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Feb 22, 2010
Back So Soon? Yes, I know! Another post in less than six months? I'm on a roll. Right now I am busy as a bee. Today I need to go finish packing up my apartment. Tomorrow I turn in the key. Though I still have 27 days until I am out of North Carolina. This move has me on a constant roller coaster of emotion. My body has been happy to let everyone know it too. Nothing like being betrayed by your own body. haha Since I haven't been blogging regularly, Ms. Rose is now 7, Ky Boo is 5 and That Baby...well he's 3. They are all soooo big now. No, they are not coming with me when I leave. Part of the reason I am so stressed about moving is because of that. I will visit them (and vice-versa) all of the time though.
There are so many people here that I will miss. My LYS is going to be hard to leave. The owner essentially taught me to love knitting. My 4 year knitversary is coming up here soon, I'll still be here for that. Oh, and irony of inronies, I seem to have discovered some sort of knitting group at a cafe nearby my apartment last week. Didn't have time to ambush them as I was dragging the crazies to Domino's to pick up pizza. Seriously though? How annoying is that?
 I feel like so much has happened! I just don't know where to begin! There has actually been a good amount of knitting. It always comes in handy when the stress is on. I finished the Hemlock Ring Blanket, a Murloc for my work buddy Stacey, the "Magical Scarf Charlie!" out of my own handspun, and a hat for a friend (which Boo promptly tried to steal). The only thing still on my needles is the test knit. Now, a word on the hat I made. The pattern is the South American Chullo. Apparently this hat is some sort of phenomenon. I had seen that several knitters had  made multiple versions. Sometimes for themselves or others, one knitter had made three! Looks like the bug has bitten chez Kitty too! The hat I have finished is for a friend. We'll call him Mr. Bond. So, Mr. Bond requested a hat with ear flaps. When this pattern turned up on a search, it seemed perfect. Went out and bought the yarn (originally intended to make it from leftovers but packed all of my yarn away!), and got to knittin! While knitting and admiring the softness of the yarn and simple beauty of the fair-isle, I came to the conclusion that I must have one too! Once finished my children grudgingly modelled it for me. Boo seemed to change his mind though, after protesting and throwing it off I later discovered him wearing it while watching tv. Then while snuggling me. He said "Mommy this hat is just so soft that I'd like to sleep with it". And he did. Looks like he might need a hat as well. Labels: busy, fingerless gloves, finished object, hat, kids, knitting, Knitting Lingerie Style, life, scarf 07:26 | | 
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Dec 17, 2007
I Must Have Missed Thanksgiving I really don't know why I'm posting right now. Everything is a little fuzzy. There are hundreds of things I should be doing. The Lady is sitting in my living room, I'm working on that Cerelia from Spincerely still. Gotta pay bills. Fold laundry. Bake cookies. Finish a gift. *sigh* I haven't read blogs in ages (sorry guys!).Obviously, I posted that hat pattern. Glad that went over so well, I hope to see a few people knitting it on Ravelry. :)
Anyways, that's not what this post is about. Since my husband left, I haven't really had time to miss him. Right up until December. December is my favorite month. Yes, it's my birth month, but it's more than that. I love the Christmas season. There are fudge, cookies, lights, Christmas music and specials...it's a loving and warm time of the year. My husband and I met in November of 2003, we married three days before Christmas. Of that same year. Yep. I know. There were times we thought we wouldn't make it, and I wasn't really sure I'd miss him that much when he was gone. Sure, I'd hate being alone. But miss him so badly? Nah. Saturday will be our fourth  anniversary, and I miss him more than ever right now. The littlest things will make me tear up. Over the weekend I got my order from The Loopy Ewe and discovered I'd made it! I was a Loopy Groupie!! Now, I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but Sheri is doing a thing supporting Random Acts of Kindness this month. Go check out her blog if you haven't heard of it yet. Anyways, a few weeks ago Sheri emailed me to let me know that someone had donated a $25 Loopy credit as a RAK, and asked Sheri to find someone. Sheri had chosen me! That made me cry, I come from a small place, and live in a town where everyone is pretty much the same (all Marines and Marine wives). For most people here, your husband being deployed doesn't make you special at all. Civilians don't usually grasp the concept, and until you experience deployment...it's difficult to relate. He's far away from us, we can't call him, I can't ask him to come home, and war is scary.
