Where I've Been; Where I'm Going

When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out.

- Elizabeth Bowen

And I meant to post sometime in July . . . So where have I been?

Working, of course. Loving having my husband home. And doing a little creating here and there.

Knitting

Debbie Bliss' Alphabet Blanket, which was vastly entertaining and far less painful than I had feared.

The Heirloom Baby Aran from an old IK - they weren't kidding about the "heirloom" part - this one took forever.

A little stashbusting in garter stitch.

And I didn't just stop there:
Lots of little sweaters, hats, and even a pair of booties.

Sewing

Blankets, complete with (fairly) straight seams and not-too-bad-for-a-total-beginner machine applique.
Flannel burp clothes (and getting this adorable doctor one from a friend).

Noticing a theme here? Because here's the big project:

Growing a Baby

A baby boy due January 29th! He's already the world's most adorable baby/soccer star, and we couldn't be more excited. And distracted. And terrified. And exhilarated.

So it's probably no surprise that all my crafting energies have turned to wee small things. And the rest of my time is spent researching car seats, cribs, and the like. Blogging is just not in the picture for me anymore, although I'm enjoying keeping up with all your blogs in my feed reader. I've loved sharing our knitting and our lives over the past few years, so thanks for that, and thanks for your good wishes as we move on into this next wonderful phase of our lives.

A baby will make love stronger,

days shorter, nights longer,

bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier,

the past forgotten, and the future worth living for.

- Proverbial

To Buy or Not to Buy . . .

I generally avoid temptation unless I can avoid it.

-Mae West

Yes, I did disappear to be completely engulfed in the Internal Medicine wards for 2 weeks. Why do you ask? The good news is legion, however.

1. I am done being the duty ward resident. Done. Wow!
2. No more tire blow-outs.
3. Flowers are blooming everywhere.
4. I am immune to typhoid. Again. It never fails that every time I open my medical record, I am somehow due for one more vaccine. Love those shots!

Also in the good news category filed under "knitting" is a great deal of progress on several sweaters, and some upcoming sleeve surgery on my almost-done Fair Isle Yoke Sweater. Photos to follow, now that my busy Radiology schedule will allow me to take some daytime shots.

So, now I'm torn. Deeply torn. Wrestling with my inner angels and devils as well as any number of other miscellaneous demons. You all know that I have a bit of yarn at home. As of April 1, we're at approximately 504 skeins comprising 87,500+ yards of yarn. This is a significant reduction from prior, and the goal is still to get the stash a bit smaller, say to the 60,000 yd range.

But (there's always a but . . .) it's the Webs tent sale. On sale at very very good prices are Cascade 220, Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton as I recently used to very good effect in the cotton anniversary sweater, and Berocco Peruvia.

Let's ponder.

On the one hand . . . I have a queue full of projects for which I already have the yarn.
On the other hand . . . That same queue has many projects requiring yarns I do not have, that are on sale.
On the one hand . . . I'd like the stash to fit into a smaller space.
On the other hand . . . Yarn is squishy.
On the one hand . . . I could knit for a year without spending any more money.
On the other hand . . . I can get these yarns at close to 1/2 price, and I'll use them eventually.
On the one hand . . . These are great yarns.
On the other hand . . . Yup, definitely great yarns at a great price.
On the one hand . . . They'll probably go on sale again at some point.
On the other hand . . . That's never when I feel the urge to start the project.
On the one hand . . . I really do need a grey sweater. Cassidy, maybe? And the husband is thinking he wants a burgundy sweater, or maybe charcoal gray, and one in cotton, and one in wool . . . gosh he's demanding!
On the other hand . . . I've forgotten which hand is which . . .

