The power of denial

I am a knitter in some serious trouble. I've been deluding myself for a long time now, but I need to face the hard truth.

I have many many friends who are expecting babies. All of these babies are due in late June and early July.

There's E, my high school best friend; she needs something super special.

There's J & J; they've had a rought time getting and staying pregnant and I'd like to do something really nice for them as well.

There's L. She's another HS friend, one I've only recently come back in touch with. Definitely needs at least a small something to welcome the new one. Her's needs sending off early, since she's over in Britain.

There's C. She's an online-only friend, but one who I really like, and I don't need to tell y'all that online-only does not necessarily mean not-as-good-as. She's had a tough stretch of it as well, definitely needs cute handknits for cheering.

There's M. Another online friend who I've met a few times in real life.

Okay, that's five, and I know I'm forgetting at least one. I've been blithely sailing along, not worrying about it - after all, there's not due until summer! I have plenty of time! I have less than three months. Maybe even less than that, since there will be showers, and present due then instead of when the babies are born. I need to get cracking.

I was reminded today of the super cute and relatively easy baby kimone sweater - I suspect I'm going to be whipping out a few of those real soon.

Sunday Sky

Didn't post yesterday, because I was was just too beat at the end of the day.

Yesterday was a half cloudy half sunny day - still a little nip to the air, but a hint of warming in it as well. Today was definitely springlike.



Thank you for the kind comments on the daffodil socks. I've very happy with them, after wearing them for a few days.

Clapotis is finished, but not yet blocked. I've started on Ms. Widget's new socks.


This is the yarn. It's lovely - perfect for a
little girl who loves pink.


They're toe up knee socks with the foot and cuff patterned with the Oblique openwork pattern from Sensational Knitting Socks. That pattern in knee high cuffs is going to take an age, but it's coming out so cute that I don't mind it so far.

And to round this one out, some cute cat paws! I had been looking at pic people have posted of their pet's paws and when I walked out of the office, Pye was lying on the couch, obligingly showing off all of her's. I couldn't resist.



How was all ya'll's weekends?

Great day!

Yesterday was a great day.

I finished the Daffodil socks around midnight on Sunday, and so I got to wear them to work. Just wearing these socks makes me happy, they make me think of spring and flowers and warm weather.


This shows off the color more clearly. And proves that I
actually did make TWO socks, not just a singleton to fool ya'll.


This here shows of the pattern, somewhat. They're a wee bit
short, and they're on the loose side, but I actually like that.
With wide ankles most socks are a wee bit too tight, and are
just not comfortable. I do think that these will be a bit better
when I block them (if I do) because then the lace pattern won't
pull them down as much.

So, that alone was makings for a good day.

But, even better, I got to spend my evening with my favorite baby in the whole world! I'd promised my friend Carrie that I would babysit so that she and her sweetie could go out for a nice dinner. And really, how can your evening be bad when you get to spend it with these two cuties?


The only tough part of the evening was convincing Widget
it was time to go home with Daddy.

After Widget and Wiley left, Katie and I played and babbled at each other until she passed out in my arms and slept for the rest of the night while I read my book. It is so much easier to just be zen about baby stuff when it's not your own baby. When Widget was a baby, I would have tried to put her down to sleep and gotten agitated when it didn't work and it would not have been happy for anyone. Katie? I just settled into my chair with my book and enjoyed the baby snoozies. She makes me want another baby in the same way that I "want" a dog. In theory, but not in reality.

Got home too late to do much of anything but go to bed.

Now that the daffodil socks are finished, I have to get started on a new pair of sleeping socks for Ms. Widget. She's bogarted my lovely pink and white stripe Lorna's Laces that I got at Purl when I was in New York, and somehow talked me into doing another pair of freaking knee socks for her. So, that and finishing Clapotis are the foreseeable future.