 Right now, we are financially sound. We don't have a lot of money, but we have enough  to pay our bills. However, I don't have that many friends in my area. People here are difficult to rely on. And, of course, I try to choose my friends carefully. Mostly, I am depending on the kindness of knitters to help get me through all of this. Even though they cannot be here with me, just having someone to talk to helps. Thank you to all of you who are there for me during this difficult time. Even when I disappear for a bit, I'm still knitting, and still thinking about all of you. *hugs* Where would I be without knitters? Labels: blah, blogging, busy, family, friends, gratitude, knitters, Loopy Ewe, procrastinating, purchases, rambling, yarn 23:01 | |
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Nov 27, 2007
Oh GeeWow. Where do I begin?! Normally, I'd say "at the beginning", but I am not even sure where that is. Let us work backwards then, shall we?
 Crap. I just somehow managed to delete my entire post about Thanksgiving. And I didn't really feel like writing this in the first place. So just...enjoy the mosiac. I'll give you some details about my Mouse encounter and the Harlot's Unoriginal Hat (which I revamped ever so slightly to work with a worsted weight yarn instead  of bulky). Oh, and of course, as always, lots of pictures. Whilst in Georgia with my family, I visited with Mouse! Not even sure I mentioned I'd be doing that on here. If you don't already read her blog, she is totally awesome. We talk pretty regularly and I am convinced we share a brain. lol Really, it's a little scary sometimes. Our first attempt to get together was thwarted by a freak illness! The little Ky bug got a horrible fever the day before I was to meet up with Mouse. We just rescheduled though. So, I went to the House of Mouse (sorry, I had to) and we hung out. She showed me all her super amazing soaps, and scented oils, and jewelry...and I think I almost died. She gave me some super cute stitch markers that I apparently forgot to *gasp* photograph! A Converse sneaker and a little devil ducky! SQUEE! Then we went to a yarn shop, oh, it was so much fun. Too bad the Crazies were shopping as well. And wanted all of the expensive stuff. I might have walked out with some things. Malabrigo may have hopped into my basket. Possibly. I can't be sure. It hopped onto the needles so fast that I am still not sure. That whole bottom row on the pictures is Malabrigo pics.  You may (or may not) have noticed that the Unoriginal Hat is what I decided to use my Malabrigo for. Actually, it was what I picked the yarn out for. Except...the hat is written for bulky weight, and this is a worsted weight. After toying with the idea of leaving it in the skein and using the skein as a scarf (I wore it like that almost the entire time I was at Mouse's), no, I decided I must actually knit with the famed yarn. After swatching, and doing some maths I CO using size 9 needles. Then...about 5 rows into the pattern, I realized that the cables weren't looking at ALL the way I wanted them to. Nope, nope. So I did what any crazy good knitter would do. I re-charted the cable. That's what you would do, right? Right?! lol Even though I had to do a lot of tinking (yeah...at first I just re-charted in my head, then I realized I might actually need to write it down), I love the finished product. Here is the low-down:  Pattern: Unoriginal Hat by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Loro Barranquero Needles: Size 9US/5.5mm Gauge: 16sts over 4" in cable pattern Notes: There are a lot of these, bear with me. I loved this hat. I might do it again with the proper yarn weight. Anyways, I decided originally to add in a few purl stitches and add an extra repeat of the cable. 16sts x 5 reps = 80 So I CO the 80sts and got to work. Then I realized that the one cable wasn't opening up as wide as it did in The Harlot's hat, which is what I had wanted. That was really my favorite part. Tink back, twist a stitch here, one there, ah, much better. Knit a few rows...and now the other cable isn't looking quite the way I'd like. *sigh* At this point I decide to print out some graph paper and chart what is going on in my head. It's very late at this point. I had just gotten back from Mouse's, then hand wound the yarn (singles can be tricky, they don't like ball-winders), and I had dinner of course. By the time I re-chart the pattern, it's far past 1AM. Off to bed I go, but I have a plan now and that hat will be gettin it, oh yeah. As you can see, the chart worked beautifully. If you would like...I can write down the chart row by row...or maybe I'll find a scanner and scan it in. Really, all I did was add in 4 extra rows, and 2 extra stitches.  