We did it!

Got everything where it is supposed to be, and it is SO MUCH NICER than it was before.

Now all my stuff is in one place, and I am tickled pink. You can click on the following photos to see all my crap labeled (when I said that I was tickled pink, it might have been a slight understatment — I think I am a little giddy about it, enough so to make goofy labeled photos of my craft/office room).

My shelves of stuff:

My desk:

My craft table:

My hubby’s desk is also in here, but it’s boring:

Overall, it’s a nice cozy space without being obscenely crowded (like it was before we moved), and I’ve got my sweing machine set up so that it can stay out and accessible — so it might actually get some use!

And in that vein, I got really brave and joined the sew? i knit! sewalong. I think that’s probably pretty ambitious, given that I’ve used my sewing machine all of about four times, and before Christmas I’d never even turned on a sewing machine (I’m the girl that took shop instead of home ec in junior high, and all my electives were sciences in high school), but I’m really hopeful. The current project is a bag. I like bags, and a bag seems less screw-up-able to me than a garment, so I decided to close my eyes and jump. I hope I don’t end up over my head. I really considered joining when they were doing skirts — in fact, I even bought a couple of skirt patterns. Silly me, though, didn’t pay enough attention and bought the WAY wrong size skirt pattern. That was enough indication for me that I probably out to sit that round out. Now, I’ve got to get it together enough to pick out a pattern and some fabric for a bag. I have some fabric that I really like, but I don’t know if something I want to use for a bag. I’m hoping to get a chance this weekend to head out to the fabric shop alone and see what I can find.

Oh, yeah, knitting?

This is supposed to be a knitting blog, right? Well, there has been knitting progress.

Rogue is still plugging along. I’m over halfway done with the hood now. I have no new pictures, because it looks not much different than it did before. After the hood, I have the applied I-cord to knit, then just the finishing — HA! Just the finishing. As in, sewing sleeves into a NOT flat opening and then installing a zipper. What was I thinking again, making this a cardi?

Hubby’s socks — well, progress being made there too. These are my “sitting at the computer desk” and my “going outside with Nate” project. You’d think that would mean there would be much progress, since I spent a fair amount of time both at my computer and outside with Nate. But really, there’s not — and there’s a reason for that. I had hubby try them on shortly after the last picture was taken. He said “They’re too small, I can’t get them over my heel.” Okay, I thought there might be a chance of that. So as I start to rip them out, he says “Well, that might be, though, because the needles are in the way.” Hmmmm. I decided to rip anyway and cast on with 4 more stitches. Disaster! The pretty, pretty spiral striping that I was getting turned into the god-awful-ugliest pooling that I’ve ever seen. Yuck! So I had him try these on, and he said “Way too big.”

Grrrrrrr.

So more ripping, and I’m back to 60 stitches. Back to pretty spiral striping. I’m pretty happy now, and they’re moving along pretty quickly. Which is good, since they’re going to have to be pretty big — a 10 inch foot just seems so huge to me!

In a stunning display of “what the HELL were you thinking,” my husband and I arranged things a little . . . strangely . . . when we moved into our house almost four (!) years ago. It is a four bedroom house, with the master bed and bath on one side of the house and the other three bedrooms and second bath along a hallway on the other side (completely irrelevantly, the only hallway in the house). The middle (and smallest) bedroom we made our son’s, knowing full well that he would be sleeping with us for the first several years of his life.

We made the mid-sized bedroom, with the gorgeous windows that is flooded with (glare-causing) light, into our office. When we started, all three of my bookshelves with crafty-type supplies were in there, as well as my craft table, and our rolltop desk. This in addition to both computers and their peripherals. To say it was crowded is an understatment. In the last, largest, bedroom, we put the guest bed, my hope chest, and the aquarium. This quickly became the “junk” room.

Over the past four years, my art supplies and my knitting supplies have migrated to the “guest” room. My craft table was taken down and put in the attic (sob). When I quit my job, all the accumlated materials from five years of being in the same classroom were stored in the “guest” room. My photography supplies took over a larger and larger portion of the office.

