I am astounded that it has been over a month since I’ve written. It shouldn’t, as time seems to be flying by but still it does. This has been a shitty year. No other way to describe it, and I can not WAIT for it to be over, so I’m not going to complain about time moving fast. I’m just going to try to catch up, and I keep asking myself as the new year approaches “Are we there yet?”

In knitting news, I have some stuff to share.

First up — I started, finished, and gifted a project within the 6 weeks I’ve been gone that I never blogged about. It was a pair of socks for my best friend. He lives far away (Michigan, of all places!), and I neglected to get a photo of the socks before I gave them to him. Luckily, he took one that he told me I could use.

• Pattern: Loosely based on Thuja from Knitty
• Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in Charcoal
• Needles: US size 4 DPNs
• Notes: Because my yarn was a significantly different weight (therefore giving me a significantly different gauge), I fiddled with the numbers. I cast on 64 stitches, and after the gusset only decreased back to 66 stitches, based on the measurements of the recipient. Other than adjusting the numbers to fit my gauge and his foot, I completed the pattern as written.

Friend is thrilled with them; he wears them, from what I understand, much as my husband wears his socks — for around the house lounging around. This makes me incredibly happy.

In other sock news, I never did the second sock from my toe up pair. I plan to run the first sock (cotton/elastic blend) through the wash and drier and see if it will shrink a bit; as it is, I really really don’t like the fit. That’s on my to do list. Also on my to do list is two pair of socks for two more friends, the first pair in this lovely LL Shepherd Sock in the Jeans colorway:

Haven’t decided what pattern I’m going to use for this yet; still looking for the perfect thing!

In the “joyous news” category, I completed the knitting on Mother’s candy-cane bag (Via Diagonale)! I still have a lot of finishing to do (i-cord trim, handles, lining …..) but I am so thrilled to be done with main body that I can hardly contain it.

The red fabric will be used for the lining, whenever I get that far. I haven’t even gotten as far as WASHING the lining fabric. Why has this bag been such a chore for me??? At least the end is in sight.

In the last of my knitting news, the only holiday knitting I’m doing is a request from my sister for a “pink scarf.” I picked up some Cascade 220 and started the Lace Leaf Scarf from the Holiday 2006 issue of knitsimple. So far it’s going well:

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I plan to knit as far as two balls of the yarn will take me, which means I’ve got quite a bit to go. I’m hoping (very much) that I can finish, or at least make a whole lot of progress, in the car on the way to Mississippi tomorrow. The lace pattern is very easy and logical, and it’s moving very fast, so I do have hope.

(By the way, my apologies for the quality of photos in the post. This house has very very little good light, and these were taken on a very gray day — but sometimes we have to take what we can get.)

I still have Icarus on the needles, but she’s been pushed aside (much to my disappointment) to work on these other projects. I can’t wait to get back to her, as soon as sister’s scarf is finished! I also need to start on the shrug for other sister’s wedding at the end of February, but I’m having some hesitation with that — in the last six months or so I’ve lost 30 pounds, and it’s still coming off quite steadily. I’d hate to start knitting the thing now and have it not fit come wedding time. But I don’t want to not get it finished either! I’m planning to start shortly after the New Year and just cross my fingers that any fit issues are easily remedied.

In non-knitting news, I am still struggling with my health a great deal. I have in this past week changed antidepressant medications, and am hopeful that I will see more improvement very soon. I’m having a hard time with day-to-day at this point, and blogging tends to fall by the wayside.

My family is leaving to spend Christmas in Mississippi tomorrow. I hope to come back with a lot more new knitting to share, and I will keep counting the days until this damned year is over.

I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday.

back again . . .

It seems this blog is often more about absence than presence. I’m working on accepting that, as it seems to be the best I can do.

As usual, the good news is that even though I’m not blogging, I am still knitting. I’ve got a couple of new projects, in addition to the old ones, and even one finished object!

Boring update first — Mother’s bag. This is such slow progress. It feels like I can knit forever on it and it just doesn’t grow. At all. That makes me want to tear my hair out. So this seems to be, again and again, shoved to the bottom of the WIP basket. However, I have finally reached the end of the first balls of yarn — and it all had to go somewhere, right? So that must mean that, despite what it feels like, progress is being made.