Oh, and one last administrative question. I've been having trouble leaving comments on other Blogspot blogs lately - the word verification image thingie isn't loading. Has anyone been seeing that here? (assuming anyone's trying to leaving comments, of course. Heh) I've turned off verification for the time being, hoping that I won't get bothered with spam.

Saturday Sky

03_03_07
Originally uploaded by siercia.

Today's Saturday Sky. A beautiful warm Saturday afternoon.

An especially nice Saturday because the rest of the family is off on the ski slopes, leaving me to a wonderful book and the cats.

Bliss.

Homeless yarn

In the end, the homeless yarn ended up just getting crammed in the closet before bed last night. Living with your very own stash weasel teaches you (sometimes) not to leave yarn out in the open, unsupervised.

It's a mess, but at least it's a mess behind closed doors, for now. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to muster the energy to deal with making it neater. For someone who purports to like organization, I'm not very good at it.

And, just for the record, that was most certainly NOT my whole stash! Hee. No, what I showed you last night was (most of) the oddballs and remnants in my stash. Most of the real stash lives in my bedroom. It just got a nice new home in a dresser that my lovely husband was discarding. I'll admit, it is smaller than many stashes (no yarn rooms here!) but there's at least 13 pairs of socks, 2 sweaters, 3 shawls worth of yarn up there, plus all the random single balls that I have no idea what I should do with them. So there really is a stash.


Pye would like you to believe that she is decidedly NOT a stash weasel. "If I were a stash weasel, would I sleep instead of molesting Mom's Clapotis that's RIGHT UNDER OVER MY nose?" Don't believe the cute snoozing cat.

Good grief!

There has been major upheaval here at Chez Siercia. We've been changing rooms all around, finally acheiving my many years long dream of having a living room (with comfortable chairs! and nice light to read by!) that has no darn TV in the middle of it, gumming up the works. Now the tv is in it's own little room off the kitchen and it is very nice. I was so pleased to be able to sit and read while Mr. Man was off watching car racing.

The downside is that we're getting rid of the quite large entertainment center that we had for the tv in the living room. It's too big for the nw tv room, and new mr. LCD tv doesn't need all that space. BUT (and it's a big but, people), that piece of furniture has long held a chunk of the yarn in my life. I'm sure you know how much of mess this has created in my house.

So, yesterday, we moved the knitting books from the closet to the bookcase, because they're more presentable and organized. Oh, but since that space didn't just appear from mid air, first I had to find homes for the books that were on that part of the bookshelf. Thankfully, there were homes to be found, because I'm still on a crazy book culling kick. So did that first, then moved the books. They actually take up about the space I was expecting - slightly more than half a shelf on a good sized bookcase.

See?



Then, I made the big mistake. I started trying to sort the yarn in the closet of doom. After all, I had all the space with the books gone, right? Now the closet is less full, but much more full of mess.

See?



And there's still a whole lot of crap in my living room that is homeless.


The sad plight of yarn with no home. This isn't even all of it.

I swear, it's felt like every time I turn around I'm finding more damn yarn. While I know I shouldn't be complaining (after all, what's not to like about yarn, right?) I'm kind of starting to feel like my yarn owns me, instead of the other way around.

Anyone wanna come shop at my house?

In actual knintting news, one daffodil sock is finished, but since I've been feeling ick with the cold this week, I've been doing some brain dead Clapotis knitting.



This here? It's much bigger now. But my husband already thinks I'm weird for taking pictures of the closet, so I'll leave you with only a pic of the infant Clapotis instead of the toddler clapotis.

Finished!

Completed sock!


Close-up of the heel and gusset.

Finished mom's socks late on Monday. Of course, I've not managed to mail them yet, but I'm hoping I'll get them out tomorrow morning. I'm quite pleased with how they came out. The garter rib works nicely with the varigated yarn, and is a little more interesting than plain old 2x2 rig.