Well, this weekend we tore our house apart and are putting it back together in a way that finally, finally makes sense. We moved the rolltop desk and the aquarium into our formal dining room space, which had nothing in it but two bookshelves (giving it two empty walls). This means that two of the prettiest things we own are now out in the public part of the house, instead of buried away in back rooms. We are moving the rest of the office into the largest room, with my craft supplies. We are setting my craft table back up — to give me a place to put my sewing machine!! (I cannot say how excited I am about this.) All of my stuff will be in one place, easy to get to, and it’s making me giddy with delight. We will even be able to put Nate’s little craft table in here, so that he and I can work on projects at the same time but I don’t have to give up what I’m working on so that I can supervise and help with what he’s working on. My papermaking supplies were even retrieved and put in an accessible place! (I can’t wait to make paper with Nate.) And, in spite of all that — it still will feel more roomy and less claustrophobic than it did in our old office.

The guest bedroom will also be vastly improved. There’s more closet space in the other room, and my guests won’t have to share space with my yarn and paint. They also won’t have the aquarium to contend with, leaving them free to sleep without the noise of the pump and the annoying light that comes on and goes off on a timer. Instead of being in a somwhat dark room, they will have a gorgeously lit room with high ceilings and all kinds of loveliness.

A very good move.

At least it damn well better be, because making the move is going to drive me out of my mind. My house is soooo torn up. We’ve got the desk and aquarium moved, but the “dining room” (I really usually call it our library) rug is rolled up in the living room. We’ve got everything but the big filing cabinet moved and set up in the office, but there’s a boatload more cleaning to do. The hope chest (which by myself I can move all of half an inch) is smack in the middle of the room. The bed that’s going into the guest room is in pieces in the dining room. Both underbed storage containers, the TV and VCR for the guest room, and most of the contents of the guestroom closet are in various places through the living room and dining room. The container I’m currently using for yarn storage is probably going to have to be replaced, and it’s in the living room too. You can’t move more than two feet in any one direction in the main section of our house.

Not to mention the four years worth of magazines that are all over the coffee table, waiting for me to clip articles from them if I need to and throw them the hell away.

Whose idea was this, anyway?

All those words (and no pictures, because I’m far too embarrassed to show anyone this mess) to say there has been no knitting in my world this weekend, and there will probably continue to be no knitting for quite some time. Until I don’t want to cry every time I look anywhere but at my computer screen. I hope we make it all the way through this with no one getting killed.

Lots of things to talk about, most not very connected with each other. I’ve been on “vacation” back home in Mississippi, and didn’t have access to a computer that plays well with others (or with the camera, for that matter) so I’ve been a little out of touch. It was a really strange trip home — it’s the first time I’ve been back to the Mississippi coast since right after Katrina. Seven months later, I would have hoped to see more progress in rebuilding. While there has been a lot of recovery — the devastation was so very large-scale, that there is still so much left devastated. It was, for me, a very disheartening trip.

I did get some knitting done, though not as much as I would have hoped since my son decided to take the week at Grandma’s to be possessed by some wild hellion child (or, he was really thrown out of whack by traveling so far from home without Daddy and having his routines completely messed with, take your pick) and I fell into bed exhausted every night after running herd on him every second of every day. I did finish the body of my Rogue:

And managed to make a (very little) progress on the hood:

I’m pretty happy, still, with how this is going, though right now I’m a little paranoid. The body is a little too small around and more than a little too short (though not quite a LOT too short, more than just a little). My rational brain is working overtime to reassure my emotional brain that this is OKAY. See, I made gauge swatches, and I washed and blocked those gauge swatches, and I know that this sweater is going to grow — pretty significantly, even — once it’s blocked. I know that my sleeves were right on (maybe a teeny tiny smidgen too big, even) after blocking even though they were far too small before blocking. I know these things, but when I put what my DH is calling my “weird vest looking thing” on and it’s so small, my poor little brain freaks out a little bit. But I’m smart. I know that it’s going to be okay. My gauge swatch will not have lied to me.

