Distractions

I held out until just about the last minute, but ended up signing up for a class at the annual state quilt show. The quilt show has, for many years now, been my own personal mini-vacation. It lasts three days and offers a plethora of opportunities to take classes, attend lectures, view beautiful quilts, and spend money at enticing vendor booths. And, it takes place only 21 miles from my home, so I don't have to go to the expense or bother of staying in a hotel.

In past years, I've gone a bit over the top and taken three day-long classes in three days. Last year I only did two, which gave me a full day of viewing and shopping, and that was really quite nice. When the class list came out in February, I was in the midst of planning the Knitting Boondoggle to Webs in May, and reserving my spending money for yarn, so I didn't sign up for any classes at all. As the show neared, I was trying very hard to imagine only going for one day as a viewer, but took a few minutes to look at the class list site and, of course, found a class with openings that looked like it needed me to take it.

I'm glad I did. It wasn't rocket science, but got me to dig out my sewing room a bit (including starting to organize my yarn stash which was creeping out into the center of the room)and clear off my cutting table. Spending a day sewing bits of fabric together has renewed my interest in returning to a couple of projects I haven't touched since last summer -- such as the Star Quilt for my sister.

So, I can see that I'm going to be distracted from my knitting for a while. But, the knitting can travel with me, and even though I won't be attending as many sports events as an empty-nester, there will still be some since I'm married to a teacher. And, I can knit and watch movies with DH.

Add to this that when I offered to knit something for my mother, she said she'd rather have a quilt! I didn't see that one coming. I was sure the woman who knit many a sweater for many other people would love to have something beautiful knit for her. But, truth be told, I've thought about making a quilt for her for some time, but wasn't sure she'd want one. Now I know. Now it is out in the open and I can have her input on size, color, etc.

Now to work on the problem of finishing projects!

OFF MY NEEDLES
Two Baby Surprise Sweaters are done and buttoned and ready to give as gifts at a family reunion this weekend. Hopefully they'll fit the intended recipients!





ON MY NEEDLES
I've finished the back and am more than half-way up the front of the Poonan Baby Sweater from Berroco, using Berroco's Comfort DK -- the DK weight version of the yarn I used for the Baby Surprise Sweaters. This baby is due in December and since the parents like the color red, and it will be a Christmas month baby, I'm using a lovely dark red color. Hopefully you can see the cable pattern in this photo:



I need to get back to the last section of the Swallowtail Shawl. Those "nupps" involving "knit 5 together" require concentration and being in a particular place. I can only do them on the arm of my knitting love seat (pictured below -- half the couch is mine, half belongs to the cats -- in the winter you'll often find all three of us together here, but not in the heat of summer). Maybe I'll make time for it this week.



I need to frog the Pi Shawl and get it off my needles before it sinks to the very bottom of my knitting project basket. I'll find another project for that yarn sometime, but this isn't it.

And, I'm making another Baby Surprise Sweater, using some red and cream yarn that was in the big yarn purchase my mother-in-law and I made. There's some pink too, so I'll try to spread the cream out between two sweaters and then I'll have a couple of baby sweaters "in reserve." It is such a great project to take along as it is just garter stitch, requiring only a bit of attention every other row to add or decrease a couple of stitches.

WHAT I'M READING
Not much, really. Except I'm still working my way through Eat, Pray, Love on tape. I didn't really like this book until I got at least half-way through it. Now I'm liking it enough to want to finish it. I've got an Amelia Peabody mystery waiting in the wings and am now thinking that it might be good to save for the drive to PA we'll be taking to drop Zeben off at college (13 hours drive each direction).

My sister filled this out on her blog and I enjoyed reading it. You can do it too!

A Simple Woman's Daybook Entry
FOR TODAY July 24, 2008...

Outside My Window...it is clouding over and threatening to rain (again). It has been a day of alternating showers, downpours, and sunshine. Lots of variety in today's weather. Best of all, it isn't too hot and there promises to be nice weather for the weekend.

I am thinking...about the workshop I just signed up for at the last minute at this weekend's state quilt show. I usually take a full slate of classes but didn't sign up for any this year. Just today I noticed that an interesting one had space left in it and a quick e-mail got me into it. Now I need to scurry to get all the materials together.

I am thankful for...Financial Aid! I'm about to pay our first college bills for my twin sons and am so thankful for the help they are getting with the costs.

From the kitchen...where I'll have to cook dinner tonight since it will probably be raining when I'd want to put something on the grill. I think I may run down to the farmer's market and see what I can find. Cooking for two is so much easier than for four -- as long as there are leftover for one son to have when he gets out of work at 7:30.

I am wearing...a summer dress as I just came home from work. But no stockings!

