One Crazy Fiber Lady

Maybe Not

I might not be such a slacker after all.

I finished Kat's second mitten at lunch yesterday while watching coworkers play chess after eating.  They've taken to doing that daily and makes for good knitting accompaniment.

Last night's commute was one from hell.  There was something seriously wrong on just about every leg of the trip.  My normal 1 hour door to door was an hour and forty minutes.  Except for that whole standing on a packed train from Penn Sta to Secaucus, I really didn't mind it.  (But it does remind me of why I didn't like Penn Sta before and prompts me to go back to the more relaxing but less weather friendly Hoboken option.)   The extra half hour on the train from Secaucus to home gave me some bonus knitting time.  I started Alex's first mitten shortly after getting on and was about a half inch of reducing for the top when I got home. 

Since I was so late getting to the station, and a call home told me the kids had already eaten (I let them know I was running late and to not hold dinner for me - the one acceptable use for a cell phone on the train imho).  I gave em goodnight wishes and headed straight for the SnB.  I really can't express how good a time I have there and how much I really like the women I knit with.  Thanks Ladies! 

So anyway, I finished the boy's mittens at the SnB.  More info on the project page for anyone who cares :)

Today's knitting has been Alex's Drive-Thru sweater.  I hit the armpits at lunch and started the first sleeve.  They should go super fast. 

Hopefully this weekend I can finally finish Ariann.  I just need to knit the collar.  Maybe tonight during Battlestar Galactica I'll work on that.

That's about it for today.  Have a grand weekend

Craft on!

Slacker Mom

I'm such the slacker.  While I whipped out two munchkin hats and one mitten on Saturday, I've yet to complete a pair of mittens. 

Commuting has its upside:  more knitting time.  Yet there is a darkside to this commuting thing:  more chances to lose things.  Yes, I lost the first mittten.  Okay it was the same day that I also lost one of the bamboo dpn's to the escalator at the Secaucus Transfer Station.  Damn it.  So while I've now knitted two mittens, I still have 3 more to go before both kids have warm hands.  Thank goodness this seems to be the winter of el nino and the temps are in the 60's for the next few days!

At least I'm halfway through the mate for this one now.  While it is only about an hour or so of knitting each, they are taking forever to complete.  Could be because I've been distracted. 

I've been reading on the train recently as I've gotten deep into a book.  So deep that I actually stayed up waaaaay too late last night (2:30AM) finishing the damn thing.  Good book too.  I love Nelson DeMille.  I have his newest book all locked and loaded on the iPAQ to start next.

However, that wasn't the only thing that had me distracted.  The new camera arrived yesterday.  Woot.  Naturally I had to play with it for a bit.  Sorry, no pictures yet from it, but oh man, it takes some nice shots! 

There's a new addiction as well.  I managed to break free after a day of the Weffriddles to get hooked on something else.  Yesterday on the subway I spotted the girl next to me playing a game on her iPod.  I browsed through the iTunes store and found the game.  Zuma.  Oh.My.G-d.  I spent far too long playing it last night... oh and on the train in today.  I'm such a slacker.

My sister gave Kat a Disney Princess costume kit for Hanukkah.  Expectedly, Alex was the first to actually dress up in one of the costumes.  Good though that it triggered Kat to try on something too...

And finally, some long overdue kitty zen...

SnB tonight, I just hope I can stay awake that long, and shake this headache I have too :(

Craft on!

Tipper Toppers

As predicted, the knitting dry spell has ended.  Thursday night was another glorious knit at the Modern Yarn SnB.  I couldn't have enjoyed it more.  While there, I made it to the bind off of the neckline of Ariann.  This leaves just the collar to knit.  Almost there!  I picked up some lovely buttons that will be perfect for it.

As a bonus, MY had an event on Friday night to celebrate some new yarns.  Naturally I had to go.  Okay, so I nagged the heck out of Mom before she agreed to let me out for another night.  It was so worth it.  MY now carries Lornas Laces and was offering up a 10% discount on purchases of said yarn that evening.  I picked up a few skeins.  Now that the weather has turned frigid (okay so it has warmed up in the interim), the kids need new hats.  LLSW would be perfect for them and well, I had to get some sock yarn too.

