Yarn Thoughts

Happy customers!

Look at that happy face! My nephew, 5, loves his new hat and his sister is almost wiling to tolerate hers :)

Their brother was a little upset he didn't have one too but when I showed him the photo of yarn I was going to use and promised his was next he perked right up!

A knitter in need is a happy knitter indeed!

Done and Done

Above are two wobbly Pre-blocked hats. The green and purple is a Turn A Square by Jared Flood and the orange is a basic hat pattern and I used Color by Kristin (I adore this book) for the color work charts.

I feel so dexterous when I knit left and right handed at the same time for color work. It's my favorite kind of knitting to take a blank hat canvas and make it my own.

On the needles now are some plain mittens for a guy with hands so big I'm going to have to add stripes or something to make sure I don't run out of yarn. I enjoy knitting mittens but hats and cowls are definitely my favorite. It's rare for me to commit to a huge project, I knit one scarf in lace weight and I crocheted a Babette blanket. Both were pretty small for the effort!

This weekend me and the fam are heading off for adventure. We are spending Saturday night at my parent's house and they are watching the boys while my husband and I get drenched in the rain watching The Avett Brothers perform at the Life is Good Festival in Canton MA. It could rain frogs and locusts, I am so freaking excited to see my favorite band play for my first time! Oh Avett Brothers, how I adore you...

Oh well

Still plugging away. I forgot I volunteered to make the birthday cake! And of course I didn't have frosting so I made my own.

Side note:
Best frosting EVER!

Whisk 1 cup of milk and 5 tbs of flour, heat on medium, stirring to prevent scorching until it's thick, about 3-5 minutes.

Set aside to cool. Stir in 2 tsp of vanilla. Or any flavoring you like.

When it's TOTALLY cool, beat a stick of butter till fluffy and add 1'cup of sugar. Superfine is best. But not essential. You can spin a cup of regular sugar in a food processor to make it fine if you want. Not necessary. I didn't do it. But I would. I will next time.

Anywho. Once that's all fluffy and creamed add in the flour-goo-paste. Beat on medium for a minute or two, scraping down the sides to make sure it's all mixed up. So freaking good! Light, fluffy, not too sweet but very kid friendly.

My flour goo had small lumps. It was fine.

Even without the hat the party was a hit! Another aunt bought costumes for the birthday boy, his brother and even my two boys! When my eldest opened his new spiderman costume he FREAKED! it was awesome :)

Charlie Sheen has always tried to be a badass but really he's just nuts

There are so many things wrong with this picture. The story this photo tells is a war story, filled with setbacks and peril, with faint glimmers of hope. I don't even know how it ends.

Two things are fairly obvious, there is a cup of coffee and I'm on the train. That means it's morning. And I have barely made a dent on my coffee if I'm on this train and not the Metro North.

So we know it's early, it's a workday and I haven't finished my coffee (and maybe I have a thing for orange. I do).

Let's look at the knitting. Notice there is no pattern, but a page of motifs. This illustrates that I'm not using any pattern and I'm inserting a motif into a regular hat. But look at what else is missing. There are no notes, no marks, no post its to keep track of where I am on the chart. There is only one stitch marker on the hat for the beginning of the round which means I'm keeping track by eye/memory.

Cue the dramatic music.

I ripped out and re-knit a single row 3 freaking times! I didn't even make a whole row, two or three repeats and I'm all "wait, wait a second this doesn't make sense". So I look, say to myself "oh I see what I did" and rip back and restart the row. 30 stitches later the same thing happens. Rip, reknit. 40 stitches later I realize I'm repeating my last row instead of moving to the next to row and adding the two stitches last night to make it work was actually a mistake and I take those out too.

This hat is for my sweet little nephew Owen who grew out/damaged the last orange on orange hat I made him which he loved. Nothing beats seeing loved knitwear. I told my sister I would make him a new hat and it just so happens his 5th birthday is Sunday. Which means I have 2 days to finish this thing. I'm not the kind of knitter who has huge chunks of time to devote to projects. It usually takes a week for me to knit a hat.

If my next post shows a darling blue-eyed boy wearing his own orange hat then we will know I was victorious. If there is no post on Sunday then we know the ending is like Platoon where the bad guy dies but so does the good guy and the guy who lives can't tell if he's good or bad and it's all tragic not knowing the fate of the survivors.

I'm hoping for a happy ending but if it goes bad I know he'll like getting Thor on DVD :)

I'm back!

It's been 238 days since my last post. It's amazing what has happened between now and then.

This is supposed to be a place to write about knitting but I can't explain my absence without writing about my personal life.

My husband is an alcoholic. We started dating at 19 and immediately fell madly in love. We liked to hang with friends, have parties and entertain. That always included drinking.

Fast forward more than a decade and the drinking never slowed down. Not after marriage, our first kid or our second. It began to increase as the demands of family and growing up replaced our socializing with friends.

The exact opposite of what I knew was supposed to happen.