I doubt that this looks any different at all than the last progress photo of this candy-cane bag, but for the record here it is:

I’m thinking of making this my “at computer” knitting project rather than my socks. It is pretty mindless knitting, and maybe if I’m otherwise engaged while knitting it I won’t get so frustrated at its lack of apparent progress. I WILL have this finished by Christmas. Sigh.

I am also still working on the second Hedera sock. Progress so far looks like this:

That’s nine repeats of the lace pattern done on the leg. This one is not moving nearly as quickly as the first did, but I am still having great fun knitting it. Nate has begun Spanish classes, and I took Hedera with me to the second class (I thought I’d be having to participate, which is why I didn’t take it to the first class). The other mothers in the class were a little taken aback by my knitting at first, but once they realized that I would still be participating in the conversation, it didn’t seem to bother them, which is good. That will give me a 45-minute solid block to work on these at least once a week, so hopefully I will be done with the second sock soon. I find myself surprisingly tickled with the fact that these are for me, that soon I will be wearing my own handknit socks. I can not wait!

I think my next-up socks (for Lily, for real this time!) will be the Embossed Leaves pattern from one of the relatively recent issues of Interweave Knits (I don’t remember precisely which issue).

Okay, next in line — a finished object! These are for another friend of mine — Fetching handwarmers from Knitty, knit in leftover Kathmandu Aran yarn from Rogue.

I like these so much that I started another pair, out of a yummy soft green yarn that I had one skein of in my stash. It’s a DK weight, so they have a completely different feel than these do. I’ve finished one, and will be starting the second very soon. Pictures when they’re done.

Finally, my big new project:

Even the little details look just yummy, as far as I’m concerned. This is the Icarus pattern, by Miriam Felton, from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the pattern and the name (in fact, I’m not sure that the name isn’t the majority of my attraction to it, but I’m weird like that). When I started seeing finished shawls pop up in blogs, and saw how lovely they were, I knew I neeeeeeeeeeeded to knit this. I was craving serious lace anyway, but I think I may have been soured forever on Kiri. So I cast on for Icarus about a week ago, using Misti Alpaca Lace yarn in color 7120, a lovely subdued blue-green color, and US size 4 needle. (Much as I love my Denise’s, when I was swatching for this I was desperately craving some of these!)

I have, so far, completed 3 repeats of Chart 1.

This part of the shawl is pretty much brainless knitting — I’m finding the pattern so easy to read it’s almost impossible to screw up. I did have one error which I *gasp* didn’t go back to fix — I would have had to tink two long rows, and I was able to fudge a fix that I think is almost completely unnoticeable (hubby couldn’t pick it out, either). Other than that, the only issue I’ve had is forgetting to put in a yo, and that’s easy to fix on the next row — no ripping or tinking required. So I’m very much enjoying this knitting.

I think that’s all I’ve got on the needles right now. I just ordered the yarn to make my shrug for my little sister’s wedding in February. I decided on the Knitpicks Andean Silk in Pitch. I’ll have a look at it when it gets here and decide if I like it enough to use it for that purpose. This is the first purchase I’ve made from KP, so I’m anxious to see how I like the experience.

I bought Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush earlier in the month and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I haven’t decided which pattern I want to make first, but there are a few I plan on making. When I purchased it, I had a nice chat with the lady in line behind me at Border’s. She told me she had made several of the patterns from it, and really enjoyed them, so we talked a bit about knitting. She was somewhat surprised at how recently I started knitting, and gave me a card — apparently she does private lessons, and will also meet with you to help you “fix” your knitting. It was pleasant, and for some reason, surprising. I just don’t know many knitters in real life, so running into one in such a random manner was quite unexpected.

I hope to be back with finished socks soon!

I started a pair of socks that I mentioned in my last real post for my friend Lily, in Canada. I picked the Hedera socks from Knitty, and I am loving knitting them. As I mentioned, I am just having a blast with the actual knitting of the pattern. I’m using Fortissima sock yarn in a dark blue-gray color, and I just love the lace.

