fitted diapers.  Yes.  I made cloth diapers.  Because they retail for $11 EACH and I made 21 for about $40 total.

My Mom has (thankfully) made all of the swaddling blankets we'll need, and my amazing sisters are combining their CONSIDERABLE talents to sew (what I imagine to be) a GORGEOUS blessing dress for the Girl to wear.

Which leaves only the knitting projects left.  I've been knitting up woolie diaper covers (to go over the fitted diapers and then later over prefolds), once those are done (I'm working on the last 2), I'll move on to the hats/sweater/booties that I've picked out for her.  And in the middle of all of this, I'm also working on socks for Christmas for some of the people that I love. 

So what am I watching?  If you've been reading, you know that I prefer to knit to the soothing sounds of television.  Last Christmas, Chris' socks were completed while I watched Ken Burns' The War.  This year, I'm knitting to Law & Order.  Netflix has the first 8 seasons available for streaming and since I LOVE it, that's what I'm watching.  I didn't start watching it on television until after I had graduated from high school, so these really early seasons are a bit of a trip.  A trip BACK IN TIME!  No computers!  No cell phones!  They use  PAY PHONES, people, in NEW YORK CITY!  ew.  But I digress.

The diaper covers, again, retail for about $20 EACH and I've made 5 so far for less than $12.  Aaaaaaaand this is why I make stuff.  The pattern was FREE and it's incredibly easy, I've bought about 3 balls of wool--2 of which were on clearance for $3--and the rest I made out of a lovely neutral wool that I had in my stash from last January when I stocked up on wool yarn that was on sale as part of their annual inventory clean out.  So for the price of some lanolin, I'll have 8 diaper covers in 2 sizes that should last this little girl until she grows into our bumgenius.  But...if they work as well as I'm anticipating, we may just stick with the prefolds and wool covers for her.

And this is where I admit that I'm almost, almost looking forward to the postpartum period with a newborn to nurse and nothing else to work on.  With the Boy, I literally just watched BBC miniseries and stared into space while I nursed him, rocked him and mopped up spit-up.  After this marathon of making stuff, that sounds about like a vacation.