I am creating...baby sweaters at the moment. I spent my lunch hour buying buttons for two baby sweaters I'll be giving away next weekend. I have another one started for my niece's baby due in December. I've also got a lace shawl nearing completion and plans for lots of other projects.

I am going...to the Maine Quilt Show tomorrow morning!

I am reading...The Thief Lord, a children's novel that takes place in Venice -- someplace I'd love to visit. I'm also nearing the end of Eat, Pray, Love as a book on tape. The next book on tape will be an Amelia Peabody mystery -- but I may save it for the drive to western PA to drop one son off at college in a few weeks.

I am hoping...that I won't miss my sons too much when they go off to college this fall. They are ready, we are ready, but it will still be an adjustment and I've been blithely saying I'm prepared for the empty nest and hope I won't find myself crying a lot.

I am hearing...the rain -- the skies just opened up again, but it is slowing down quickly. And the rumblings of surround sound in the living room as my husband watches the end of a suspenseful movie (he's on a Denzel Washington kick this summer).

Around the house...are our two cats. We've just been encouraged by the vet to put them on a diet (especially one of them) and while they just had a bit to eat, they are pacing around hoping for more.

One of my favorite things...the patio my husband built last summer and the flower gardens we've been working on around them. I can see it from where I'm sitting, looking through the beautiful, old-fashioned screen door my father just built for us.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: the quilt show will, hopefully, inspire me to clean out my craft room so that I can actually use it. During the school year, I call it the "dump room," as everything that isn't where it is supposed to be ends up in there, somehow. Then, every summer, I clean it out and try to get organized. I'm thinking I'll have the boys' rooms to put the overflow in this year, so maybe I'll be able to use my room as intended this year. Sunday is my quilt workshop, and next Wednesday I'm taking a daylong class in Excel. Everyone seems to know how to use Excel except me at work, so I'm doing some catching up.

Here is picture thought I am sharing...
Doesn't she look content and comfy?

Photos at Last

My Norwegian Woods scarf made from one skein of Misti Alpaca Lace (yummy to knit with!):


And my first Baby Surprise Sweater knit in Berroco Comfort in navy and lime green:

Now I'll need to go take some more pictures!!! Many thanks to DH for talking me through this.

Suddenly Summer

The last few months have been quite a blur. I should have blogged, but really things were going too fast and furious. I was looking forward to having this computer all to myself once the boys' laptops for college arrived, but then one son, in his need to move everything from old computer to new, completely wiped out the contents of the family computer -- that is, everything except what was in his area of the computer and saved to the hard drive. My iTunes and iPhoto were completely wiped out, though I was relieved to find that most of my photos had been downloaded to my iPod, so I still have them. And Nate was able to back-fill my iTunes from my iPod, so all I had to replace were my podcast subscriptions (resulting in finding new ones -- more on that later). So, it was a few weeks before I could face the computer at all, even though it is now all mine.

I usually take a couple of weeks off in June and then start my two months off in the summer. This year, though, I had too much going on in June, including a conference in Chicago the last week of the month, and am now working two days a week in July and August. By the end of June I was completely and totally exhausted -- worn out by the events of the end of the boys' senior year, the beginning of their summer jobs, and the transition we're going through at work. I did have a 6-days off stretch at the beginning of July and on the first day, I felt like a balloon with a slow leak. DH even noticed that I got progressively limper as the day went on.

But, two days a week is manageable. I'm finally sleeping through the night, without waking up to my head spinning over something out of my control (the computer debacle was the focus of a few nights' wakefulness). I actually slept 10 1/2 hours the other night and actually felt the stirrings of energy this morning! How nice to start to feel like myself again!

I have been finding time for knitting. In May, a friend and I went on a "knitting boondoggle" to celebrate our turning 50 this past year. We signed up for a class with Cat Bordhi at Webs and spent a weekend in Northampton, MA. Well, actually, the hotel room was a few towns away as Smith College had their graduation that weekend. We drove directly to Webs on Saturday, and did some shopping at their annual tent sale which happened to be the same weekend. Then we walked into town for lunch at the restaurant that Kathy and Steve have mentioned on their Ready, Set, Knit podcast. We poked around in the shops -- what a great little town -- and bought celebratory similar woven shawls (which I have worn numerous times already). We had dinner in an Indian restaurant and saved the leftovers to bring for lunch during our class the next day.

The class was about knitting creativity and was meant to encourage us to think out of the box when approaching knitting design. I learned how to make a mobius scarf and proceeded to make one out of some ribbon yarn I didn't know what to do with but loved the colors. I also fell in love with the lace scarf/shawl that Cat was wearing and ended up purchasing the pattern -- more on that later too. During class breaks, Cathie and I did some more shopping and ended up with our big purchase of the weekend -- we invested in blocking boards. I went straight home and made a lace scarf for my mother for mother's day and blocked it on my new board.