You knew there was a “but” coming from the title of the post didn’t you? I have size 7 feet, and they are narrow. Not really narrow, but relatively so. I have a really high arch, but other than that my feet are pretty average. Lily wears (according to her husband, since she was being difficult and didn’t want to provide me with any info) a size 9-10 shoe, and she is a good six inches taller than I am. Well. The problem is that this sock barely makes into onto my foot. Once I get it on, it’s fine — but getting it on is a hassle. I made the large size, but it still feels pretty tight around my foot. So I was already a little worried about it. Then I made a stupid mistake on one of the lace repeats that I didn’t notice until two repeats later. Not to mention that when I put them on and really looked at them, I decided that the leg was a little bit short — even on me.

Bah.

When I really, really think about it, though — maybe a lace sock wasn’t the best choice anyway. I think probably a textured sock would be better for Lily — I think I picked the lace for selfish reasons (and it makes me a little ashamed to admit it). So rather than continue in the charade that these socks were a good choice for Lily, and working out well, I decided that I was working on my first pair of socks for me, and I will come up with something better (more suited and better executed) for Lily.

So. I have one complete Hedera sock. For me. And that frustrates me (even though it seems like it should be something to celebrate!).

Contortionist modeled shot!

Close up where you can see both my mistake in the lace pattern and my electric blue toenail polish!

The first time around, I tried to do the heel as written, but it really really didn’t work for me. I could not keep my edge stitches tight on one side, so that side grew quite a bit larger than the other side. After the second try, without seeing an obvious solution, I decided to try the sock with just a plain knit heel flap, and I was quite happy with how it turned out — it fits my foot very well. I do have a pretty significant hole where I picked up stitches for the gusset on one side, but I’m choosing not to obsess about that. It doesn’t look horrid, since the pattern has holes in it anyway. I’m trying VERY hard to let go of a few (not many, but a few) of my perfectionist tendencies.

I feel like this sock flat-out FLEW off my needles, and I’m very pleased with that. If I can decide on a pattern and get yarn for Lily’s socks before I finish the second of these, then I will abandon Hedera in favor of doing Lily’s — but if the second sock is completed anywhere near as quickly as the first was, I don’t think that will be an issue.

In other knitting news, I am still plugging away on Mother’s bag a few rows at a time (How can I knit SO much and see SO little progress? Talk about frustrating!) and I also started a pair of Fetching handwarmers for a different friend in Canada. They are fun, and talk about a quick knit! I’m using leftover yarn from Rogue (Kathmandu Aran), and I just love this yarn so it’s really a pleasure to knit these. (I will probably make a pair for myself as well once I’m done with these.) Photos coming soon!

Fair warning: this is going to be a pictureless post. My head and I are engaged in an epic battle, and lest I risk defeat, I’m not going anywhere NEAR the camera.

And it’ll probably be a relatively short post.

But hey! It’s a whole lot better than what was going on most of the summer!

I started a new sock project — I’ve found that I get antsy if I don’t have a pair of socks on the needles, because socks have become my “between” knitting — and most importantly, my “at the computer knitting.” So when I’m reading forums, blogs, or email — I’m usually knitting away on a pair of socks. And I like that. So I started a new pair of socks, for my friend Lily in Canada. I chose the Hedera socks from Knitty, and WOW. So far I am having so much fun knitting them! I’m using a 75% superwash wool/25% acrylic blend (can’t remember exactly what yarn right now) in a dark, dark bluish-charcoalish color, on US 2’s, and I am loving how much fun I’m having on them. I’ve finished four of the leg repeats — the lace pattern is so easy to memorize, so easy to execute — and yet so attractive! I just hope Lily loves them. They are done on four needles instead of five, which is the first time I’ve done socks that way, and I’m definitely liking it. (I talk like I’m some kind of prolific sock knitter. This is my fourth pair of socks. But I see many, many, MANY more in my future. Including, I hope, eventually, a pair for myself!!) So I’m having fun with that, which means . . .

I am neglecting Mother’s bag. I know, I know. Bad child. But I can only work on it so long at a time before my brain goes numb. It will be finished before Christmas — and that’s the only commitement I’m making about that bag. I’d LIKE to finish it before I start on the shrug for MT’s wedding — but. We’ll see.

I have picked out a yarn I would LOVE to knit the shrug for MT’s wedding in — LL Lion and Lamb, in the solid charcoal color. Yeah. That’ll be one hell of an expensive shrug. I’m going into negotiations with my sister little and my mother to see if they’ll subsidize the cost, since it IS for her wedding, as a member of the wedding party. We’ll see how that works out. But it would be such a great yarn for the purpose . . . still, I’m going to keep looking and see if anything else strikes my fancy.