Indecision

The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice.
- Abbe D'Allaniva

I had big plans to make 2009 a year of knitting by whim - whatever, whenever, just meandering my way through the stash. You know, rather than imposing rules on myself. Knitting is a hobby, after all. But it's not going as well as I would have hoped. I did finish one of the Artichoke Socks, and I'm happy to report that it went quite well. But when does Koigu go wrong? And then I spent almost all of a day off trying to decide what to knit next. I pulled out all sorts of yarn, and made the sort of crafty mess that one can when one's husband is away. I contemplated this Lopi. Two shades of pink, bought for a steal a number of years ago. Felted clogs? Or should I buy 12 more skeins of yarn to make Veronik Avery's Ski Jacket? If I were just trying to reduce the stash, and if I paid close attention to the state of my three-year-old felted clogs, the choice would be clear. But my lack of direction is enormously distressing to me. I need . . . something.

NaKniSweMoDo? It's seriously calling my name, although I might consider that my Dale baby sweater (2 yr old size) has more stitches than many adult sweaters and might count. I'm still pondering . . .

In the meantime, to help me ponder, I dug deep in the stash and pulled out a random worsted weight wool that I bought on Ebay back when I was in college and didn't know any better. It's a nice lavender color, and I think there's about one pound? But I really can't remember much. So, perhaps 1000 yards? If it is that, it should be enough for the Cable-Down Raglan. Just in case, I cast on. Although I'm not usually a fan of the top-down one-piece raglan, in this case it's working. My gauge is a little looser than the pattern, but knitting a size down it fits well at the sleeve division. And now I'm going to go knit as fast as I can to see if I run out of yarn. I'm not the only one who does this, am I?

Good Friends

A friend is the only person you will let into the house
when you are Turning Out Drawers.
-Pam Brown

Good friends help you dye yarn (way easier than I thought! The hardest part was finding an old pot at the Salvation Army!)
put together bookcasesand throw pizza dough in the air.Crust recipe available here.

Oh, yeah, and there was lots and lots of knitting. There'll be lots of FO posts in the coming weeks.

Tweed, Glorious Tweed

Ask where's the North? At York 'tis on the Tweed; in Scotland at the Orcades;

and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.

-Alexander Pope

I can't think of enough good things to say about the new Interweave Knits. The cover sweater alone is enough, and then the whole section on tweedy goodness. . . . It's too much.

And it's more than just the patterns. Beyond just liking a sweater or a pattern or a yarn or a color, there's another consideration when a project catches our eye. It's the fantasy aspect. What would my life be like if I, too, wore delightful tweedy bobble cardigans with belts? An idyllic countryside, or maybe a chic urban woman who bothered to wear something other than hooded sweatshirts on her way to work?

I want to live the life that the Blooming Cardigan conjurs up in my mind. (I think it's the belt, or the buttons on the top RIGHT collar, discontinuous from the rest of the buttons. Or something.) And I want to hang out there, wherever that is, with my sister, who would adore the Ropes and Picots Cardigan. We were raised in a cardigan-loving family of women who are always cold and go nowhere without a little cardigan, "just in case." And the shoulder detail on the Ropes and Picots! The whole thing also makes me wonder why I have never made something with a picot hem for my sister, who is so clearly - now that I see this cardigan - a picot sort of person. (You can tell from the photo here of her wearing Rowena. Clearly a picot person, isn't she?) Back to the new IK, it will come as no suprise to any of you that the Holly and Poinsetta Mittens strike my fancy, since they a) are mittens and b) are colorwork and c) are the least practical thing for the San Diego climate. To be a good enabler, I should point out that there is a kit available here for the mittens for a reasonable $55. That I think $55 is a reasonable amount to spend on mittens reminds me I should go donate money to the food bank given the overwhelming number of news articles such as this.

There is, however, a temporary solution to my stream-of-consciousness fantasy life. Tweed socks.


Warm and Tweedy Goodness
Pattern: William Street Socks, available free on the Interweave Knits site
Yarn: Regia Tweed, 6-fadig (sportweight)
Needles: US 2
Notes: I actually knit this toe-up with a short-row heel, which I rarely do. I liked the directionality of the cables and didn't want to mess with figuring out how to reverse it. Also, this pattern calls for what seems to be a crazy number of stitches, but the cables really pull in. The only mod I made was to do the ribbing for the entire back leg, rather than stockinette and then ribbing at the top.
Best Thing About This Project: They'll absolutely match the Blooming Cardigan. Too bad they're not for me.