ON MY NEEDLES
I got frustrated with my pi shawl and though I haven't done it yet, am planning to frog it. I don't know if it is the pattern, the yarn or me, but it just wasn't meant to be. But, I wasn't ready to give up on lace, so I ordered the Sivia Harding pattern for the Norwegian Woods Scarf/Shawl and it went together beautifully using one skein of Misty Alpaca Lace in blue. I even found the right size beads at Joann Fabrics. All that is left is to block it (on my new blocking board).

Since that lace project went so well, I started right in on another one. This is the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. I've gotten through the first pattern and am in the second, which is going slowly due to the "knit 5 together" stitches every other row. But, it will be beautiful and I just need to get back to it.

I've been distracted by knitting two of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jackets. I have a cousin and the daughter of a cousin who had babies last winter that I'd like to give something to. In the past, I've been more ambitious and made baby quilts, but that isn't going to happen this time. The first sweater was an absolute puzzle as I didn't know which end was up until I'd gotten almost all the way through the pattern. It was knit on faith alone. But, even on faith, it is a quick project. The first is in green and navy blue and the second is maroon and navy blue -- both out of Berrocco Comfort. I promise that in the next week, I'll learn how to put up photos on my blog! Anyway, one is done and the other is about half-done. It is lovely garter stitch mindless knitting.

The other project I'm involved in at the moment is socks for Don, my DH. He complained that I never make anything for him, so he picked out the yarn from my stash and I got a lot of the knitting done while at the conference in Chicago. I'm knitting them at the same time, though on separate sets of double pointed needles (I didn't have a 40" needle of the right size available to do the Magic Loop) and took the time to find the same starting point in the self-striping skein so that they actually match pretty well in the stripes. I did a K3 P1 rib just to add some interest to the knitting, but other than that they are pretty straightforward, cuff-down socks.

UPCOMING PROJECTS
The main project on my list is to clean out my "sewing" room. I've spent hours in the past couple of weeks cleaning out Zeben's room. He has a summer job on campus that includes a dorm room, so he "moved out" about three weeks ago. I warned him that I was going to "shovel out" his room when he moved to campus and he was agreeable. What a mess! I won't give details, but I really did need a shovel (in the form of a dustpan). Now that it is clean, I can use his bed to put my blocking board out (maybe I'll block that Sivia Harding shawl today!) and use his room as a place to put things while I clean out and rearrange my sewing room.

Seduced

Color is my downfall. Yes, I love the feel of fiber, love the design of pattern created by knitting, etc. But it is color that makes me swoon. Sometimes I go to the yarn or fabric store just for a color infusion and don't even buy anything -- especially in the winter or when I'm feeling down.

I was seduced once again yesterday by color. This time it is in the form of fabric. A colleague of mine makes quilts with big pieces, big, wild prints, and does them entirely by hand -- the piecing and the quilting. I haven't "loved" all of her work, but am mightily impressed by it. Yesterday, she was showing another colleague and I some fabric she'd ordered for a couple of projects. The fabric came in "packs" of fabric cut for a specific quilt in a Kaffe Fassett book. One of the packs she received was not the one she ordered. I fell head over heals in love with the fabric and ended up buying it so she wouldn't need to ship it back to the sender.

This fabric is a real departure from my usual fabric choices. The prints are big. Some are kind of wild and abstract. Some are large florals. I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to quilting. But, oh, the colors! It will be spectacular.

Now, all I need is time! But, I'm definitely feeling the quilting itch after a winter dedicated to knitting.

Ah, fickle love.

Beyond Capacity

Earlier today Don went to hang a coat in our mudroom and came back into our bedroom to hang it in the closet because the mudroom hooks were filled "beyond capacity." Hmmm, I thought, that is a good phrase to describe a lot of my life lately. My house is too full of stuff. My list of things I want to knit, sew, weave, make, or read is longer than I can possibly accomplish. My calendar is full of activities -- especially as it is the downhill slope of the school year. I'm physically tired from travel for work and family (I chaperoned the high school art student field trip to Boston and visited 6 museums in 2 days -- fun, but tiring). Life is simply too full.

I continue, however, to not feel that old friend depression hanging around my heart, which is the bright side in all of this. So, maybe I'm "at capacity" rather than "beyond."

WHAT I'M KNITTING
I finally am knitting a pi shawl! I'm knitting Meg Swanson's Shetland Tea Shawl in a mossy heather green Alpaca Cloud from Knit Picks. I'm currently struggling a bit with the Diamond Madeira section of the lace -- it will be a tough 36 rows, I think. Then I'll knit the border on sideways, which will be an interesting challenge too. I have two friends knitting lace shawls at the moment too -- we all decided independently to do it.