Okay. My head is telling me this is about as long as it’s willing to spend at the computer. Hopefully I’ll be back soon, with pictures. I’m also working on getting a “finished” page put together for Rogue, and some stuff to add to the permanent structure of the blog. We’ll see how that comes along.

First of all, before anything else, I want to say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to Carrie. Lucky girl to have an August birthday — August is the BEST month for birthdays (not that I’m biased or anything)!

And secondly — I have a finished object to show off! Go me!

I finished Nate’s socks, so now he and Daddy have “matching” socks. (This is where the awwwwwwwwww, how cute part comes in — I mean, how precious can you get? Matching socks for father and son? If I weren’t so proud of myself, I might gag myself.)

But really — don’t they look like an adorable set?

And can I just say — WOW, 3-year-old boy feet are so TINY compared to 30-year-old boy feet? It’s quite refreshing, really! Click here to see a closer view of just Nate’s pair.

Nate is IN LOVE. I finished the first sock on Friday, and he spent most of Friday night playing on his dad’s computer, sweating his little rear end off (he’s one of those children who sweats really easily and all the time), wearing one 100% wool sock — because he refused to take it off after I had him try it on. I had to negotiate pretty hard to get it off long enough to weave in the ends!

So when after I wove in the ends on the second sock this morning, I had him try the pair on for a photo shoot — and needless to say, they didn’t come off again. He even wore them out to the grocery store (with his navy blue Crocs, so cute!) — in the middle of August. In Houston. After the trip, he decided maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to take them off.

I’m going to apologize for the poor quality of the photos — I STILL have not found the “sweet spots” in our new house for taking natural light photos (so much time doing other things!) and I’m currently suffering from a migraine, which always makes the quality of my photos suffer. In addition, I have had a BITCH of a time capturing the color of these socks accurately. The modeled pictures are probably closer to the true color than the others, but they are still not quite right. (Sigh. Every time I think I’m getting a handle on this photography thing . . . )

Details, details, details . . .

• Pattern: None really. Basic 2x2 rib on leg and down the top of the foot (this is where the socks vary from Daddy’s; I did NOT carry the ribbing onto the foot in sww’s socks), and I refered to the Yarn Harlot’s sock “recipe” in Knitting Rules to figure out how to actually make it a sock.
• Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in the Blackwatch colorway. I LOVED working with this.
• Needles: US size 4 Bryspun DPNs
• Notes: Only as noted above — it is NICE to make socks for a teeny 3-year-old foot!

As far as other knitting — not so much. Still plugging along on Mom’s bag; I’m going to kick into high gear on that, so that I can get it DONE before I start either Christmas/Solstice knitting and/or the shrug for my sister’s wedding. There has been no appreciable progress, so no photos — it still looks like a candy cane.

In other crafting news, I finally got my sewing machine and sewing “corner” set up. Unfortunately, the only spot for it in our new house is in our bedroom, but the bedroom is big and I can live with that. I also threw out the bag that I’d started — I finally decided I just couldn’t live with it’s sloppiness; I couldn’t find the instructions for the pattern to finish; and the damn handles with their cording were driving me to tears. I’d been avoiding even thinking about tackling any sewing because the bag was causing me so much stress. So I tossed it. It was only about three dollars worth of material (though HOURS of time), so I didn’t feel too bad about it — and the emotional relief makes it well worth it! I think pretty shortly I’m going to fire up the machine and tackle some knitting needle cases. I’m sure I’ll be talking about how it goes!

I turned 31 on Tuesday.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I was a little lonely, as my hubby was gone on a business trip, and my sisters didn’t make it to see me, but it wasn’t too bad — I’d already had my “party” and I had my son with me. Plus I had some really good friends (one in particular) that worked hard to make sure I had a very happy birthday even if there weren’t people physically with me to share it with — there were many people sharing it with me in spirit. But at the same time — it was kind of melancholy. Birthdays are . . . contemplative for me. There’s so much I wanted to do by the time I was thirty, and now — I can’t fool myself into believing that “if I just do it WHILE I’m thirty, it’s the same thing!” But. There’s so much I’ve done that I never thought I’d do, and I think, in the end — it balances out.