Saturday was spent at home (with a space heater nearby as the construction has made for a nice draft) and the LLSW making hats.  By 8pm, I had two hats and two happy little kids.  Now I'm working on mittens.  One down, three to go.  For the hats, I pretty much made it up as I went along. 

Alex's is the Icehouse colorway and Kat's is Irving Park.  Kat has really taken to hers and I had trouble getting it off her.

Now if I could only get her to wear her coat!  Sorry, no picture of Alex sporting his new hat.

Sunday, we all piled into my car for the annual family Hanukkah get together at my sister's house in central Jersey.  The little kids had a great time as they opened a mountain of presents.  Kat was the most excited and literally screeched as she discovered a puzzle mat my sister bought her.  My sisters and I agreed not to exchange presents this year, but to limit gifts to our folks and the kids.  I got my gift from my folks, a very generous cash present that I have since spent.  Buying one of these:

Canon Digital Rebel XT Camera

I've been drooling over this camera for ages now.  Nearly bought one for myself for my birthday but in the end talked myself out of.  Should have done it then.  But maybe not, now the that 10MP model is out, the price on this baby has dropped big time.  Though I must admit that I was sorely tempted by the XTi.  I did a lot of reading of reviews of the two models and from what I can tell, this is still the better camera.  Now to collect lenses ;)

Craft on!

Its a wrap

Sorry for the late posting today.  I had a most excellent day at the office and just didn't have time to spare.  I was in the "coding zone" and it was just beautiful.  Well except for the heinous headache I have, but that's another story.  Oh and the weather was (and is still) just miserable.  Everything else went very well ;) 

I'm especially grateful that I signed up for transit alerts sent to my email address from NJTransit.  About 15 minutes before I was going to head to Penn Station for my commute home, I got a heads up email that due to Amtrak signal problems, trains were running up to 30 minutes late.  Thank goodness for the Hoboken option!  I made it home on time :)

Now the kids are in bed and I'm enjoying the quiet time before I call it a night.  Tis a good time for a little update.  I finished the first of the Handspun on the Web socks.  While I really can't say I enjoyed knitting the thing, I do like the sock very much.  Until I tried it on last night (finished binding off during last night's commute), I wasn't enthused to even begin working the second and didn't, as I should have, cast it on.  Instead I played with a few of the Sudoku puzzles I carry in my purse.  But then, I tried it on and well, now I have to make the second!

I did cast on for a new item last night, and yes, still not the second sock.  The yarn for Drive-Thru arrived yesterday.  I had ordered it from Yarnware on Tuesday.  It wasn't until after I placed the order that I found they were in NJ not too terribly far from me.  Well at least I found a source nearby of Galway.  Good thing too as this is a cute sweater with a great range of sizes.  I started one in Cobalt blue for Alex.  The coordinating colors for the yoke will be a lighter blue, white and black.  This was taken last night, but as of right now, I'm an inch short of putting the body on hold for the sleeves. 

He is going to look so handsome in that color!

I want to thank everyone for their cat/pilling recommendations.  Sara is actually not being true to her species and is taking the thing rather well.  Mom holds her, I force the mouth, tuck in the pill and then close.  We close, blow on her nose and rub her chin.  There's no soggy pill on the floor moments later and the cat hasn't taken off.  This evening we gave her a bit of chicken afterward and she barely seemed to have noticed it all.  As an update, her foot is better and better each day.  This evening she's putting a decent amount of weight on it and jumping on and off the couch. 

This should be a busy weekend.  Tomorrow, mom, the twins and I are meeting Deb and her mom at a craft fair in Morristown.  Followed by some lunch and some socializing.  Mom and Dad have a holiday party tomorrow night so it will be the twins and I for a quiet evening in.  Sunday I'll be heading to a much missed spinning guild meeting in upstate New York.  I don't think I've been to one of these monthly meetings in over 2 years.  The last was right before their first birthday.  More than overdue if you ask me!