Things got really bad around 2009 and sped downhill rapidly in 2010. This is not my first dance when it comes to loving an alcoholic and I knew I could only voice my worries and wait to see who's breaking point came first, mine or his.

My husband wanted to lose some weight and started eating less. And less. And less. 30 pounds disappeared rapidly.

Last winter we were beaten down with massive snowstorms, feet upon feet of snow. My husband wasn't shoveling. Complained his boots were no good. Also was complaining that things kept hitting/falling on his feet and they hurt.

Into the new year his gait got strange. He stopped coming up stairs. Stopped sleeping in our bed. I knew something was wrong and tried to urge him to see a doctor. I could have been talking to a rock. He refused. Because he was scared and knew he didn't want his fear to be real.

Then one night in February he stubbed his toe and collapsed in pain. Absolutely lost it and I hit my breaking point right then and there. I was done.

I called my sister to watch my kids and I took my husband to the ER. I wouldn't take no for an answer.

After a bunch of tests and tears he was told his alcoholism caused his liver to swell dangerously. He was diagnosed with neuropathy.

Our primary care physician did more tests and my husband was terribly malnourished. He had been eating the barest minimum of food and getting all his calories from whisky.

Without going into all the details two things were clear. Jim had to stop drinking to save his life and we were looking at long-term, possibly permanent damage. He elected to quit drinking and was determined to do his detox at home. He refused rehab. We couldn't take him to AA as we really couldn't get him in and out of new buildings and he couldn't drive. We just got through it.

He did contact AA online and skyped with a sponsor (in Estonia! The internet makes the world very small!). After two or three months he stopped with the sponsor and has continued to do great.

After a couple months of taking massive amounts of vitamins and ibuprofen he began to take physical therapy. Then he stared driving. He gave up the air bed in the living room and came upstairs again.

He has made so much recovery it's astounding. Like medically unheard of to be almost cured of neuropathy from the state he was in after 7 months. Our doctor initially predicted 3-5 years with the cane.

We are not the people we were last year. Our whole dynamic has changed. Our perspectives, our priorities, hopes and dreams and our day-to-day living is just all new. And it's wonderful.

AA isn't out of the question, it's a valuable resource and eventually we'll give it a go. We're not against AA but it's not for us right now. I encourage anyone who thinks they or someone they love has a problem with alcohol to check out a meeting.

In knitting news there are all sorts of things to talk about and I can't wait to get back to writing again. Thanks to commenter Lauren for nudging me back to blogging. It's the right time, I'm in the right state of mind and I'm happy to be here.

11

11 days since my last post.  Helllloooo slacker!

There was a super secret embroidery project I was making for my friend Heather.  And of course I didn't photograph it!  But that was where all my knitting energy was going.  I love embroidery.  It's relatively fast, easy and if you make a mistake (like I do.  Often) It's easy to rip out a part and start over!  I have all sorts of things I want to embroider.  Feeling Stitchy is a great inspiration for all different styles of embroidery.

I have been on a tear buying embroidery books for inspiration.

Recent additions include:

(all amazon images and links)

 

 

 

I also have all the Jenny Hart books and some of her supplies and transfers.  Sublime Stitching is in my opinion the very best resource for stitching materials and tools.  Her blanks, kits, transfers and and books are all top notch quality.  HOWEVER, there is one caveat - she has such a distinctive style that I feel like I'm being less than creative when I stitch her designs, I feel like anyone could tell where I got the pattern from.  Which is silly and unimportant I know, but to make sure I expand my horizons I have looked elsewhere for inspiration.  Which is why I have all those books and more.

As for the knitting I realized that I have been working almost exclusively in knit picks swish worsted for over two months.  Not really a bad thing but I'm ready to dig my hands into some interesting wools from independent dyers.  I have so many great yarns waiting to be made into cakes, I think I sense a little startitis coming on.  I'm wrapping up a slouchy hat of my own design and then I'm breaking out with the ball winder!  Onward and upward!

Also, I don't want to let this day go by without thanking Dr. King for all he gave, all he sacraficed and all he accomplished.  Thank you.

Into the Archives

My little one is home sick today and napping.  I'm cleaning and disinfecting everything I can today.  I decided to take a break and sit at the computer and instead of playing my 12,469 th game of Bejewled Blitz on facebook I would blog a bit.  That game is seriously, tendonitis-inflamingly addictive.

Seeing as fresh, current knitting-related content is going to be a little light for a little longer I decided to show you and oldy but a goody.

Here's my mom:

 

Isn't she cute?  She's holding my niece Tamlyn on her birthay. Tamlyn's hat courtesy of me! Love the pom poms.  The lady in the johnny coat in my sister.  Hi!  I hate using my flash but indoor lighting is indoor lighting.

Anyways,

This picture was taken March 4, 2010 and my mom's birthday is April 6.  Her last birthday I made her a nice little scarf out of Berroco Pure Merino.  This is great yarn.  Soft, nice weight and excellent stitch definition. 

This photo was for my stash page.  It's not there now, not even in the all used up category, don't know why.