Under The Wire

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
-William Shakespeare

Well, I've had a pretty all-around crafty weekend . . . which explains why I'm blogging just before bed at 9:30 on Sunday evening. (I get up early.)

I knit. I sewed. I'm working on pajama pants - my first-ever sewn garment. It's going well, although even this simple pattern is more involved than I would have guessed. And it's a really good thing JayJay was there to hold my hand and show me which way was up in the pattern and lend me fabric scissors. Wow - they're sharp!

Anyway, then I knit some more and even cooked for friends. Like I said, crafty. But of course I have no photos as of yet.

So instead of a second photo-less post in two days, I'll share some photos I've been meaning to post since August. I believe I mentioned that my dear friend Kate D. (cheer her on for NaNoWriMo here) got married. You know she's a good friend when she invites you to stay at her parents' house for the wedding so that you won't be lonely because your husband couldn't come. As a bonus, I got to sleep in the presence of delightful craftiness.

Let's all admire the wonderful hand-embroidered pillowcases that Kate's grandmother made. They adorn the "extra" bed pillows on the guest bed, on top of a lovely handmade scrap quilt. But then, what to do with the other pillowcases, since there were more than could be displayed at the same time? In a stroke of pure genius, Kate's mom made them into valances. Aren't they perfect up there? What a great idea!

At A Loss

Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Oh, this would be so much easier if I wasn't color-blind!
-Donkey in Shrek

There are no stranded colorwork projects on my needles right now. I don't know how to handle it. I'm beginning to think that this is really my favorite kind of knitting, although as soon as I say that I feel the urge to knit some cables. Regardless, I do think that stranded knitting is an important part of my balanced knitting diet.

So, what to knit next (in the colorwork way)? For the moment, I'm limiting myself to projects I can make from my stash.

• Bondegard (Rav link)
  
• Three Tams (Knitty pattern here), to match the mittens here
• Northern Lights mittens (Rav link)
• any other hats or mittens from my Ravelry queue for the knitters out there
• any special requests from my non-knitting friends and family out there
  

Or should I just hold out until December 1st, when I'll be starting my Snowflake Socks (IK link) in a burgundy and cream?

Today I'll be holding off on casting on as I join JayJay for other crafty pursuits (like sewing! and playing with the baby!). Keep your fingers crossed for sewing in a straight line!

Sunday Best

Sir, Sunday morning, although occurring at regular and well forseen intervals, always seems to take this railway by surprise.
-William S. Gilbert

This post will consist of two parts. The first will be random observations about having my husband deployed. The second will consist of lots of knitting.

Observations about having my husband deployed

1. Random strangers can be very nice about helping you lift bookcases into the back of your car.
2. Why is it that I suddenly felt the compelling desire to go buy bookcases immediately after my husband left?
   
3. I've had them for 3 days and still not put them together.
4. The fraud prevention people from the credit card were going crazy.
5. If you or your spouse deploys, you might want to call them and let them know. Otherwise they will call hourly for 2 days straight.
6. Good to know that someone's paying attention.
7. A heated mattress pad was the best idea ever.
   
8. I don't eat half of what we when he's home; it's more like 1/3.
9. Guess I don't have to go grocery shopping again for a couple of weeks.
10. It's rather astounding how many cheesy romantic comedies and NCIS episodes the DVR can hold . . .
11. And, you can even send flowers from Iraq. Lucky me :)
    

Works-in-Progress (wahoo conference knitting!)

I took a big black bag with me to the conference, and alternated projects, roughly by lecture. Over 2 1/2 days, I knit

11 inches of sleeve for Park Citythe entire center part of the Swallowtail shawl (which is 1/2 the total, according to the handy-dandy shawl calculator here, which tells me that the border will be in a complementary color)
all but the toe of my second Socktoberfest pair of socks, Old Navy (yup, seemed appropriate)
And that's just what I took with me . . .