Have a great weekend!

Craft on!

Even Steven

Sometimes it seems like I knit way more for Kat than I do for Alex (a.k.a. Ya-Ya). So in the spirit of fairness, not to mention that I just love quick projects, I made this pair of socks for the boy. I used Claudia Handpaint in the 'Spring Break' colorway on my standard US0 addi turbo. They took less then one skein to complete. Ya hasn't seen them yet as I just finshed them at the SnB at Modern Yarn tonight.

Sorry for the brief post and the lousy Treo picture, but I just got home and am ready to crash and wanted to get this up tonight.

Think happy thoughts tomorrow morning as the Chrysler Financial folks will be here tomorrow inspecting the Durango. Fingers crossed.

Craft on!

Magic Monday

Aside from all the acquisitions at the mega fiber festival last weekend, there has been actual crafting going in these here parts. 

There's finished objects that need to be shown off!

Pattern:  childHood
Yarn:  Cascade 220 & Quatro
Size: 3-4 YO
Started: 10/7/2006
Finished: 10/20/2006

This was a cute little knit.  If I did it again, I would definitely modify that whole knit the button band and sew it on to the side.  Homey don't like that sewing on business.  I would probably just pick up the stitches along the side and knit it up, OR knit it at the same time as the front pieces.  They could have also been knit BEFORE doing the shoulder seams, not after as the pattern called for.  I guess that is why there is that suggestion to read the whole pattern before starting ;)

There's been more knitting here too.  As I mentioned before, the Shetland Tea Shawl has made another appearance in the active pile.  Sunday I finished the Diamond Madiera section and began the edging.  I'm forgoing the use of a DPN and needle cap for this and just using the circular needle as is.  After 10 (of the total 115 repeats), I finally memorized the edging lace pattern.  Should fly now ;)  According to the spreadsheet, I'm 72% complete on this thing.

There has also been spinning...  Monday (last week), I took the day off to recover from the whirlwind that was Rhinebeck.  I finally skeined up those super fine singles of the Polwarth/Angora I had spun and measured/weighed the end result.  I have 264 yards / 30grams.  Good yardage in my book.  No pictures as the grey refuses to be photographed well.  I also spun the batt I bought from Grafton Fibers at the festival.  Saturday night I Navajo plied to maintain the color progression.  As I never wound it on the niddy noddy but went straight to the ball winder, I haven't a clue of the yardage, but there's definitely enough for a scarf.  Pretty one too...

And even more spinning, including this skein. This is 4oz of Blue Faced Leicester that I picked up from Hello Yarn this spring, back when I wasn't blogging much.  It was an absolute dream to spin and I so loved the colors.  It came out to be 442 yards and would make some yummy socks.  I spun this up on my Suzie Pro which has moved into the kids' playroom/den.  Evenings and mostly weekends, I would sit with them while they played or watched movies (mostly the Pixar ones) and spin.  The monkeys would periodically assist me in treadling.  Budding fiber artists indeed!  The colors in this picture are reading a bit darker, especially the green, but it is close.

Last Wednesday was picture day at school.  I got the kids coordinating outfits at Children's Place, well, because I still can and get away with it.  Right before we sat for a family shot, I tried to get them to pose for a nice picture.  This is what I got instead..

I have to admit, there were far more shots of Alex tackling his sister than of the standing and smiling variety.  At least Kat was giggling under there and well, they were cute if I do say so myself.

This weekend, during the deluge on Saturday, I was busy test driving cars.  I need to thank everyone for their feedback on minivans.  After much research, followed by taking one out in seriously crappy weather that included high winds and heavy heavy rains, I made a decision.  I signed a contract, put a deposit on one and headed home waiting for a very important phone call today.  I got it around 4 that the financing had been approved.  I go tomorrow night to pick it up.  I'll post the details of what I wound up with tomorrow.  Suffice it to say, I'm totally excited!

Craft on!

Sock on

Short post tonight, I'm pretty tired.  Not entirely sure why as I did go to sleep rather early last night and got an accidental extra hour this morning.  Was pretty darn late to work as a result too.  Oh well.