A great yarn though.  Nicely plied and very bouncy.  It retails for about $9 which is a little high for less than 100 yards considering that Webs sells Valley Yarns Northfield for less than half price and it's entirely comparable.

My friend Gale was wearing a great scarf one day and when I asked her about it she told me it was a stitch pattern called razor shell - new to me but I guess it's an old, common stitch pattern akin to feather and fan (which I haven't tried yet either).  So I looked up the pattern and a couple weeks later, voila! A scarf is born:

 

 

This color is great with her blue eyes.  She did make sure to tell me that this year she wants a cowl, cheeky bitch!  My mom's great though, and I'm sure I can whip her up something.  My older sister (the one in the above photo) showed me that she accidentally felted a scarf I made her of Debbie Bliss Silk Alpaca.  So she has moved to the front of the knit-for-me line.   It's chilly out there, the woman needs a scarf!

This has been a long break and I have to go scrub and sweep the bathroom next.  Tonight is the Christmas Party for our knitting group.  I am so looking forward to it.  My grab gift needs to be wrapped, the champagne is nice and cold in the fridge and I'm going to be out the door by 6:30 tonight!!

No Knitting

Starting out 2011 and I have no projects planned. No knitting goals or resolutions with knitting. Me, knitting and yarn have developed a nice cozy relationship where we're all happy. I've been doing great stash diving which isn't hard when you about 300 skeins of yarn. It's not that I don't want to buy yarn or that I'm imposing rules on myself, but exploring the stash is like taking a long walk through a neighborhood you grew up in.
All that being said, I haven't been knitting much at all lately. I have a hat 1/3 of the way done that I'm not terribly excited about.
I was going to bed the other night and didn't feel like reading. I went into my closet where my second-string stash is stored and I started poking through bags and pulling out different yarns and because it was so late I was looking for yarn that didn't need to be wound off a hank and in a large bag of cottons I found a pile of GGH Goa.
Goa is a thick, ropey, noodely, multiplied cotton acrylic blend. I made a blanket once for Eli in it and he loves it. I found some Latern Moon rosewood circulars I never opened from buying them at Rhinebeck and randomly opened a page in a stitch dictionary. Maybe, just maybe if I get excited enough I'll knit a bunch of different large squares and stitch them together. No promises. I'm not committing to anything because I don't want to apply my new years resolution of more discipline onto my knitting. I've knit four rows on one square. The stitch pattern is new to me and I may have messed some knit one belows. No commitment no heartbreak if it crashes.

2011 is gonna be bananas!

These are 2010 bananas.  Mushy, rotting, over and past their prime!  A little symbolism there.

Bruised and battered.  Not very bad on the whole, but not really appetizing either.  Plenty of sweetness but very little substance.

 

 

Take these old 2010 yucky juju bananas and mix them up with 3/4 c brown sugar, 1 stick of melted and browned butter, 2 eggs, 3 tbs milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, a tsp of baking powder, a tsp of salt, a 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 2 cups of flour.  Bake in a greased loaf pan at 350 for an hour and you get brand-spanking-new, not too sweet, warm and hearty banana bread.

 

Here's to a 2011 of fresh bread, new beginnings, reinvention, inspiration, determination, discipline and blazing a new path.  I'm going to be taking new roads, roads less traveled and that shall make all the difference.

The Christmas Blizzard

I don't even know how much snow has fallen.  6 inches? 12?  Hard to say as it's all been blown around in 30-50 mph gusts, but it's a cold mess out there.  Therefore I extended my long weekend by another day and stayed hunkered down, venturing out to shovel and to let the littles play till the snow froze their little fingers.  It was so cold and windy even playing wasn't that much fun.

I would have baked something but we are still working through Christmas cookies, Christmas ham and I'm waiting to see who is going to finish off the last of the eggnog.  Onward and ahead is the new year with it's new slate, new promises, new potential for doing and being different.

Last year my resolution was to care less.  To give a fuck less.  To look at nit-picky situations and say "fuck it".  Which I worked on all year and got better at, a little.  I'm still frustrated by a messy house, still ticked off at stupid petty problems, but I would say less so than before.  It's too hard to spend all that energy in frustration and anger.  So I let go a little, tried to be a little more mindful about what's really going on and just really focused on enjoying my family.  I fall in love with my children every day and it's wonderful.

This year, looking ahead I would like to marry my mindfulness, my somewhat laissez-faire attitude with a little more discipline.  I would like this year to be a year where I work hard at the goals that are important while continuing to let the small stuff go.  My goals however are mixed and kind of interdependent on one another so I'm going to have to take life as it comes, but pay more attention to life, work harder at living life and stay focused in the moments while keeping my eyes ahead.  Sounds confusing.  Even to me.  I'm just going to drill it down to disclpline.  I'd like to be a relaxed type A personality.  If that could even work.  Detail oriented and accomplished, but not petty, overwhelmed and out of touch with reality. 

The children are snugged and slumbering, the wind is howling and hubbo is probably scoping out some quality television programming which I will knit to.  If I don't make it back here this week, Happy New Year!