So what is the “old lady” doing with knitting these days?

I’m making progress on Mother’s bag. I don’t have another photo, because it would just look exactly the same as the last photo, only a little bigger — it’s about 8.5 inches long now. Still going pretty easily. While I was knitting on it at the hospital, I got to the point where I am confident not looking at the pattern at all. (I probably could have ditched the pattern much sooner, but I didn’t trust myself.) That is making this a truly comforting, mindless, easy knit — I’m needing a lot of that right now. (Speaking of hospitals — Daddy is out, and doing very well now. He even has gone back to work, a little at a time. I’m also just about over my pneumonia. It’s great for everyone to be feeling better. Makes me happy.)

I have some modeled photos of sww’s socks:

He couldn’t take them off fast enough after I took the photos — 100% wool socks are just not a good thing in the weather that we’ve all been experiencing.

I am still working on my son’s matching socks. I just turned the heel on the first sock:

I think the child thought I’d lost my mind, putting those socks on him with the needles still attached, particularly since I was blabbering at him about being very still and careful so the stitches didn’t come off the needles. But he put up with me anyway, and I got to breathe a sigh of relief that they do in fact fit. (Hooray for math!) He’s really excited about getting socks — he keeps telling me “Mama, just knit! Knit my socks! I just want you to knit!” It makes me laugh.

In upcoming knitting news — my baby sister is getting married in February. She’s been riding my ass about choosing a bridesmaid’s dress (everyone’s FAVORITE pastime, right?). She’s being lovely and letting us all choose the dresses within given parameters (she picked the fabric and the length, but we get to choose the design), and we’re having them made. So since I wouldn’t get off my ass and decide, she hauled me to the mall to try on dresses to find a prototype — which was good; I like spending time with her, and she was able to find something that will a) look flattering and b) be easy to alter should I either get pregnant or continue to lose weight. (Woohoo, what a sentence!) The only problem is it’s not a dress style that’s conducive to sleeves — we’ll be going with spaghetti straps.

Um, NO. I dont’ show my arms and shoulders in public — I look way too much like a linebacker. So I have to find something that will cover my shoulders/arms, work with the dress, AND not make me look pregnant if I’m not. We looked around — found nothing of the sort. So my idea, which I really didn’t think she’d go for — “Hey, let me knit something!”

So. I showed her I Do from Knitty. And she said “Oh yeah.” Hooray! But, at the same time, ack! Now I’ve got deadline knitting! And I have to pick out a black yarn that will work with the pattern and look good with a black satin dress.

So if anyone’s got yarn suggestions, I’m all ears!

So Daddy had open heart surgery last Monday, the 10th. He went home from the hospital Monday (the 17th), which was very exciting, but Tuesday night he ended up in the ER because he had a fever and couldn’t catch his breath. He was readmitted to the hospital with pneumonia, and I have no idea when he’s going to be able to go home again. In the meantime, it must suck to be him. I went to the doctor this morning, and was also diagnosed with pneumonia. I have tried hard to imagine what it must be like, to have this kind of cough when your sternum has been split in half and you have a nasty incision all the way down the center of your chest, but the truth is my imagination is just NOT that good. I only know that it must, in fact, really really really suck.

I spent a lot of time up at the hospital last week, including being there from 6:00 am to 8:30 pm on Monday, the day of the surgery. I can not even begin to describe how tortuous that was. Daddy was told to be there at 6:00 am, so we all arrived at that time. My original understanding was that he would be going into surgery shortly after arrival. I was wrong — he didn’t actually go into surgery until close to 11:00 am. Then the surgery itself took approximately three hours. After that, he was taken to the cardiac recovery ICU — and we were allowed to visit him immediately after he got there, at 5:00 pm, and at 8:15 pm.

What this added up to was a LOT of waiting — very stressful, agonizing, terrifying waiting. Both my sisters, my mother, Daddy’s brother and his wife, two of my parents’ closest family friends, and a coworker turned friend of Daddy’s were all there in the waiting room — in a show of support. One would imagine that somehow, that would make the waiting easier — having loved ones to share it with — but it did not.