I have gone back to cabling without the cable needle for most of the cables. My brain and I finally got it figured out how to twist the cables the right way again after a review of Grumperina’s tutorial. I must have reviewed it a dozen times while I was making Trellis, but this time my brain finally gave in and let me remember how to make the twist in the right direction. (Which is a good thing, because I was beginning to feel very, very dumb and very, very frustrated, given that I had done it successfully in the past.) I don’t know how much time it’s actually saving me, but it makes me feel acocmplished. On the other hand, it makes me wish I were not using these Addi Turbo needles — their points are so NON-pointy! Who on earth things knitting needles that are THAT dull are a good idea? I find myself really wishing I’d gone with needles that had more of a point to them to “dig into” those stitches as I do the cables. At least next time I’ll know not to use the Addis for a project that involved cabling. (Or lace! I’m having nightmares just imagining trying to do lace with these things.)

In addition to working on Rogue, I also started a new project — my husband’s socks. S. has a pair of socks that he bought that he wears around the house in his pajamas to keep his feet warm, and we came up with the idea that I should knit him a similar pair so he will have more than one. (I don’t honestly remember whether I came up with the idea or he did, but it pleases both of us.) So I told him I would do that as his birthday gift (he didn’t want me to buy him anything, so this seemed like a good plan). He’s been getting a little impatient as I keep working on other things instead of his socks. (To be fair, his birthday is in January. Early January. He may have a point.) I had bought some sock yarn, but when I started knitting it up I decided that it was really too thin a fabric for the intended purpose. So I had to order some new yarn and wait for it to be shipped. It came in on Monday, and I immediately started on his sock. He was a little surpirsed that I started instead of continuing to work on my sweater, but I felt like I needed to throw him a bone.

The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in the Blackwatch colorway. Can I just say . . . WOW? This is the first time I’ve knit with Lorna’s Laces yarn and I am loving it! Sooooo soft and yummy. I’m knitting it using a new pair of Bryspun double pointed needles — my first time using any of their needles, and so far I’m not sure what I think. I’ve only used bamboo or wood DPNs before, and getting used to the relative slipperiness of the needles is taking me a bit of effort. On the other hand, I love love love the points on these things — nothing blunt about them! Of course, I’m doing a simple k2p2 rib for the leg, which I don’t need the pointy points for, really, but I’m liking them anyway. The sock is not going as fast as I would like — what you see is all the progress I made in about an hour of sitting watching my son play outside — but I guess by now I should be resigned to the fact that I just knit really, really slowly. I’m tickled with the spiral-stripiness thing they’ve got going. I’m amused by such little things.

Nate has started to really get interested in my knitting. The other day he told me he was going to knit for me. He had two plastic rods in his hand, and told me they were knitting needles, and that he was going to make me a pair of socks. Then he said “OH! WAIT! I don’t have enough needles for socks; I will knit you a sweater because you can knit a sweater on only two needles.” Who knew that he paid that much attention? He “knit” for a minute, then ran off to his room and came back with five “needles.” He arranged four of them on the floor in a square and began poking at them with the fifth. “There. Now I am knitting you socks because I have enough needles to knit socks.” He really blows me away sometimes. Yesterday he asked me to teach him to knit. I know that, regardless of how bright I might think he is , trying to teach a 3-year-old to knit is just an exercise in frustration. But I figured there was no harm in showing him, so I got him so needles and yarn and helped him make a few stitches. He then demanded to be left alone, and this is the result:

In case you’re wondering, he’s working on a sweater for Mama.

I’m a member of an online forum that has a long and sordid history. We’ve been through several upheavals and a bit of drama, and moved homes a few times, but there are a few of us that have been virtually hanging out with each other for more than five years now. Every now and again, I get kind of amazed at the place. We have a bunch of people from all over the place who have managed to form this rag-tag community. And out of that rag-tag community, I’ve developed a few friendships. I am not a person who has a lot of friends, or someone who uses the term friend casually. When I make friends, they tend to be very deep, long-lasting, meaningful friendships. So the fact that I have made friends through this virtual world, whom I’ll likely never meet and whom I never would have known without the internet, occasionally takes me by surprise. It makes me feel very lucky that I live now, when the internet exists.

One of these friends is an absolute gem of a lady who will always in my mind be Lily, even though that’s not really her name. She lives in Canada and I’m quite certain I’d have never known her if it were not for this online forum. I’m also pretty certain that I’ll never meet her in person, and that makes me a little sad. She’s been a real friend to me, always there listening when I needed someone to listen, offering comfort and support. Apparently her grandmother was a knitter, and she has been a cheerleader for my knitting ever since I started sharing it.