Digging through some photos I realized I never posted a photo of the completed Calla Lily socks, so here goes:

These are the first of the Sundara Petals club.  Took me so darn long that I don't really remember when I started.  I did finish them during the long Labor Day weekend.  And before anyone asks, I have yet to begin the August installment.  Doubt I will before the October shows up :)

I have made progress on the childHood sweater for Miss Kat.  I took to bed with a new book and the first of the cardigan fronts last night.  After a half hour of reading and knitting, I was at the armpit.  As of the commute in this morning I had it finished.  I started the second during lunch.  Love these quicker projects.  I just joined a second skein of the solid 220 and have only used a smidge of the Quattro so far. 

Oh my goodness, I nearly missed it, today is my 2 year blogiversary!  Woo hoo!  I truly can't believe it.  Just as a reminder, all comments during the month of October will get an entry for a prize drawing of anniversary goodies.  Good luck.

Craft on!

We Can Do It, Just Stick To It

This is going to be a quick, if picture filled post.  Its been a long day and I still have to wrap their presents for tomorrow.

Well, despite my 4 kid threshhold, the arena full of the ankle biters was a good time.  It was a good, if thankfully short show.  Alex got into it a bit more than Kat, but at least there was no crying to go home.  Just one short complaint about it being loud.  Alex, when tired especially, doesn't like loud noises and his tolerance for "loud" is very low.  They both napped a bit in the car on the way, so we were covered there. 

Buying the tickets before they went on sale to the general public (my sister sent an early notice email as she has season tickets to the Trenton team that plays there) resulted in pretty darn good seats.  We were 8th row on the floor.  I've never had such good seats for a concert, even saw Bruce Springstein during the Born in the USA tour from the second to last row of seats at Giant Stadium and Phil Collins from the very last row in Radio City. 

We arrived early, got some food and found our seats and waited for the show to start.  After about an hour of hearing "where are the Doodlebops?" the show started.  The twins settled back and two of the four seats went to somewhat of a waste.

As an aside, these pairings are a little unusual.  Alex is so much my mother's boy and Kat is my girl.  For Alex to have curled up in my lap is odd indeed, especially when his "mema" is around.  Never fear, after intermission, all was righted with the world and the pairings of norm took over.

The show was good.  The performers worked really hard.  There was some serious huffing and puffing among them between numbers.  All in all, a very good time.  Here are some pictures of the actual performance:

As this is a purported knitting blog, I have an obligatory knitting photo for y'all.  I finished the back of the childHood sweater last night.  Yes, last night, by somewhere around 9 pm it was done.  I know, shocked me too.  And yes, I did stop to do other things like feed my kids, entertain them for a bit and then get them off to bed. After dinner tonight, I started on the left front, though with my left handed method of combined knitting I'm actually knitting the right front.  Don't ask. 

So very neat how it is coming out, especially with such a good match in the yarns.  The Quattro blends in beautifully with the 220 solid.  Kat should be adorable in this sweater.  I might go out on a limb and predict that this could, repeat could, be her Rhinebeck sweater, but no guarantees here!

As mom drove to the arena today, I have an hour and a half in the passenger seat each way.  I'm not used to that and it took me almost 45 minutes to realize that I wasn't driving and could knit.  I pulled out the second koigu sock (which got a workout Friday night in front of BSG) and got a bit more done.  Hopefully I'll be crossing another item off the current WIP list shortly.  So many projects (and wannabee projects - got an order from Simply Socks Yarn of Jawoll in an orange to try Bayerische again ) and so very little time.

Speaking of time, I realized that with the advent of the twins third birthday, this blog was going to be celebrating its second anniversary.  My first post was Oct 11 and on Blogger as I was pretty sure I was going to hate blogging and wanted the free one first.  Writing was never my thing and really, who would even read what I had to write. I was smitten and haven't looked back since.   This community of ours is one I wouldn't trade for the world.  We've been through the ups and downs together.  You all made the events of this past year so much tolerable and that much better for me. 

