mamacate

Okay, I give up (for the moment)

2005-01-12T15:03:00.000-05:00

I give up on trying to get my domain working. You can email me there, mama (at) mamacate.com , but I can't get the mapping working and I have dueling tech support people (it's yahoo's fault! it's typepad's fault! and so on) so basically I'm at an impasse. I have a few ideas and I haven't batted the lastest lob over to typepad's court yet, but right now I just don't have the available brain space to deal with it.

Anyway, long (too long!) way of saying that for the moment at least, you should come see me over at typepad. http://mamacate.typepad.com

Click here for mamacate's new home

See ya there!

PS: Don't forget to resubscribe with bloglines too--there's a handy-dandy button over there. ;)

Wait!

2004-12-10T20:22:00.000-05:00

Oh lordy, of course I have to make this complicated. Don't update anything yet--I've just registered www.mamacate.com, but it's going to take a little while to get everything set up and the typepad site linked there. I'm doing this because after wrestling with typepad, I can tell I don't want to get locked into that system forever (sheesh, anytime you want to do anything YOURSELF, you have to upgrade!). So if I just register a domain, then I can move things around with minimal disruption to you, gentle blog reader.

So, who can tell me how to add my bloglines blogroll to my typepad sidebar. Anyone?

If anyone is still reading me by the time I finish messing things up, it will be a small miracle, I think.

I No Heart Blogger

2004-12-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

I'm glad y'all are commenting, because if I had to rely on my own perception alone, I would say that my blog had disappeared. Happily, I received two comments via email today, and they didn't say "what the heck is wrong with your blog, girl?," and even referred to actual blog content, so I'm thinking that maybe you're seeing something I'm not.

So, why is my blog a big mess? It's because...

I'm movin' on up!

To typepad.

http://mamacate.typepad.com

Just as soon as I figure out how to correct the feed, and maybe even put an automatic redirect thingy on here, I'll do it.

Why am I moving? I want categories. I want 'em bad. I want to be able to respond to the kind souls who comment here without having to divine their email addresses from the ether. I want to escape from the shame of a standard blogger blog on a standard blogger template (okay, so now I have a standard typepad template, hey, I didn't say I was moving that far up). I wanna be a cool kid.

So come on over. If you have me on your blogroll (and I know about it) I'll be emailing you with my new address. And slowly, but surely, I'll be putting up curtains and cleaning the carpets over there. Don't hold your breath though. I think I lived in my current house for 3 years before I put up curtains.

Does anyone have a Queer Eye for the Lesbian's blog link?

Tell us about those "moral values," will ya?

2004-12-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

We're back to more red-state cognitive dissonance, but this time it's me who can't seem to parse the difference between what they say and what they do.

It started when I heard from a friend of a friend that an old mutual acquaintance whom I knew had voted for Bush, is a "swinger," along with his wife. The have three kids and live in the suburbs. In a red state, of course.

At first I said, "oh, wow, they're poly!" But upon hearing more from my friend, no, they're not poly. They're swingers. They go to sex parties and hook up.

That's cool, whatever. I mean, they've been doing this for long enough that it doesn't seem to have affected their relationship. According to my friend, they are happy, and that's great. I'm happy for them. Everyone is consenting, they're all adults, and they're enjoying themselves. Bravo, I say. Have fun.

But then, to vote for someone who opposes gay marriage, I mean, what the fuck? In a way, the two have nothing to do with each other from my perspective. If we weren't the same sex, we would be the most boring, run-of-the-mill couple you'd ever meet. We have been monogamous for over 12 years. Our lives revolve around our kids, our jobs, our home, and our community. We do exciting things like knit and scrapbook. Sex parties are not even on our radar screen. Just. Can't. Imagine.

But it seems that the red states think that I am a threat to the moral fabric of our nation. Not exactly sure what that's all about--I guess I figured they thought we were having kinky sex all over the place (let us pause for a moment to laugh cynically--um, ever lived in a house with twin toddlers?). But shit, apparently they're having kinky sex all over the place in those red states, and here I am trying to figure out how to get dinner on the table and worrying about transitioning to preschool and....um, this is where my brain just loses traction and starts to spin out, you know? And it's not just my old acquaintance who is doing this. There's a whole club he belongs to in his red state suburb. How many of them do you think voted for Bush? And, um, uh, what the fuck, huh?

So you know, I'm not coming out against swingers. Like I said, have fun, consensual adults, safe sex, all that. No problemo. But uh, could you please not vote for people who have pledged to take basic civil rights away from homosexual Ward & June Cleaver?

So dude, if I'm going to be maligned and vilified for my "lifestyle" (because it is very, very, stylish--in an Erma Bombeck kind of a way), I think I really need to make my lifestyle a little more interesting. Being an upstanding, responsible, tax-paying, faithful, monogamous, church-going (ok, UU, but it still counts!), community-minded citizen hasn't done shit for my image. I'm pretty much a pervert, as far as red America goes. And I though that they just had a really low threshold for perversion, and while I thought they were very wrong and didn't understand, it turns out that they've got "lifestyles" of their own and are busy doing stuff that I don't think is perverted, but hey, you can't deny that it's a little kinky. But what exactly does a girl do with that kind of information? And this may be really sad to say, but I don't WANT to start a suburban sex club here in my blue state. I'd rather go to knitting night. I am telling the gods' honest truth. How sad is that?

In a much more depressing piece of red-state hypocrisy, see what Republic of T just posted about a little more red-state morality:

http://www.republicoft.com/index.php/archives/2004/12/07/red-morals-ws-america/

Sigh. If someone can explain this to me, I'd be grateful. Thanks.

Knitting Presents

2004-12-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

I am now wearing a wrist brace. Too. Much. Knitting. As if there was such a thing. It's mostly a matter of prevention, but things were getting a little wonky there, and I know wrist injury is not something I want to mess with.

The multidirectional diagonal scarf is *almost* done. I think I will abandon the plan to do a mitered square hat, at least on a deadline basis. I may be struck with insanity, give the scarf for birthday (Sat.) and then make the hat an Xmas deal. Yeah, that's crazy. I'll probably do it.

I am also making THREE scarves with miserable novelty yarn for my kids' 3 daycare teachers. I think they'll like them but oh lordy, give me wool!

The Lopi sweater is coming along around the edges, but I'm procrastinating it to the last minute because I know I can work on it in the car up to NH where we're celebrating Xmas, and I don't think I'll see the recipient until Xmas night or even the day after. So I have TONS of time on that, and the scarves are going to be gifted the week before so back to the nylon ladder nightmare I go. Hey, the colors are pretty, at least.

Meanwhile, the voice of reason sounds from across the pond.

How to avoid a designer tea cosy

Props to Mary-Helen for the link.

Memo to the Nearly-Three-Year-Olds

2004-12-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

I know you are getting bigger, and that like any normal children of your age, now is the time for you to become more focused and deliberate about your boundary testing. A year ago, you careened from one activity to another, pausing occasionally to see if I was paying attention and would tell you not to do some dangerous thing, but mostly you were simply bent on ~~destruction~~ exploration, and your limit-testing was more incidental—a by-product of your curiosity and exuberance.

But now, you are studying. Carefully probing the places where you sense any sign of weakness, whether it be the rare (yeah, right, I try, okay) inconsistent response, or the thing that makes me growl "NO" through gritted teeth. In short, you are checking out how best to piss me off.

I thought maybe we could all save ourselves some time. I will provide you with a list of things that piss me off. That way, you won’t have to check Every. Fucking. Day. to see if they still piss me off. In future, you can refer to this memo. I promise that if one of these things ceases to piss me off, I will update the memo to reflect my new attitude. I’m not expecting to do a lot of editing.

So here we go.

1. Putting your feet on my body, face, arms, etc. while nursing. What IS this???? And you BOTH do this bizarre behavior incessantly, even though you know that after 3 warnings the milky session is OVER. We’ve talked about touching with hands. We’ve talked about respecting mama’s body. But somehow, the feeling of feet (bare, socks, shoes, even rainboots, it doesn’t matter) against my body is just too appealing. It annoys the hell out of me. Sssssstop. K? Glad we’re clear.

2. Asking me for a cup of juice at dinner time, then climbing up on the table when I leave the room to get it. You know, I know you’re doing it when I hear the hysterical giggling. And you know that if you do it you are required to take a break from being in the dining room. You are allowed to leave the table whenever you are finished. No bonus for getting kicked out. So, well, this is pretty straightforward. I promise to be pissed about this every time you do it. As I think I have alluded to on more than one occasion in the past, it’s not safe, and it’s rude. So we can just stop with that little drama, because it’s not gonna change. Nope. I will remain this mean FOREVER. Just wait till I have car privileges to take away.

3. Demanding one single exact clothing ensemble, regardless of whether it is clean or not, and then whipping it off 5 minutes later and demanding another one, treading, of course, on the initial outfit in the process. Seriously. I already, surprisingly enough, have a fair amount of laundry to do. Not really necessary to create more by wearing a different outfit every time you walk into a different room in the house. And I'll tell ya right now, being completely naked is not always my favorite alternative, especially when I have EXPLICITLY told you that we are leaving in five minutes and when you are in the other room disrobing while I am putting your brother’s shoes on. Duct tape? Is that the only answer? And no, it’s not okay to go to the library naked. I don’t really have time to explain the many reasons WHY right now, but trust me, they are the same as the last 25 times we have had that conversation, okay?

I think that will do for now. There's more, oh there's more, but if we can start there things will run a lot more smoothly around here.

PMS? Moi? Shut up, it has NOTHING to do with that. Nor is it related to the fact that I have been home solo with the kids for the past week, and for 3 weeks in the last 6 (or something, it’s all a blur now; that’s a conservative estimate), and one of the weeks DP was home involved dinner for 10 and houseguests. And the freelance project and the 9:30 phone meeting with a fucking COMMITTEE (I love phone meetings on Saturday mornings with COMMITTEES reviewing my work--LURVE IT!). That makes me extra perky.

Over at Naked Ovary, one of Karen’s trolls used her cursing as evidence she that she is not ready to be a parent. In that case, three years into it, I am DOOMED.

I had to edit to add this from the comments:

Stephanie has a great #4:

4. I know that you like to nurse standing up and that it seems like a real time saver to you. Despite how this makes me feel less like a loving, nurturing mother and more like a SNACK BAR I am willing to do it if you will simply NOT JUMP AROUND with my nipple in your mouth.

(also, if you could stop stuffing the leftovers from your snack down the side of the couch I would like that.)

Um, yeah, that one too. Technically, the drive-through closed shortly after the take-out and delivery service went offline (pumping, that is) at 18 months. I think around 2, I insisted that all milky sessions be sit-down meals. We did have one session on some days where the rules were off and they got to stand up and SHARE (the other fun twin nursing excitement. You haven't lived until you've had your kids execute an entire wrestling session WHILE latched on). That one session has been spot weaned because I was going to start breaking china if I had to do it again. It was mostly the wiggling, but also the casual way they would turn, holding the breast in one hand, to see what was going on behind them. Sit-down diner from now on.

Thanks, Stephanie, and congrats on the book.

Cool Web Thingamabob #642

2004-12-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

Check out TypoGenerator, a cool thingy for creating random text-based graphics, found over at The Other Mother.

What does your vanity plate look like?

The Yarn of Froggage

2004-12-02T15:49:00.000-05:00

So I think I mentioned that I would be making a Lopi sweater out of yarn frogged from a poorly-conceived sweater started in, um, 1989?

Well, I frogged the offending garment, and started my Lopi sweater, destined to be a Yule gift for my step brother-in-law, the (arguably) lucky winner of my gift in the sibling gift lottery this year.

I knitted away, watching with satisfaction as the thing grew swiftly, having only 128 stitches on the needle for the entire body.

Wait a minute....that looks a little small....

Let's try to explain my thinking here. Bear with me, this promises to be convoluted.

When it comes to ribbing, I almost always use the same size needles for the ribbing as I do for the body. Only the more traditional (or outdated) patterns tend to have that kind of drawn-in ribbing these days anyway, but when I encounter them, I typically rib with the larger needles, figuring it will draw in a bit because it's ribbing, but it won't have that dreadful boofy look that really tight ribbing can produce (we've already discussed my desire not to draw attention to that particular area).

But this time, since it's for a man with broad shoulders who will probably look good with a tighter waist, and since I figured I'd be traditional for once, I used smaller needles for the ribbing. This was a conscious choice. I remember deciding to do it. Well, now I do.

So, when it came time to change to the body stitches, I had a conversation with myself that went something like this:

Reading: "Hmm, change to larger needles and k 1 row in MC, increasing, blah blah."

"Change needles? I don't change needles. Those instructions are for people who follow instructions. Not me, no siree. I remain, immutably, a person who, as a matter of identity, does not change needles. Keep knitting there mama, and pity those poor pathetic souls who have to change needles at the top of the ribbing."

"Hey, colors! Fun. Keep that tension right. Follow that chart. Loop de loop, in and out, front and back, lalalalalala...pretty geometric forms....lalala..."

"Wait a minute. This fabric feels kind of thick. And you know, the body hasn't really started to expand below the needles as I knit. It's looking, well, like it's not much bigger than the circ needle circumference of 29". That's weird, I'm knitting a 40" sweater. My gauge can't be THAT far off. Let's measure."

"FOUR stitches to the inch? Must be wrong. Oh, definitely. Let's measure again. No, there really isn't any way I can claim this to be 3.25 sts/in, even in some sort of denial-fueled fantasy world."

"Hey. Wait a minute. These are SIZE SEVEN NEEDLES. Now it's not altogether unusual for me to go down 3 needle sizes to get gauge, but I have a vague recollection of only going down one needle size for this project. Now that I think about it.....ack! I *did* rib with smaller needles.....Hello, frogpile."

Sigh. This is not a brain with great powers of observation, is it? No, I don't think so either.

So I put the project in time out before frogging it (and not the positive, take a break time out my kids get, no, this was the shaming, you've been a bad, bad knitting project kind of time out), during which time I shared my tale of woe with Thanksgiving guest Sara, and drowned my sorrows in Eloise, who has met her own bump in the road, though at least it doesn't involve frogging, just waiting for yarn.

This past weekend, I refrogged it (this is the yarn that had already been frogged--should I just throw this stuff away and figure it's a bad omen? I think it has one more chance--you know, 1-2-3 Magic).

Luckily, frogging is not so painful when you're knitting with rope. By Monday evening I had this:

The whole thing is now on the backburner, however, as I frantically try to complete a Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf for Rhys, who is out of town with her sister, supporting her through chemo #4. BTW, solo parenting twin toddlers is TIRING and I have been doing it far too much the last few months. I'm glad she's helping her sister, but I'm also relieved Rhys won't be traveling much (except her one day per week in NJ) after this. The upside is I can (probably) knit her a scarf without her knowing, and that will be cool when I surprise her. (Well, that is if she continues her impeccable record of not reading my blog, despite having been given the address. Rhys, if you're reading this, tell me so I can stop sneaking around.)

I'm using some Kureyon in color 128 that Alison RAOK'd me a few weeks back. I think in order to make a respectable scarf, I'm going to need a 3rd skein. Webs' website claims they have that color. I want to put it in the middle of the scarf so any dyelot differences won't be too noticeable, so off to buy yarn with the kids tonight on the way home. Should be interesting. I'll look forward to being laughed at again...

Belated apology

2004-12-02T15:43:00.000-05:00

When my parents were up for Thanksgiving, we did a Sorry Everybody photo. Here's our contribution to world contrition.

My mom is wearing the International Traveler Apology T-Shirt. (Perhaps we should also apologize for misspelling "traveler?" And "apologize." And for putting punctuation inside quotations. Oh, never mind.) The shirt was my early Yule present to her.

Still sorry over here.

Picture of Perfection

2004-12-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

Go see my friend Sara's essay on parenting an "atypical wonder," a child with CP. Toby (and his big sister Hannah, aka the golden goddess of school-agedness according to my kids) came to be with us for Thanksgiving.

It was perfect.

Since she wasn't kind enough to share with you a photo of the smiling charming blondie boy, I thought I would do the honors.

See what I'm saying?

I think I have A Plan

2004-11-29T22:02:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Norma, for pointing me the way. I have been wanting something as beautiful, as obsessive, as perfect as Shedir from the Knitty Fall Surprise. I loved knitting that thing, even though I did it at a snail's pace. I've been doing mindless knitting since I came back to it last year, and this reminded me how much fun it was to have a "thinker" project. I thought about Rogue, which even has the advantage of being from the same designer.

I've seen so many lovely Rogues made, but I just cannot see myself looking anything even vaguely resembling okay in a pullover with a pocket in--um--my least attractive area. No, we do not need two layers of worsted weight fabric in that particular zone. Even knitted without the ~~paunch~~ pouch, the hoodie thing makes me look like a marshmallow. So, with great regret, I left it behind.

Little did I know that the fabulous Claudia had made modifications to the pattern to turn it into a zip-front cardigan. Now this, I can work with. Much more doable than St. Brigid, which would probably take me a year to knit, and frankly, a lot more wearable too.

So what yarn? I have a closet full, you know. Just ask anyone who works at Webs, where they laugh at me when I walk through the door. No, not really, only when I go to the cash register.

But I realized, I have a couple of pounds of blue-faced leiscter roving that is just waiting to be spun. I have been knitting so much that I have been letting my wheel languish, and I miss it. So I am going to spin and then dye the yarn for my Rogue Cardi. In other words, don't be looking for photos of the WIP soon, LOL. But I have A Plan. And it is good to have a plan. I have spun a wee bit of the BFL to do some swatching. I haven't spun to spec much (my main experience was the mothy zeus that has just found its way to the garbage pile, and that time at least I had a photo to work with), so I'm going to find my way here.

But first, I WILL get through my current WIPs.

Like I said, Zeus is history. No pretty Aran cardi, not this year. If I happen upon a beautiful gray shetland fleece next spring, then you never know, but for now, I'm done. On the trash pile, grubs (YECH) and all. Oh, how I pray they haven't gotten into anything else!

Eloise, on the other hand, is almost done.

In fact, she would be done if it hadn't become absolutely clear to me that I was going to run out of yarn. You be the judge. That's one sleeve cap and a full sleeve.

Yeah, I think so too.

I have a long torso (came in handy when pregnant with twins), so I added an inch to the body length. I thought I had extra yarn, since the pattern called for 400 gms and I bought 10 skeins. Guess what? Blossom comes in 40 gm skeins. That would be, um, NO extra yarn. And for once, the designer was not overgenerous with the yarn requirements. And I bought all of the colorway that was in stock at the store where I got it. So, it's off to find someone who won't charge me 50% of the price to ship one skein of Blossom color #2. Or if you have one to get rid of, LMK and I'll buy it or trade for it. I have a ~~big pile of yarn I will never knit~~ wonderful stash.

The bottom line, Eloise is on hold. Which is good, because it was keeping me from my holiday knitting. I would have more fabulous pictures of said holiday knitting if blogger hadn't just trashed the rest of my post.

More tomorrow. That's enough for now anyway. Goodnight Gracie.

A Real Holiday

2004-11-27T19:38:00.000-05:00

Hi there! Wow, things have been busy around here. We hosted a wonderful Thanksgiving with chosen family and bio family. Our tiny house was full to the rafters with kids. My parents stayed at a B&B, which helped everyone have a better time, I think. Dinner was delish if I do say so myself, and Sara and I had an absolute blast spending obscene amounts of money at Northampton Wools and Webs. It's official: I am now at the point where they laugh at me when I walk up to the counter with a big pile of yarn. Yes, laugh. At me. Buying yarn. Sara, I believe, described it as a "guffaw." I got 10 balls of Kureyon to make another Klaralund. At some point. Hey, I got the 25% discount because Sara, my mom and I all combined our purchases, so it was like $6 a ball, okay? And that's no shipping, no tax. Okay? Guilty conscience, here. They did get very interested when I mentioned possibly trading some consulting for store credit. Now, in addition to my other freelance job (ugh!) I need to do a letter for Webs proposing the idea more formally. Guess which one I'm motivated to do?

I have been having some second thoughts about my decision to let my job go when the grant is up next fall (I know it's the right thing, but it's a very "good" job in all the normal ways, it just doesn't make me feel good about myself and my work), but this makes me feel a bit more confident that I will find my way and find something I'm more passionate about. I've always dreamed of working in fiber arts, ever since I was a teen, and I fantasized about becoming a professional weaver (have I ever learned to weave? no.). I need to have faith that I can do this, that I can have more than just a *good* job, but instead, a job that I love. