More Self-Made Hoops to Jump Through

It seemed very serendipidous that I should receive my new copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac at the very end of October. This little gem reads like a novel or diary at times with monthly patterns thrown in. Very entertaining for knitters and non-knitters alike. Everyone wishes their grandmothers were like Elizabeth.

So of course this means I was reading along on November 1st when I got the idea to work through the projects! Not wanting to wait until January to start (especially since I need to deplete my stash by October next year), I'm bucking convention and starting in November!

I realize it doesn't look like anything now, but Elizabeth promises me that it will shortly become a Moccasin Sock. The interesting thing about this pattern is that it's worked from the leg, down across the instep and then curves around the toes to the sole which is worked from the outside perimeter to the center in a spiral. Very strange, but the benefit is that as the sole, heel, or toe wears out beyond the point of darning, the sole is replaceable! Simply rip back to the offending part and re-knit a new foot! Cool, huh? I just hope I can follow the directions.

And just to sneak in another FO - here's another scarf I whipped up while on the go. All these big sweater and shawl projects aren't travel friendly, so I've resorted to popping gloves and scarves into my purse for portable knitting.

Progress, One Hand at a Time

Here's the latest result from my knitting efforts. I finally got tired complaining about cold hands when knitting outside and started (and finished) my first glove! I simply left the thumb and index finger open so that I can more easily manipulate the needles. I can easily see a habit forming. I'm liking this glove thing. Small, yet detailed; quick, yet meaty.

I've only finished one, however, so we'll see how long it takes to finish its mate. I'm not sure about the yarn choice, but free is my favorite kind of yarn. Plus, there's plenty to make matching gloves for the whole family!

And a final picture of a checkerboard scarf I whipped up last week just to have a small travel project. The yarn is a tad scratchy, so it's only good outside a jacket, but I do like the colors.

The End (That's Only The Beginning)

Here's our youngest reading the 100th (last) lesson of his reading book. He is very excited to be at the end of it! He's never had much of a desire to read, but it's sure sneaking up on him now. He's reading cereal boxes, screen shots on his Nintendo DS, even my emails over my shoulder (which I'm torn over - when his sister does the same thing, I go ballistic, but I don't want to put a damper on his reading - big dilema)!

With all the celebrating today, we thought it'd be nice to bring out the first book that our oldest read. Of course she had to pick a book from the library that was out of print, so getting a copy became a ginormous feat! She taught herself to read when she was five years old, so our son is technically the first child I've had to instruct.

In the same memory box was a book from my childhood, so I read that to them as well. Oh, for the love of books, it was an awesome night!

Now if only I could locate the book that my father read to me so often I had the entire thing memorized (I was two or three at the time.) Unfortunately, I don't remember the title, but it was about a ghost and a mouse and all the foods they ate - everything cheese. Cheese crackers, cheese souffle, cheese bread, cheese cake, cheese this and cheese that. It went on forever and I loved it to pieces. If only I could ever find it again . . .

3 Down, 123 to go!

Having cleaned up my yarn stash, my task now becomes to actually work through it all! Here's my latest finished projects.

Here's my latest love's labour - a spiral shawl from Meg Swansen's "A Gathering of Lace". Christened the 'Nautilus', this was for a dear friend with a deep love of the ocean and everything in it. The yarn is a lovely dark brown and teal green which always made me think of tidepools. She'll be wearing it at the ocean soon when she's in Mexico for a family wedding.
I changed the edging used in the book to one that seemed to fit the style of the internal spiral better. Everything about this shawl was wonderful and such fun to knit - the pattern, the edging (where I had to add some beads, just because), the yarn.
And no matter how many lace projects I make - whether shawls, scarves, bookmarks, or curtains - I'm still struck dumb with how transformed the objects become when they're blocked. A little bit of water, a tug here and there, a few pins, and lots of time to dry (making sure to keep the cat out of the bedroom), and W. O. W. Amazing.
This little neckwarming gem was whipped up yesterday during our regular Knit Night Out. A quick crocheted loop on one end, a big bulky button, and voila! One more skein down!!
This project jumped into my Works In Progress pile very unwittingly. I had noticed the stitch in a book earlier in the evening, and just wanted to try it out. Of course, once I had a couple inches completed, and confirmed that the stitch was pretty cool, I couldn't very well frog my work (not without a very good reason). Bing, bang, boom, a new scarf.