I spent the rest of Monday night (where "rest of" means I stayed up until nearly 2am) futzing with the daffodil socks. Suzanne, you were so right in your suggestion - ripping them down from the top simply did not work. I wasted a good 45 minutes or more trying, only got about halfway around the cast on edge before realizing it was hopeless. Were I smart, at that point, I would have done exactly what she suggested, threading a bit of thread through the stitches I wanted to capture, then cutting the socks where I wanted it. Instead, I cut and carefully pulled out the stitches, picking up the newly freed stitches very carefully (and slowly!) as I went.


Here one of them is after surgery waiting for some love.

Last night I picked out my stitch pattern for the new tops and got about half a repeat done on both socks. No pictures of that, since there's not enough there to be photogenic yet. I'm currently debating going up a needle size after the first half repeat to make the sock tops a little looser, to accomodate my tree trunk legs.

Last, but not least, Ms. Widget wonders if Mom is ever going to finish taking pictures so that she can sit on the couch again.

One day, one toe

Technically, I'm going to be finished my Mom's socks in time. Or I should be, since it's 2/19 and I only have the toe decreases to go, ends weaving and blocking left. It's only a technical victory, though, since I'm not going to see her tomorrow. We'll have to settle for the victory being that the socks will go in the post by her birthday, to arrive later in the week.

I found a lovely shawl pin on Etsy to go with the shawl for my friend. That arrived late last week, so if I'm truly organized, I'll get that packaged up tonight and in the mail as well. I hope she loves it.

After that, I move to continuing work on the mini-clapotis for my godmother, and re-jiggering my daffodil socks. They're plain jane stockinette now, and a bit shorter than I wanted. Turns out I have TONS of yarn left over, and I want to make them more exciting. So I'm going to try to rip them out from the cuffs and re-knit the tops in a cool lace pattern. Or at least that's the theoretical plan.

A sock in progress

Just when I thought I was done with gift knitting, more comes to the forefront. My mom has asked for socks. I suspect she was being somewhat facetious in her request, but I'm taking her seriously. Now, her birthday is the 20th, and I'd really really love to have these done for then. But I know myself, and I know about how likely that is, so I think I'll be happy enough if she gets them before the end of February.

Since a knitting blog is nigh useless without knitting pictures, here's a couple of the barely started sock. We're working the Garter rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, in Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn, colorway "Cabin Fever"***. I'm enjoying the pattern, and absolutely loving the yarn. Easy to work with, gorgeous soft fabric.

In this, you can see why I'm not hopeful about the 2/20 deadline. 2 1/4 inches of cuff.



This is less useful for seeing progress, but is a fairly close representation of the color. Actually, on second thought, it's great for displaying my non-progress. Look at me, not thinking about it too hard.



And now, I should go knit on the sock instead of writing about it. Much better chance of finishing them that way.

Before I go, thanks to those who commented on my post from yesterday. It's nice to think I'm not entirely insane. It truly boggles my mind that this is even being raised as a serious question. And someday, I'll figure out a way to actually answer comments in e-mail, too.

***This yarn has a story. We were on our annual vacation with my parents, 5 of us, stuck in a teeny tiny cabin by bad weather. My mom, dad and I went out for a jaunt to go see a glass making shop near where we were staying, and there was an unexpected yarn store in the same building. I wandered through the yarn while my parents browsed the glass. I came accross this yarn... I'd been meaning to pick up some of this to try, and although it was not a usual color choice for me, once I saw the name, it absolutely had to come back with me.

Awesome, and a rant.

Well, I'm pleased to say that Linda of Grafton Fibers is as gracious and funny as her fibers are beautiful. I had such a wonderful fun and relaxing time at her studio on Saturday. It helped that I found that I really enjoyed the needlefelting. It was technically very simple - take fiber, stab with needle, repeat - but at the same time allows for such a broad range of creativity and playfulness that I was totally mesmerized.

Here's a pic of my second creation. I wanted to try out the face techniques that Linda was demonstrating, and seem to have created a wild woman.