The only measure of peace that I found all day, and on through the week through hours of sitting in Daddy’s hospital room, or sitting in the waiting room between ICU visiting times, was when I pulled out my knitting. I wish I could say that it made everything better, but of course it didn’t. It did, however, provide me with some measure of peace. Just the repetitive motions, the feel of the yarn moving through my hands, the vision of the fabric growing tiny bit by tiny bit, was soothing. It allowed me to disengage from my mind a little, to gain a little space. I hesitate to say it was like meditation, but . . . it allowed me to focus the energy that I had, both on the creation of the fabric, and — with each stitch made — on will for Daddy to be okay.

I’m glad I had it. I’d've gone crazy without it.

Mother told me I looked like a little old lady. I nearly threw the knitting at her, given that what I was working on so hard was a bag for HER, but I restrained myself. It made everyone laugh, and we all probably needed a laugh.

This is how far I’ve gotten:

For whatever reason, it seems to be slow going. It’s about seven inches long so far. The pattern (Via Diagonale from Knitty) calls for 9.5 inches; I’m thinking I’d like to go a couple of inches longer than that if I don’t run out of yarn. But it is going sooooo slowly I’m not sure my patience is going to hold out, even if the yarn does.

In spite of its looking like a candy cane, I do really love the way the bag is looking so far. I’m thrilled that I’m confident in my ability to line it well, too (if I can get my sewing machine set up in the new house ever) — such little things bring me joy. The bag feels great to touch and the texture is just yummy.

Sometimes I’m just really happy I found knitting and can call myself a knitter.

Even if it does make me look like a little old lady.

Blink. Blink. Oh look, there’s a whole world out here. How pleasant. Maybe I should try taking part in it again. What an idea.

I just need to get some things out there, and then I can talk about knitting. First of all, migraines that last more than three weeks suck ass. I am so tired of fighting with my body. Secondly, keeping a house in condition to show to buyers on a moment’s notice is miserable. It is, I think, more miserable if you have a three year old and a dog who sheds tremedously than if you didn’t. I’m about to drive myself crazy over here, and I’m getting nothing productive done. (I don’t consider keeping my home pristine productive. I do just fine with clean enough.) And finally, trying to find a new home when you absolutely love the home you have is just miserably exhausting and depressing. I would give anything to be able to just pick up our house and move it closer to my husband’s job and into a decent school district. Instead, I’m stuck trying to find a house that I’ll love anywhere close to as much as I love mine, and that’s not an easy task. Ugh. I so very much want this all to be done and over with.

Okay. Now that I’m done whining, let’s see what kind of knitting (and other crafting; don’t want to forget about my delightful sewing experiences!) there is to write about.

Rogue? Umm . . . still sitting in pieces, just like she was last time I wrote. I feel so bad about this. It’s not like it would take long for me to do the seaming — the zipper, on the other hand, I’m still terrified of.

My bag for sew? i knit! is still at the exact same point in construction as the last time I posted. I do have a plan for how to finish it that will not (I hope) require me to throw the sewing machine into a wall, but I’m still a little gunshy. Not to mention, I’m afraid of getting into a groove (ha!) working on and then having the realtor call to tell me someone’s going to be here to look at the house in five minutes. My sewing has so far been a very messy endeavor, and there’s that whole “pristine house” business. I’m just going to have to bite the bullet one evening and finish it.

Mother’s bag? My Kiri shawl? They call to me. I want to work on Kiri so badly it makes my finger tingle. But I must. finish. hubby’s. socks.

Which brings me to absolutely the only knitting progress I’ve made at all in weeks. I finished the first of those socks:

The color is not spot on here; in real life, the colors are much richer, but my head was not cooperating with taking photos enough to work hard at it.

A closeup of the toe, because it’s the only closeup I took that came out. You can see I’m having some trouble with laddering, which I haven’t had in a while — don’t know where that came from.

The best news of all? Hubby tried it on and he LOVES it, and it FITS. It fits beautifully. Like it was (forgive me, I have to say it) made for him.

The second sock is coming along nicely. I hope to have it finished soon, and then I want to start a pair for my friend in Canada — if she’ll ever send me the measurements I asked her for!

Hopefully I will have more progress — on something, anything! — to share soon.

Okay, I’ve now edited this post four times, I think, to fix stupid stuff. I hope I’m done now. I’m starting to feel like an idiot.

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.