And to thank you as best I can requires yarn prezzies.  Since Lisa is celebrating her first blogiversary by having a drawing, I'm going to do the same.  Each comment during the month of October will enter you into a drawing for the swag.  I have some goodies in stash and easy access to other niceties (including 2 days at Rhinebeck) that I would love to someone, or two, or three (one to grow on) to celebrate these past wonderful two years. 

Craft on!

Resolutions

Wait long enough (though is an hour really that long) and have a stash of patterns and yarn big enough and the answer to a problem usually presents itself. 

Last night after the most excellent 2 hours of Battlestar Galactica were over, I did a little digging in the patterns subdirectory on my hard drive (memo to self:  save to cd for safety sake already) I tripped on the Knitty childHood pattern that I saved ages ago.  While the sweater is not a top down in the round raglan, I do like the shape of it and it passed Miss K's approval test. 

I toyed with the doing the sweater in a solid, but then it would be very much like Alex's sweater from last year.  I have plenty of Cascade on hand, thanks to the current obsession with it, including some the Deb bought a while ago (color 7803) and had second thoughts about recently.  (Which reminds me, I still owe you a check, don't I?  Mail or Rhinebeck?)  Anyway, I liked the whole color thing on the borders, sleeves and hood. 

It was then my brain started trying to dig up a mental color card of the Cascade 220 colors.  Heck, most nights at MY, I sit facing the wall o'220.  I vaguely recalled a Quatro that might be good.  So late this morning, as the folks were heading up to the boat to start the winterizing process and getting it ready to be pulled from the water, I piled the monkeys into the car and headed off to MY with a skein of 7803 in my purse.  While the children colored (they remembered that the store had crayons from their very first visit there back in the spring and asked about them on the way), I fiddled with combinations of cascade.  I found the perfect match.  Quattro in 9440.  Which coincidentally is the same color that I bought way way back in my first trip to MY during the Montclair yarn crawl with Deb.  One ply of the Quattro is the same shade as the 220.  How perfect can you get?   

We stopped for lunch at a local pizzeria, Kat insisting on 'chicken nuggies', and now the monkeys are taking a nap.   I'm now ready to get knitting.

Craft on!

Good, Bad and Fuzzy

I'm going to borrow from Carole and wonderful method of posting the Good and Bad.

Good:  I finished the knitting on the Baby Surprise Sweater.

I love the colors, even if I don't love that there are a million (or so it seems) ends that need to be woven into this thing.  I love how the random stripes look and probably use the technique again...

..because I'm going to have to...

Bad: It doesn't fit.

No way is this going to fit a 3 year old toddler, even a small one at that.  I have it sitting on top of a 24mos Gymboree sweater (thank you again Nancy) that still fits the little miss.  You see how short the sleeves come up against the pink sweater.  It is also a bit narrow around the body. 

Yes, I did read somewhere that on the worsted weight it would fit a 1+ year old and I'm not sure what I was thinking that would mean.  1+ doesn't mean a 3 though.  Fortunately it wasn't a huge time suck as I started it late Sunday night and finished it this afternoon.

Good:  The redeeming value from this, I now have a baby girl gift ready to go.  Handy too since my coworker's wife who is expecting is having a girl.  I just need to sew up the sleeve/shoulder seam, put some buttons on (oh yeah and weave in the million ends) the gift is done.

I have a couple of ideas running around my head as a possibility for another sweater for Miss K.  I  had the thought that I could shrink down  Ribby Cardi or Twist and make a toddler sized version for her.  I would like to do something in the round, top down in one of the plethora of yarns I've collected recently for her, including the remaining Cascade Superwash (took way less than the 3 skeins to complete the BSS), 220 in a Fuscia, or even the Dolly that I bought originally for her Dale sweater.  This basic pattern would come in handy.  Such choices.

I'm so ready for the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica tonight.  Wouldn't you know it, my digital cable box is refusing to show the SciFi channel today.  Any time I turn it on, I get a picture which then freezes and disintegrates into a million little digital pieces and then the whole works goes to grey.  Might just have to leave my room to watch this as I am so not going to miss it.

Have a good weekend..

Craft on!