A new rule I've added to my promise of no new yarn purchases, is that I'd like to have less than 100 types of yarn by the end of the year. At that rate, I should be able to make our Ten Twenty Twenty Ten final deadline. Somehow, adding more hoops to jump through is making this entire insane project more workable.

Forward Progress

These two bags are the first round of sorting out the dross from my yarn stash. Over 100 skeins of yarns out! It took me a couple days to be in the proper mindset, but once I started, it was surprisingly easy. I did, however, have to knot the bags so that I didn't change my mind and sneak some skeins back into the stash.

And here are some of my newly organized stash shelves. I've even entered all of my stash into Ravelry. Down to 126 different yarns! Now I just have to hold myself back from starting 27 new projects.

My mother and I now have a new deadline for our stash disposal. 10/20/2010, as in October 20, 2010, which gives us exactly one year. A tight deadline, perhaps, but I like the memorable date and it would still allow us time to buy new yarn for holiday projects.

No time to think about new yarn just yet though. Must get back to the stuff I've got. A knitter's work is never done.

Smart, Yet Not Intelligent

While cleaning up the garage today, I made a drastic mistake - the memory of which will forever live in my brain. Now that I replay the outtakes in my head, I realize there may have been more than one mistake. The final count is hazy; I think I blacked out. One moment, I was cheerfully moving things from the Wrong Place (where they were dropped in a scurry of simply getting them out of the house) to the Right Place (where they actually lived on a semi-permanent basis).

Then there was a time warp of some sort because the very next moment, I remember coming to with a large crochet hook and the beginnings of a fleece rug (well, the first foot diameter) in my hands. I had to pause to attempt to recall what led me to this moment and only had a vague memory of thinking that if I could just empty some of the stash yarn cubbyholes along the wall, my stash wouldn't seem such a daunting obstacle. I did notice that one cubbyhole only had four balls of yarn in it which made it the top contender for elimination. These balls of yarn were fortunately very bulky fleece fringe (bought for pennies) I had previously tied into a continuous strand; unfortunately, they were also the size of basketballs.

Here's where I simultaneously learned two things: 1) it would not be reasonably feasible for me to clean the garage by actually working up my entire stash, and 2) I had just created another Current Project which was exactly opposite from my goal of finishing the projects I have started BEFORE beginning any new projects!

Stupid, right? Wait. There's more.

After I had sufficiently kicked myself for the fleece incident, I returned to the garage to continue the stash clean up which mostly consisted of cramming the bags of yarn into the cubbyholes in such a way that they did not fall out. Again, there was a fuzzy moment when a large number of bags fell out and my mind immediately started counting them as they landed. Let's skip the grusome details and focus on the final outcome.

I counted my stash. Each and every bag of yarn. I knew I couldn't count the actual skeins (what to do with partial skeins or oversized balls of yarn recycled from sweaters?) and only counting the bags would, I thought, give me a baseline to rate my progress. This would give me the total number of unique yarns I have in my stash. This must, I thought, be a workable number. After all, our house, and therefore our garage, is pretty small. It just can't hold that much stuff!

Well, including the 11 sweaters bought to be frogged in order to recycle the yarn and the 15 jersey knit tshirts and dresses bought to be spiral cut to make a crocheted rag rug, the final count was 240. It took me a while to fully process that number. At times throughout the day, it has seemed perfectly within the range of Normal. Other times, it seems to prove my insanity. At others, I think I must be woefully lacking in the stash department and will be judged accordingly. Maybe my mother and I were a bit hasty in our mutual pledge to forego any new stash purchases until our current stash was depleted.

When I actually did the math, however, it finally sunk in. At the rate of 10 yarns/projects a month (highly unlikely), it would take me two years to work through my stash. Two years - 730 days - 17,520 hours - with No. New. Yarn.

My first reaction was to cast on some new projects - fast, easy scarves or tiny bookmarks or something - to get a jump on the holiday season. Then I had my best thought all afternoon - something even faster and easier. This season, I could just give the gift of yarn!

So . . . how does your stash rate?

The Swan Has Landed

Today's Lesson: "It doesn't matter how long it takes to accomplish something as long as it's completed prior to the deadline."