I'm still working on the yoga mat bag, even though I haven't been to yoga in several weeks. I've been away on Tuesdays and then last week it was our first warm day and I couldn't resist the chance to get outside in the sunshine.

I've put the Bird-in-hand mittens aside for a later time. It is definitely not mitten season anymore (even though there is still snow behind in a few places in the shady part of our yard behind the house. I grilled salmon outside tonight!

The prayer shawl I'm working on is nearly done. I put the fringe on the beginning end and have the fringe pieces cut for the finishing end. We have 8 or 9 teenagers at our parish who will be graduating from high school this spring, and we have 9 people knitting shawls (which could also be used as scarves). This is one of them. We're making them out of a Cherry Tree Hill yarn that is a mixture of wool and silk and came in enough colors that every one of the shawl/scarves is a different variegated color. It is soft and beautiful to work with.

WHAT I'M READING
I finally subscribed to Audible.com and am "reading" Eat, Pray, Love. A friend commented that the author is incredibly self-indulgent. Ah, to have the chance to be young and self-indulgent again! It just makes me want to travel. So far, I'm enjoying having the book read to me, though. Now to decide what to get next month! Do you think I'm being rather self-indulgent?

Unravelings

I've been sleeping pretty well lately, but the other night I woke up chewing on something that I was upset about and ended up coming downstairs for about an hour. I picked up the Pi Shawl I'd started the day before, found a mistake, and ended up unraveling the whole thing (I hadn't gotten very far anyway). It almost seemed that the act of unraveling that piece of knitting helped me unravel the problem I was having. I re-started the shawl and got myself back to the place where I had been, but with no mistakes just as I got completely over my upset and found myself ready to go back to sleep. As usual, as I unraveled the problem, I realized that there were other issues that were also bothering me, causing me to blow the issue I'd been chewing on in my semi-sleep out of proportion. As I unraveled the knitting, I also realized that I hadn't been happy with my original cast-on, and ended up being glad for the excuse to start over. Funny how often knitting mirrors my thought process.

Anyway, an hour with my knitting and the girls (our cats, Lydia and Pandora)gave me back my peace of mind and my sleep. My husband solved the presenting problem for me the next day and life goes on.

When I teach knitting, students are often horrified when they have to "frog" their knitting (for my non-knitting readers, that is the sound when you have to "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it" -- knitting joke). One of the local teachers is fondly known as Roberta the Ripper! I, however, rarely have an issue with frogging. I don't love it, but it does allow you to wipe out a mistake as if it never existed and replace it with something better (or at least more acceptable). Sometimes I do get mad at my knitting and have to put it away for a while before I can face frogging, but sometimes that act is just as healthy for my mental health as any new knitting can be.

OFF MY NEEDLES
I finished my snail mittens. Even though the first day of spring passed this week, it is still cold outside and I'm enjoying the mittens. The blue and yellow doesn't go with all of my jackets, so I may have to make another pair.

ON MY NEEDLES
I'm through the first skein of two for a prayer shawl I'm knitting for church. It is good easy knitting -- very calming.

I'm knitting a Japanese Vines scarf, from a pattern I found online and had to buy. I may have to make a few of these for gifts -- they are fun to knit and easy to carry along. Check out http://mimoknits.typepad.com/knitting/2007/09/japanese-vines.html

I'm also trying to knit the Bird in Hand mittens from Kate Gilbert, but the Cascade 220 yarn seems to be too big. I'd like to try some DK weight yarn, but may just put them aside for a while. A member of our knitting lunch group is trying to make them also and says they are way too much work for a pair of mittens. I think they'll be fine, but as the weather warms up, I'm not inspired to get serious about them.

What I am getting serious about is a lace shawl! I've been wanting to do one since starting to listen to the Knit Picks podcasts last summer. I used ILL to borrow Meg Swanson's A Gathering of Lace book and am working on the Shetland Tea Shawl in a mossy green Alpaca Cloud from Knit Picks. The shawl is based on EZ's Pi Shawl instructions (Meg is EZ's daughter). I'm working on the first lace pattern section right now, getting ready for the next increase row which will take me from 150 stitches to 290 stitches. The next lace section is 48 rows,and then the number of stitches will double again as it just keeps getting bigger.

WHAT I'M READING
I've borrowed from the library A History of Hand Knitting by Richard Rutt. It was a bit hard to get through at first, but I'm now finding it fascinating. Essentially, knitting is very old (older than crochet), but so little knitted fabric has survived, it is quite hard to really get a grip on how it came to be and when. Socks were probably the earliest items anyone knit.