She's going on my wall at the office, just in case my co-workers didn't already think I was weird.

The other piece I did is a neat abstract that I think looks rather celestial. Widget loved that one, so it is going to hang on her bedroom wall.


Felted Universe

And now on a slightly rantier note.

If you're reading this from my actual blog page, you might notice a new non-knitting button on the sidebar. You might even wonder what it's all about.

There's a furor brewing in mom-blogger land over the issue of women imbibing alcohol while at social gatherings with other mothers. I first read about it this motning at DotMoms. That led me to the blog of the woman who touched off the furor, which led me to Z Recommends' "Statement of Belief" on the matter.

There's a WHOLE lot that I could say on this topic, but I'm not sure I could be entirely coherent. For anyone to imply that a mother is a bad mother because she has the audacity to drink alcohol while she is with her child is beyond offensive to me.

There was a lot more to this rant, but I deleted it, because the truth is, I shouldn't even have to say it. Any woman's choice with regards to whether she drinks or not in the presence of her children is her choice to make, enough said.

I hope that sometime before I die, I can see a society where moms (and really, women in general) spend as much time working together and helping one another as they do tearing each other down and critizing the choices other women make.

Mermaids

Isn't this a beautiful felted creation? I snapped this pic at Rhinebeck in October. As I note in my caption, I was so amazed at the sculpture that I managed to entirely miss the beautiful batts of fiber that were right there next to it. I intend to remedy THAT oversight tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I get to take a field trip to Vermont with some of the other lovely knitters from Circles to visit Grafton Fibers for a lovely day of touring their studios and learning needle felting.

To say that I am excited would be an understatement.

More finished objects, Washcloth Edition

This week a crazy week of finishing up the loose ends of many many projects, so I'm going to post new stuff as I get them finished, and we can all pretend for a few minutes like I am some kind of incredibly prolific knitter, finishing multiple projects all the damn time.

Today's collection is a sampling of some of the washcloths I knit for holiday present this year. It started when I wanted to share the love that is Althaea Soaps and Herbals. I'd heard several online friends raving about this soap, and when one friend gifted me with some last summer, I immediately understood why. It is simply great stuff (my favorite is the Iced Black Keemun Tea scent). But, just giving someone soap seemed a little... weird. And somewhat impersonal.

So I was inspired to knit washcloths to go with them, for at least 8 gifts. These last samplings were the three that I knit for a few of my girlfriends. They're all knit with Sugar N' Creme cotton (which, while maybe great for washcloths, really did a number on my hands, which is odd, because I normally love knitting with cotton.)

Here's one in the near-ubiquitous slip stitch brick pattern from Mason Dixon Knitting.



These two are Feather and Fan. Top shot shows the pattern better, bottom shows the real colors of the yarn. Could Feather and Fan BE any more boring to knit?





This was a pattern of my own design. I used stockinette and reverse stockinette to create zig zags. I started off planning to make them even, then decided halfway through to make them longer in a few spots, just to make things more interesting.



There's one more gifty thing still on the needles. Okay, not even started yet. But it'll be a quick knit once I get it going.

Tomorrow, pictures of the purple shawl I've been working on forever and ever. And maybe, if I'm really lucky, some daffodil colored socks as well.

Red Scarf

It's been finished for nearly a month, but because I am always behind on everything, it got blocked this weekend and packed up today.



This is my single scarf contribution to the Red Scarf Project. It's simply garter stitch, because I couldn't find a stitch pattern that I thought made the yarn sing. I knit it in Rowan Cashsoft, because it was the most yummy soft yarn at Circles that was a beautiful red.

As I was packing it up at my desk today, a few of my co-workers were very curious about what I was doing. I think the thought that you would take the time to knot for charity flummoxed them a bit.

Saturday Sky

No pictures of today's sky for me, as the husband took the camera with him to his NER thing in Connecticut. (Having to share a camera makes this picture a day thing a wee bit difficult, darn it.)