I seem to have learned this lesson well, because I just finished a project I began over two years ago, yet I still completed it five weeks before the deadline!

The project was Mystery Stole #3 which was later revealed to be themed after Swan Lake. It's an asymetrical stole where the first half appears 'normal' (aka human) and the last half becomes feathered into a swan's wing. There was an option to add beads to the pattern, which I enjoyed so much I added even more than were called for. This picture is from when it was being blocked this morning.

This was my first major lace project and when I cast on, I thought it would be for me. However, once my niece announced her wedding, I knew I was now making it for her. I just hope she has a happier ending than Odette.

And then there were four . . .

We must announce a dreadful occurrence which happened today. When making our rounds checking the homestead today, we noticed one of our Delaware hens under the coop dead. Not sure what happened to her really.

I've been on a two-month vacation (more about that in future posts!), and all I had noticed when I returned last week was that she was the only one that had not grown a comb. She was noticably larger than when I left and about the same size as our other four hens. Then yesterday (or the day before, I'm not sure) when I was walking by their pen, I noticed that she seemed to be vomiting (if chickens can do that) a clear liquid - waterish, but snottier. She seemed to get over it well enough and I didn't think anything of it until we found her body.

I'm sorry, Diana/Artemis (we're not sure which was which ever since our two Delawares molted). We were blessed to enjoy your company as long as we did.

A World Premiere!

Here's what I found under the chicken coop this morning! It's pretty small, but very heavy. Now if only we could have figured out which one laid it!

We've opened up their nesting boxes now (which had previously been blocked off so they didn't mess them up unnecessarily), so hopefully they'll start laying their eggs in more accessible places.

My darling husband says this is the most expensive egg ever produced since we've spent almost $500 getting to this point. I say it's all downhill from here. I sure hope so.

Finally, PROGRESS!

After almost, ahem, three years of effort, we have a actual sweater instead of four blocked pieces sitting forlornly in the knitting basket. Of course, this is just two shoulder seams kitchenered and one sleeve set in, but geez, that's something! I only have a couple weeks to go before I'll be handing this over to my sis which may be enough time for me to actually finish seaming it up and possibly dye it. Then again, she may want to do that herself.

This colorful art was sooo much fun to work on I'm almost sorry it's finished. I know I wasn't supposed to start any new projects before I finished all of the ones in progress, but this was for a really good cause and besides, what Mama doesn't know won't hurt her.

And just to prove I could, this project was finished in 19 days. Now I think I know why some knitters work on only one project at a time. It's pretty darn exciting to actually finish projects while you're still jacked up on the newness of them!

Here's the gleeful birthday recipient of my handiwork! She had picked out the colors from my stash and I had a good lesson in asymmetrical design. You'll notice I was even able to overcome my need for even stripes in a predictable color sequence. I'm breaking all the rules now!

And yes, even though I have projects that have been waiting their turn patiently for years, I had the gall to continue to ignore them in favor of finishing my silk lace socks in time for . . .

THE YARN HARLOT!! Of course, I won't mention that I was too skattlebrained to remember to actually bring my knitting to keep me calm OR any of her books for her to sign. I did remember to bring the socks I worked so hard to finish in time, but I didn't remember to actually show them to her.

I did, however, give her this photo of my son and his knitting. He wanted to come himself to show off his handiwork, but I vetoed that.

I do have a couple more projects started (shhh! Don't tell!), but I'm trying really hard to finish them on a first come, first served basis.

Garden Update

The mammoth russian sunflowers are living up to their name and are growing wonderfully along the fence. They seem to really like the sun there.

The star jasmine is doing a great job in covering up the chainlink fence. This is only its second year, so I'm very impressed with its progress. Just look at all those blossoms!

The broccoli grew like crazy and produced beautiful heads, but, alas, they were infested with aphids and inedible (for humans, at least. The chickens loved them.)

The watermelon plants (with french breakfast radishes on the side) were coming along grandly until I made the mistake of transplanting some to space them out better. I've managed to save about two-thirds of them, but the shock was quite disastrous, as you can see. Of course, when I mentioned to my mother the plants' droopy appearance hours after transplanting, her immediate response was "well, yeah, watermelons don't transplant." Oh, really, mom? Now you tell me. Where were you this morning?!