So when I found out she was going to have a baby, I knew I needed to knit for that baby. And bringing this baby to the world safe and sound wasn’t an easy road for Lily, so I thought she needed some extra good energy and thoughts. So I made Trellis for her little boy babe. While I knit Trellis, I poured all my “prayers” for Lily and her family into the sweater. I feel like in a lot of ways it is the most meaningful thing I have ever created.

And then I packed it up and sent it off to Canada, and I was terrified that she would hate it. (I was also terrified that it was lost in the mail. Maybe a little overanxious about this.) Of course, that fear was unfounded. Lily is such a lovely person, that even if it had been the ugliest thing ever known to man she would have loved it because it was a handmade gift from a friend.

She humbled me. She told me that she shed tears when she pulled it out of the box. She told me that she could tell that it was made with love. She told me that he wears it every day. She told me that snuggling while he’s wearing it is the “best snuggle ever.” She even told me that she plans to keep it forever and hopes that one day her grandchildren will be able to wear it. (That made me break down and bawl.) And she told me I could post a picture of him wearing it.

Isn’t he the most darling little thing you’ve ever seen? Lily’s having a hard time getting pics of him while he’s awake, because he doesn’t like the flash, but that’s okay with me because I love sleepy baby photos. (Apparently, I was worried for nothing about the sweater fitting but not worried enough about the hat not fitting!) Sometimes I soooo wish that ours wasn’t a long distance friendship, because I would love, love, love to hold and snuggle that precious, darling little boy.

It’s something else to knit a gift for someone who really appreciates it. This little sweater turned out, for me, to be so much more than a little sweater. It’s just a little bit magic. Even if it’s not technically the best thing I’ve knit yet, it is by far the best knitting experience I’ve had yet.

So thanks, Lily. Thanks for being a friend, and thanks for allowing me to knit for your babe, and thanks for enriching my life by being part of it.

Rogue is kicking my ass. Not in complexity or difficulty — I’m actually finding it a fun, easy, just-complicated-enough-to-keep-my-brain-engaged-knit — but in time. I knew I was a slow knitter, and I knew this was going to take a long time, but DAMN. The rows are just so long! I’ve been making little mini-goals for every day — and I do mean mini-goals. On the order of “finish three rows today” or “get through one of the side cable repeats today.” Slow and steady, right? I keep telling myself that anyway.

(Please excuse the poor photos that follow; my camera and I are fighting with each other.)

Here is my progress as of today (I have just finished Chart A and split to do the fronts and the back separately):

And a couple of details. The side cable:

And one of the pockets (this also shows the hem, which I’m quite happy with):

As if the achingly slow progress weren’t enough — my right wrist starting hurting me on Tuesday — hurting me very badly. I freaked out about possible RSI, but the reality is that I was trying really hard to try and make my knitting more “efficient” by changing the motion with which I throw the yarn. I actually like that way of knitting better, but it hurt my wrist. A lot. I don’t know if it’s because my wrist just needs to get used to it, or if it’s because my wrist can’t handle that particular motion. I’m not quite ready yet to put it to the test (especially since I really want to work on my Continental knitting anyway, so it might not be worth it to change my style of throwing). Either way, I rested my wrist for 2.5 days (that was a long time for me!) and started knitting again this morning, and it seems to have resolved itself for now (though I’m back to my old way of throwing the yarn, which involves a horribly inefficient total release of my right needle, but oh well. One thing at a time.)

I went to a new doctor on Wednesday, and I’m on a new medication (this brings my grand total up to 8 different medicaitons daily, and at least 4 more on an as needed basis). I feel so broken and old. But, hopefully, the new medication (metformin for my PCOS, which I’ve been wanting to get on for several months now) will help with a LOT of my issues and will allow me to ditch several of the other medicines. It’s all about trying to find the ROOT cause of the problems, fix them, and then hopefully the others will fall in line. Unfortunately, the metformin is making me feel really yucky (I’m told that will get better with time) so I don’t know if any real progress in knitting is going to be made anytime soon.