So instead, a picture of the sky over Rhinebeck at the Sheep and Wool Festival.

When we left our intrepid heroine...

I was about to crash asleep in my chair after hoofing all over Lower Manhattan.

Saturday morning, when I woke up, I mapped out my plan for the day, making one critical error (which you'll see in a bit). While at dinner on Friday, my sister had mentioned an exhibit she enjoyed a great deal at the Whitney Musuem - a show of Picasso and some of the American artists that he had influenced. I looked it up and found that it was still running. The lure of that show combined with my sister's warning that the Guggenheim is often crazy crowded on the weekend made me change my plans, and I am so glad that I did.

The show was amazing! Now, I don't know much about art in general, and I really don't know much about modern art, so I was coming to this from the vantage point of the mostly untutored. The show was eye opening. Unfamiliar with most of Picasso's work, I got to be astounded at the depth and breadth of his work. Seeing how his work evolved over time, and then seeing how that caused other artists to change and move into new areas gave me the first glimmerings of understanding how modern art came about. I kind of "got it" for the first time.

After the Picasso exhibit, I wandered around the Albers And Moholy-Nagy: From The Bauhaus To The New World exhibit for a while. That was neat, but not nearly as stunning as the Picasso.

Done with the museum, both because I was tired and because it was now also getting crowded. I walked a few blocks, found the bus to take me downtown, grabbed a quick (and sadly yucky) lunch, and found habu. What neat stuff they have there! It was very fun getting to touch and fondle what they had, but in the end, I didn't buy anything.

After that, I walked over toward School Products, found the building, and it was closed. Confused, I wandered around for a few minutes trying to figure out if I was in the right place. Finally decided that I was, and it WAS closed, and I groused a bit and walked back to the bus. Later on, I looked again at their web page to realize that they close at 3:30 on Saturdays. I'd gotten there at about 3:35. (There's the critical error.) Dammit. Next time, I'll know better.

After that, I was seriously footsore and beat, so I found the bus and headed back to my hotel. Stopped at a restaurant nearby, at a quick light dinner, grabbed a cab and headed for my train. I ended up so engrossed in my book that I didn't even knit at all on the train ride home. The book was The Best Thing I Ever Tasted by Sallie Tisdale, an if you've not read it, I would highly recommend it. Thoughtful, interesting, and in a few places, heartbreaking. There were more than a few places where it felt like she had climbed inside my head before saying what she had to say. An excellent choice for an impulse used bookstore purchase.

This week, I've just not been knitting. I'm at the uber-boredom point of a few projects, at the super tough stage of another, and nothing is lining itself up to be worked on at the moment. In a few minutes, though, I'm going to go watch the new Monk and Psych, and hopefully barrel through the tough project.

Of course, it also didn't help that I spent two days in Toledo. With a new and very eager co-worker, so there was not much time to myself on this particular trip. No matter, it was still a good trip, and the new co-worker did well, and (I hope) learned a whole lot. It was fun that he seemed very intrigued by my knitting (socks, especially, seem to intrigue non-knitters. It must be all the needles and the weird shaping.)

Tomorrow afternoon, Widget has a friend over for a playdate. I'm hoping that they'll play together and I'll get a bit of time to putter, even if it's time that's full of little girl loud.

Man, am I beat

Well, made it to NY. Made it through a couple of days of one site. Finished early ehough on site today that I had more than enough time to get to Purl before they closed. In fact, had I properly done my homework, I could have swung by School Products as well. But, best laid plans, and all of that, right?

I was good at Purl - I bought a couple skeins of Lorna's Lace sock yarn in one of their "Purl only" colors (white and pink, for those wondering), and a couple of skeins of Koigu, in this neat orange colorway. The only other thing I was looking for, a good, not stupid expensive laceweight, they did not seem to have. C'est la vie, and all of that. It's not as if I need more yarn, right?