Here the tomato plants have taken over the marigolds and dill that was planted with them. You can't see any of the snap peas and only the climbing vines of the beans. The spinach, cilantro, and basil are coming along nicely in the front.

I haven't been able to sprout any lettuce plants this year (seven varieties and not one lousy sprout). Remember that lovely volunteer lettuce plant we had earlier? My otherwise-lovely husband took it upon himself to harvest the entire plant (!), a.k.a. premeditated first-degree murder, after we already had dinner, so, get this, the entire plant ended up in the compost bin. Now, I normally love my husband, but I couldn't even look at him for a week!

All in all, a perfectly fine garden. Some things are great, some things not so much. But, as a whole, a very nice place to spend some time.

My only wish? Come back, bees! We miss you!

Cycles and Socks

This is one of the craziest things I've seen. When thumbing through a knitting magazine at the bookstore recently, I saw this and just had to snap a picture of it. Some genius knitted a pink motorcycle cozy. She (I can only assume it was a she) covered every inch of the bike, including the tires, with knitted wonderment!

Things like this always make me think I'm doing absolutely nothing with my life. I should be out there pushing the envelope, marking new territory like this gal!

Instead, I'm at the park knitting socks for the the Yarn Harlot's visit and the Sock Summit trip of a lifetime.

This is a silk/linen yarn I recycled from a sweater that I'm going to use for the leg and instep. My mom is sending me a wool/nylon yarn to use for the heel and foot for better wear. At first, I used the yarn as it came from the sweater (two-ply) to make the first (rather larger) sock. It still fit fine, but was very heavy and thick - a great boot sock, if we ever had boot-wearing weather here in Texas. So then I balled up the plies separately and knit up the other sock. This turned out much softer, much lacier, and much smaller, as you can see. It still fits perfectly because of the built-in stretch in the lacework.

I'm loving this!

After three years here, I think I've finally reversed the thirty-year habit of playing inside in winter and outside in summer. Here in Texas, you play outside in winter (all three weeks of it) and then hibernate inside the house the other 49 weeks of the year. And since I gave myself the gift of air conditioning this Mother's Day (sorry, Mother Gaia), I'm thinking this is a pretty cool arrangement!

Plumbing Woes

This is a hole. Do you see the hole? Good. I was afraid I was hallucinating because last week when the plumber I was referred to by a friend came to fix this leak just off our water main, he didn't seem to notice it.

Well, I take that back. He noticed it enough to wrap teflon tape around the hole, but, evidently, didn't think the damaged pipe warranted replacement.

He was more concerned that it might rain later in the day and if he were to rip up my yard fixing the pipe I would be left with a big, undesireable mud hole . . . as opposed to a big, undesireable lack of running water in the house!

So it seems he didn't want to take the effort (beyond the five minutes it took to 1. unscrew the fitted cap thing from the threads, 2. wrap the hole with tape and 3. rescrew the fitted cap thing onto the threads) to actually fix the pipe. Though, since I paid $100 for his one-hour minimum service call, he was gracious enough to give me an unexpected 20-minute history lesson entitled "The Unknown Truth About Texicans, Davey Crockett and Andrew Jackson."

After a day or two, the pipe started to leak again (surprise, surprise). This time, however, I decided to go with the same franchised company I had to use when our water heater was spraying water everywhere early one Sunday morning and there wasn't time to ask around for a good referral.

And, much like they did with our water heater problem, this company's guys arrived quickly, gave a written estimate before the work was done, gave a six-month guarantee after the work was completed, stayed focused on plumbing and didn't get sidetracked with other educational subjects.

So much for trying to help support local Mom and Pop businesses. Here's to globalization!

P.S. In my defense, before you ask why I didn't make the first plumber fix it properly, I was busy cooking in the house when he was working (since it took a couple hours between my call and his arrival), so when I checked the hole (after the history lesson) and didn't see any leaks, all seemed well. Only when we went to Home Depot to try to get some stuff to fix it ourselves (don't ask), did my son see the teflon tape and tell us "that's the stuff the guy used on the pipe!" He has since been instructed that if he ever sees a repairman wrap tape around a hole again, he's to come inside and tell mommy!

It's In My Blood

Now, I'm a crafter. I don't mind admitting that because I come by it honestly. My sister's a crafter, my mother's a crafter, and her mother was a crafter.

The last couple years, my craft of choice has been knitting. I enjoy the magic of turning loops of string into useful and usually beautiful garments and household items. Crochet is good, too, but since it uses three times as much yarn as knitting does, I'll stick with the knitting. Beading and quilting are also quite entertaining, but "yarning" (as my daughter calls it) is my personal brand of heroin.

For the last couple of months, I've been scheming and planning an extended trip back home to the Pacific Northwest, not so much to see family and friends and avoid the nasty Texas summer weather (though those are all wonderful reasons in themselves), but mostly to attend the Sock Summit to be held in Portland, Oregon in early August.

Now most sane people, including my husband, question the desireability of attending a knitting convention unless you're a blue-haired member of AARP, much less a sock knitting convention, but I am looking forward to this with what is quickly becoming an unhealthy obsession. To be able to walk among my people, conversing fluently in knit-speak with other like-minded individuals, just makes me giggle.

Imagine my shock and surprise, therefore, when I noticed that one of the world's foremost knitting goddesses (with a wicked sense of humor to boot!) is coming to Austin on her latest book tour! The last time around she only got as close as Houston and I was unable to attend. No excuses now! I've already had hubby request the day off so that he can manage the munchkins that night.

The difficult part is that I've made it my intention to finish all current works-in-progress BEFORE I start any new projects. First, I was hoping to get out of this on a technicality, but my mother (the final moral judge in these kind of dilemas) says this includes ALL projects, not just knitting projects of which I've whittled down to two.

I have this custom sweater for my sister almost done. The pieces are blocked and ready to assemble. Since the first sleeve took me a year to finish, the second sleeve took another year to finish, and then the body of the sweater only took me six months to finish (once I figured out that staring at the yarn in my workbasket while reciting "oh yeah, I really need to finish that sweater", wasn't making any noticeable progress), I should have the sweater pieces assembled by the end of the year. Which is fine, really, since her birthday's in January, so it'll look like I had it planned all along.

My other project is a lace stole originally started back before the last Harry Potter book was released. I'm not showing a picture of that yet, since lace notoriously looks awful until it's been properly finished and blocked. This project, however, has a deadline (my niece's upcoming nuptials in October) which means that although I only have 20 rows left (out of about 800), I'll be knitting this on the flight and blocking it in our hotel room the evening before the wedding.

The only things I have standing between me and a raging case of startitis are:

a crocheted tiger with a knitted taekwondo jacket I'm designing

a beaded celtic knot magnet

a beaded basket

a quilted throw for my daughter (dated 2007) made from her great-grandmother's fabric scraps (one of a set of four - the other three were given as gifts in, yep, that's right, 2007)

a queen-size quilt for my mother-in-law for which my mother made about 24 quilt blocks a couple years ago for me to assemble (Sure would be nice to hand this off when we see her at the wedding in October)

a rag rug I plan to knit for my son's room as soon as I finish spiral cutting about twenty lumberjack-sized t-shirts I've saved for this project for, you've guessed it, a couple years

eleven sweaters to unravel for their luxury yarn

I realize that most people, when they see a pile of yarn like this, don't think "Gee, you need more yarn, don'tcha?"

But I'd like to think of myself as frugal (in the best sense of the word) and I don't mind one iota (or even two) taking the time to unravel an XXL cashmere sweater which I purchase for $1.25 when the same yarn would cost more than $100 in a yarn store. My family has one response to this kind of situation: "Duh!"

These yarn piles resulted recently from my attempt to re-sort my stash which quickly became a trip down memory lane when I was reacquainted with all those projects I was just about to start.

Once the above list of projects is done (I'm estimating around 2011), I'll be able to shop my stash like a yarn store since everything will be new to me! But that doesn't resolve my current dilema of:

What do I bring to show the Yarn Harlot? And what socks do I make to wear at the Sock Hop during the Summit?!

Ready for Hibernation

I have always had what could be described as an obsessive, anal, and perfectionist kind of personality. And I'm okay with that. It serves me well a lot of times, though my husband has a difficult time understanding how I can focus down to the nth degree on one thing, like a knitting stitch or the paint inside the bathroom cabinets, while simultaneously ignoring other things, like the laundry or lunch for the kids.

Well, right now I'm obsessing about the quality of this family's food intake, so he doesn't mind so much. In fact, he's loving it. And the kids have definitely gotten on board as well since they've been scribbling down recipes from cooking shows they want to try and are arguing about which one of them will miss things like mac n cheese from a box less.

I was just pleased that during today's grocery shopping trip we didn't buy anything in a box except lasagna noodles (which don't come any other way). I'm not quite at the point where I'm focused enough to make my own fresh pasta. I'm there with the fresh bread for pizzas, sandwiches, and breakfast cinnamon rolls, but pasta? Not so much.

So here's a quick shot of my beautiful pantry. Small, but packed. Just the way I like it.

Creature Feature

This was the newest member of our family, our little spicebush swallowtail butterfly who was (re)born this afternoon. We missed the actual hatching, but did catch her soon enough to watch her wings dry.

Unfortunately, we only got to enjoy her about 75 minutes before we had to leave the house on some errands and by the time we returned, she was gone. She squeezed out of a small hole in her netting and is probably somewhere in the house right now, hungry and thirsty.

At first, I would have worried that our cat found and ate her, but upon checking, he hadn't moved an inch from the catnap he was in when we left.

So it seems she was too beautiful a creature to stand living with us. We would have let her go anyway, but it would have been nice if hubby got a chance to see her first. And, yes, I know she may have just been eaten by a bird two minutes after her release, but if that did happen, I wouldn't necessarily know about it and therefore wouldn't feel the wave of guilt I do now. How many people can boast that they've lost a butterfly?!

This lovely creature was the one my hubby found (during our errands) a few moments after he found a $20 bill stuck in the dirt. Crazy, I know.

What's really wacko is that yesterday I was a bit freaky about money and the going rate of plumbers when we noticed a water leak which the city utility crew tells us is about four inches away from their responsibility and therefore, our problem. This seemed to be just one more issue in a long line of problems that have come upon us in the last few weeks, and as of last night I was getting a bit discouraged. We were being so water-conscious by not watering our lawn, collecting rainwater for the garden, recycling our greywater to flush our toilets and water the landscaping that to have a leaky water heater and now a leaky water main in the space of a few weeks made it seem like we were swimming upstream again a hard current.

Luckily, Gaia guided hubby to stop my hand from dialing a plumber in the heat of the moment and instead allowed us to step back and survey the problem calmly. Technically, we have water, it's just that we're wasting some as long as it's on. So, since we're leaving in a couple days for a camping trip and don't really want to think about this right now, we're only turning on our water when we need to take showers, wash the dishes, or refill our water purifier. Otherwise, we turn off the water at the main. Problem solved (for now). When we're ready to call the plumber, we'll have already excavated the pipe the make it easy (and quick) for the plumber to fix it. Good plan.

Finding cash growing out of the dirt is just Gaia's way of reminding me that there will always be enough. No need to fret. Just plant the seeds, be grateful, and Gaia will provide.

p.s. The butterfly has been found! She's under tight security tonight and will bunk with us overnight for her release party tomorrow morning. Yeah!

Milking It for All Its Worth

Gaia answered again! I had wanted to find a local, inexpensive source for raw milk and it just showed up in my e-mailbox! Thank you, thank you, Gaia! We picked these up, direct from the farmer, the day after the cow was milked. Talk about fresh! AND for the same price I pay for organic milk at the store!

I had grand plans for these little beauties, but first, I wanted to sterilize everything in boiling water. I uttered one of those sentences you never thought you'd hear yourself say when I was on the phone with my mother explaining what I was doing that day. "Oh, right now, I'm sterilizing my ice cubes." She didn't know quite how to respond to that.

Pour the milk in, heat it up some, add some citric acid, heat it up some more, add some rennet, and bingo bango, look what happens!

Scoop out the curds, heat up the remaining whey really hot, ball up the curds, dunk them in the whey, and it starts acting like cheese!

So, in less than an hour, we turned a gallon of milk into four creamy little balls of mozzarella. Here they are getting chilled in their sterlized ice bath.

We tried to make ricotta from the leftover whey, but screwed it up. We will be trying again and next time, we'll know a little bit more about what not to do. We would have tried for cream cheese and butter from the other gallon, but the kids drank it all.