When I got home there was plenty of mail. To include two skeins of STR, the new Raven Clan...like I was going to be able to resist it. They are Rook-y and Corbie. I am really happy with Rook-y, which is good, because I had been eyeing it for awhile.   Labels: blogging, busy, family, finished object, food, friends, hanging out, hat, knitters, life, mouse, pattern, pictures, purchases, rambling, updating, vacation, wool/fleece/roving, yarn 13:59 | |
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Oct 20, 2007
One and Only (picture heavy) So...I haven't been very active in the blogging world lately. I love to post, but haven't really felt like it. Instead of actually reading posts, I skim them. It's not that I don't love you all. Just hitting a plateau I think. Mr. Shad has been gone for about 5 weeks (I am rounding here, and guessing, I actually haven't been keeping track), we still haven't seen any of that "extra income", and there was an error in budgeting that has left us...well more than a little tight. Again. *sigh* Next month will be better. Man am I tired of saying that.
Lots has happened in the last four days, yeah, I know. Four days? What can happen in four days, you ask. Let me 'splain...no, there is too much, let me sum up. (If you get that I love you) I crocheted a ton of those little mice and plan to sell them at a craft fair, Kyran burned his hand (minor burn!), I finally made the "Bird" shirt for Nolan, I frogged the ill-fitting Amazonas sock, got some roving in, finished the hat for my brother, and cast-on for the Tree Jacket. Whew. Now, if you can, and you go to my Ravelry, you'll notice that I have *gasp!* only one WIP. Yep, Tree Jacket is the only thing on the needles. How? Well, I hibernated the Skating Sweater, just looking at it made me sweat (hehe, sweat, sweater). Frogged the Amazonas sock, so that's not even a UFO, it's gone. My brother's hat is done...so that's an FO now. Seriously, I have like five UFOs, things that are hibernating until the weather cools down a bit, or the holidays are over.
Now I am just going to bombard you with pictures. Then we will go into details. I didn't feel like trying to put the pictures all in order and stuff this time. lol
        Right, that is done. You can see from the pictures that the decision to frog (officially) the Amazonas sock was one of the heart. lol I used the LOVEPAPER given to me by my PRGE pal Dawn! It came in really handy. I had been very back and forth about it, in the end, I knew that the sock had to come out, but it was so beautiful!! It's okay, I intend to come back to it after the holidays, and knit the right size this time, along with a few other minor tweaks to make the pattern better suit my foot and desires. Motivation to finish the hat was the Tree Jacket, I needed the size 8 needles for swatching. lol Kyran's hand. Ah, so here is the story: Imagine if you will, you are cooking dinner, and suddenly the kitchen is full of children!! You know that no amount of urging and pushing out the door will get them to go, so you try to balance cooking and keeping kids out of trouble. Heather is doing her homework on the counter to my right. Kyran is standing by my left leg, trying to trip me I think. Nolan is getting into cabinets and pulling out a number of tupperware containers. After putting back the containers, and removing the pot from the burner, Heather needs me. I turn to look at her and hear a scream. No. A squeal, really, of pain. Thinking it was Nolan, I turned to the cabinet...nope crawling around happily. If not a little confused. Then I realized it had been Ky, he must have put his hand on the stove where the pot had just been. "Buhn-ed," he said, "muh han' IS buhned!" We ran it under cold water and bandaged him. He was smart enough to pull his hand back quickly I think, it was really not bad at ALL. Labels: accidents, batt, busy, fiber, kids, painting, socks, sweater, Tree Jacket, updating 17:27 | |
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