I got *SO* lost trying to find Purl. That end of Manhattan always messes me up. Got off the train, spotted one of my marker streets (where I was meeting my sister later) and confidently headed off... in completely the wrong direction. Figured out it was wrong fairly quickly, and corrected in the wrong direction again. After doing that again, I finally found a map, figured out where I needed to go, and finally made it. What should have been a half mile walk turned into at least twice that, with the huge heavy laptop backpack. Next time, I bring a good map with me!

Had a lovely dinner with a friend last night. Spent most of this evening chilling at the bookstore my sister volunteers at, waiting for her to finish up. (Should you find yourself in NY, I'd highly recommend the Used Bookstore Cafe on Crosby St. It's a charity shop for an AIDS action group called Housing Works, it's a great space with a good selection, and a nice cafe to have a coffee and relax. It's a 10 minute walk from Purl.) We had dinner after she got off work, and now, I'm finally back in the hotel resting.

Tomorrow, the Guggenheim and lunch somewhere nice, maybe School Products yarn, maybe Habu. We'll see how long my feets want to hold up.

New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!

So, my work often takes me to New York. Sadly, it usually takes me there with little time to do much besides grind out a 12 hour day, grab a good meal and sleep.

This week though, life is good, and I am not only getting to go on a trip that promises to will hopefully be relatively easy. Upgrade on one small site's server Thursday, checking in with them Friday, then training a new admin at a second site Friday afternoon.

Even better than that, since it backs up onto a weekend, I've managed to arrange to stay over an extra night, and catch a late train home on Saturday evening. Now I have to figure out what I want to do! My brain is shutting down as I contemplate all my options.

So, any suggestions? I'm torn as far as whether I want to hit yarn shops. I am, in theory, trying to focus on knititng from my stash for at least the first part of the year. But, at the same time, Purl and habu are calling my name - the former to check out their selection of Moving Mud shawl pins, the latter because their stuff is so interesting and uncommon, and not easily found out in the world. If I go with yarn shopping, any suggestions?

If I don't go with yarn shopping as my preferred sport, any suggestions? I'm not much of a shopper, so schlepping around to a bunch of stores doesn't sound super fun to me. I was thinking I would try and maybe see if I could get tickets to some kind of a show for Thursday or Friday night. Saturday, I was thinking might be a good museum day - perhaps the Guggenheim, which I've never been to see.

Oh, and I just had another thought! What about Ellis Island? I've never been out there either. Maybe if the weather is nice(ish) that would be a good choice.

This will be the first time I've been in the city on my own AND have had time ti kill (I've been with friends for leisure, and I've been by myself for work (see above, re: 16 hour days). I'm dizzy with all the possibilities!

I'm SO excited!

New Year, @whee

So, blogging wise, my only New Year's resolution is to start actually remembering to post in here.

When I go through funks, I withdraw and stop posting - it's true here and in my LJ as well. Then when I feel better, breaking the not-posting trend is difficult, to say the least. But, I am at least going to try to be better about it.

So, just like the past year, this year is looking as if it will be full of babies (at least two on the way already). So there will be more baby knits. Ms. Judy has inspired me to do more charity knitting, so there will be more charity knitting. I've got some other crafty things cooking, so there may be some of that as well.

I've also (possibly foolishly) signed up to do A Picture a Day with Maryse over at Monster Yarn. My pictures, should I manage to keep up, will be over on Flickr. Any really good ones or knitting related ones, I'll probably post here as well.

Later this week, (See that? Committing to posting again this week?) I'm going to have a wee little contest, for the 4 people who are still reading this thing.

Saturday Sky

A cloudy Saturday, with just a wee bit of blue sky starting to peek out... Perhaps it will be sunny later?

As for today, I must say that 67 degrees in January in New England just feels wrong.

Rhymes with Orange

Did anyone else see this Sunday's Rhymes with Orange?

Here's a link.

You must go read it.