I'm Blue

Blue, navy blue, I'm as blue as I can be
'Cause my steady boy said "Ship ahoy"
And joined the Nay-ee-ay-vee.
-Diane Renay (song)

Leave it to the Marines to leave for deployment two hours before dawn. Dark, early, and still he promised me he'd smile. Doesn't he look ready?
Rather than focus on the leaving, there's always a silver lining, right? Right. For one, finally a modeled shot of the Bed and Breakfast Pullover. It's chilly that time of morning. And, for another, how to pass the rest of a strange and surreal day? Winding yarn for all the knitting I'll be doing. There's Koigu, Manos, Silke-Tweed, Socks That Rock, and Cascade 220 in that pile. Nothing like some really nice yarn to cheer up a gal.

Now just sit back, relax, and we'll catch up on several months of knitting.

The Face of the Earth

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
-Abraham Lincoln

They say it takes 30 days to create a habit. Is that how long it takes to get out of a habit? Perhaps.

I have not quite fallen off the face of the earth, but I've been busy.What? You weren't distracted by an archived Hawaii photo? Sheesh!

In no particular order:

1. My husband is getting ready for an all-expenses-paid business trip to the cradle of civilization. That would be, uh, Iraq. I hear it's lovely this time of year. And he's leaving pretty soon.
   
2. There's a lot of pre-deployment paperwork.
3. I'm knitting too fast to take blog photos. Seriously. Burning through the projects.
4. The stash is down to about 97,000 yards.
   
5. I'm rotating at a civilian hospice this month. Picking out my own clothes every morning is a challenge. Matching is hard.
6. I've been cooking.
   
7. And baking peanut butter cookies as a pre-business-trip treat.
8. And I finally started running again. No amount of time on the elliptical machine can kick my you-know-what like a little running.
9. There's a large pile of to-be-blogged handknits sitting on my dresser.
10. I'd say I'll take photos this weekend, but I won't.
11. We're going to Palm Springs for a little getaway.
    
12. Maybe next week. If not, then certainly I'll be back in full form when my husband's away.
    

Dishcloths Galore

There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe;

when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

-Robert Ingersall

The Second Annual Dish Rag Tag is about to begin. Remember last year? The pain, the heartbreak, the troubles with the US Postal Service? Well, it's a whole new year. And I am ready.
Never fear, these aren't early entries for the Dish Rag Tag, these are just my two new favorite patterns, both free patterns from Abigail. Aren't they lovely in the varigated yarn?

There's no such thing as working ahead in this Dish Rag Tag - that would be cheating - but I have been refreshing my dish rag knitting skills. Last year I won the enviable title of Dish Rag Queen for admitting that I had some 30+ dishrags in their bin under the sink. As a prize, I got the world's most enormous ball of dishcloth cotton. Well, way back in June when my posting was sparse and my working was the stressful and time consuming Night Float, I took that ball to work, set it next to my computer, and knit the occasional row between phone calls, notes, and waiting for lab results.

So, just how many dish rags can you knit with a pound of dishcloth cotton?

Eight. Plus two Mason-Dixon baby bibs not pictured here, for variety in all that garter stitching.

Then, I turned my eyes to the rest of my cotton stash, and, feeling all Mason-Dixon-y, I made a log cabin out Mission Falls 1824 cotton scraps (last seen here as Christmas gifts).
I love using every last bit of leftovers, don't you? So I took the leftovers from the contrast color on my basketweave dishcloths, and made the cutest wash cloth ever.

Jen's already gotten this is the mail - hopefully it'll be a nice compliment to all that pink she's been knitting!

There were more, but perhaps we'll keep them a surprise until later in the exciting August dish rag races?

And . . . She's Back

Happiness consists of living each day as if it were
the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.
-Proverbial

So, where have I been?

Hawaii



Working

(use your imagination)

Baking
And Knitting
All that knitting leads to lots of FOs. Expect a veritable parade to celebrate my return.

Weekend Roundup

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anyone at anytime.

-Maya Angelou

It's probably no coincidence that as soon as I started working nights (you try sleeping in San Diego in the middle of the day!), I got knocked down by a nasty summer cold. The kind of cold that fogs your brain and makes you think it's a good idea to stare at the wall and do nothing. In other words, the kind that makes me feel very much not like me. This means that sewing up last month's cardigan, starting my Nantucket Jacket, and really anything else that takes brain power is off limits. Good thing that June is Kitchen Accessories Month at A Loose Knit Group! I just happen to have an enormous ball of Sugar and Cream gifted to me some time ago, and a few of Abigail's dishcloth patterns in hand.

Two down, working on the third. Just how many do you think I can get from this huge ball?

On a related note, apparently the dishcloth bug is out there. Check out my sister-in-law's first cables - nice, huh? It looks like we'll be meeting up in Phoenix in a couple weeks, so I think we'll limit the knitting to cotton. Phoenix in June is hardly wool sweater weather.

There has been just a little bit of other knitting. Flitgirl and Toasty Joe came to town and cheered me up in the middle of that cold-of-which-we-shall-not-speak. If you've ever read Toasty's blog, you won't be surprised to hear that we went to the Padres-Mets game. A perfect opportunity for some knitting. My yarn of the month for June is some Morehouse Merino laceweight that a friend gave me quite some time ago - I think early in med school, but it mmight even have been college. Regardless, it's stash-marinated long enough and now it's happy to become the Lace Ribbons Scarf from the Spring (or was it Summer?) Knitty.

Now, if only my voice would come back . . .

Egads!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
-Proverbial

Time flies when you're . . . having fun, working lots, knitting quite a bit, enjoying long summer San Diego days, and, oh, did I mention how much better it is to have my husband home? Much better.

I do have lots to blog about - a finished Bed and Breakfast, finished Lacy Kerchief scarf, finished socks, finished baby sweaters x2, and all sorts of in progress stuff. I've had a good amount of knitting time, but the camera battery isn't charged, the long days aren't quite long enough for sunlit shots . . . or maybe they're long enough so that I'm out and about and doing other things, and then I've gotten distracted. You see, I've been cooking a lot, like dinner on a pretty much nightly basis. It's so much more fun cooking for 2! And did you know there are all these cooking blogs out there . . .

So, the good news is that I'll be working nights starting June 1st. That means maybe I can take some daylit photos? But in the meantime, I've discovered that the bonus of leaving a post at the top for 10 days is that I get a lot of comments - Thanks!

Moving Along

Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue.

Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way

they really are or people might think we're stupid.

-Jules Pfeiffer

Somewhere in the midst of all the craziness, there is some plain ol' knitting being done. Shocking, I know. And apparently, it's all blue.

You may or may not recall the Bed and Breakfast Pullover. This is my March project, which isn't standing a particularly good chance of being finished in April either, but that's OK because my April project is done. At any rate, the B&B is clicking along. It has a perfectly delightful cable pattern - unusual, interesting, and really not at all particulalrly difficult. The boring ribbed sleeves were done in an early moment of opportunism, so now I have a couple more inches of the back and then the front. Not bad, if I get to work.

My other brilliant blue project also saw some progress, although of a different sort. A while back when I was in a lace kind of mood I started the Fiddlesticks' Long Paisley Shawl in some KnitPicks Shadow. I like the yarn, and I like the pattern. I definitely made a mistake and went down too many needle sizes, so the garter stitch fabric was too bouncy. But really, it had to go. I knew I wasn't going to finish it this decade, so it was better to frog now and open up the possibilities for both the yarn, the pattern, and my time.

Frogging can be progress, too. What kind of progress have you all been making? Show us en route to the FO parade!

Look What I Found

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.
-Harriet Martineau

It's a lovely spring day in San Diego, the lucky star I was born under held up last night for a very manageable call. The palm trees are palmy, the flowers are blooming, and the birds are even singing. Spring is definitely here. It was then a perfect day to go explore my public library. I will confess that I had an ulterior motive; a book I requested had come in.

Let's give three cheers to the San Diego Public Library! Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting is now in my hot little hands. After following a discussion on Ravelry about this particular rare book and how often it's "disappeared" from libraries only to show up on eBay for $400, I decided to look around and get my fair use copy of St. Brigid before someone took this one.

My only familiarity with this book has been in seeing the gorgeous sweaters, St. Brigid and Na Craga in particular, that people have made. Now that I'm seeing it in person, I'm both more and less impressed. There are only 9 patterns, but they're all gorgeous. What I hadn't realized is that the first half of the book is all history and a discussion of creating cables. Interesting, but hardly worth the ridiculous prices it's been commandering.

Speaking of ridiculous, let's have a brief chat about the holier-than-thou self-appointed copyright police in the online knitting community. A number of people discussing this book on Ravelry are doing things like checking out the book for three weeks at a time, and then they find the book missing before they can finish their knitting. I'm all about not taking the bread out of the mouths of designers, but that's an overly cautious interpretation of copyright law. If you can get a library copy, you can make a fair use copy of whatever you need for your own personal use. . . . Not to mention that I have no qualms about copying material from out-of-print books. The designer makes no money off that $400 eBay purchase, so I hardly find it a better solution. And I'm very happy I'll be able to make St. Brigid. . . . As soon as I make some progress on those other three sweaters . . .

The Cruelest Month

April is the cruelest month.
-T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot must have never seen February. You know it's bad when you're at the hospital and your friends page you to wonder why you haven't blogged. (Hi Jen!) Reason #1 is that I'm back on the Internal Medicine wards, which means a lot of long hours. Reason #2 is that I've somehow developed a crazy corneal problem and it's interfering with my visual acuity. Especially computers. Hence, my relative lack of blogging. I just saw Optho again today, and we might be finally making some progress.

The good news about knitting as a hobby is that, with the exception of some colorwork charts, it's relatively easy to do with blurry vision. So, let's do a little recap of all the knitting in January, and what's in store for this cruelest month.

My official January project, Salt Lake City made much more progress in one month than I ever thought, especially with all the competition it had. I'm done both sleeves and nearly up to the colorwork on the body.

My January Yarn of the Month knit into Bearfoot socks, are making progress, about 1/2 done with the 1st sock. That's ok by me -they'll get done when I run out of sweater sleeves to carry around. And I'm totally in love with the yarn. So much so that I might have said I'd join a KAL for the Sweedish Heart-Warmer Shawl from Handknit Holidays. Egads!

And that other goal - stash reduction - is still on track:

Stash Tally
Skeins: 586.75
Yards: 117,198

Net negative:
Skeins: 15.5
Yards: 1,687

I knit more than this course, having finished my mile of yarn easily, but some of that is on projects still in progress with their yarn still listed as stash. And then there's a modest amount of stash acquisition, some as gifts, some Socks That Rock, and some Telemark, half of which has already been knit. So far, so good.

New Projects for February are coming up. I've started Gerbera from an old Dale of Norway book in discontinued Sisik (some of the oldest yarn in my stash!) for my February Project - I'm on a Dale kick, and working with it. As for my yarn of the month, I'm using a lovely wool-silk blend that was a very special gift to make a Clapotis. Having fun already. Photos to follow.
New February Yarn of the Month

Random Wednesday

A hotel isn't like a home, but it's better than being a houseguest.
-William Faulkner

1. I feel so very far behind on the blogging relative to the knitting. There's just been so much knitting going on.
2. Here's the project that took my whole bathtub to block. It's a gift, so we'll save the big reveal for later.
3. Like my Bird in Hand Mittens.
4. And other mittens, photos coming later. Because my Selbuvotter finally came in the mail. And I love knitting with KnitPicks Telemark. More on the way.
5. And while I'm waiting for more yarn to finish those mittens, I pulled out a whole bunch of yarn for otehr mittens. Think I'll ever stop?
6. Did you know that Lantern Moon will replace broken dpns for free? Just email them.
7. I just got my Hogwarts Swap 2 from my pal. It's awesome.
8. And also awesome, she felt bad it was late, so she sent me a Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Check out my new Socks that Rock!
9. Stay tuned for a wrap up of a very successful kniting January, and some new exciting plans for February!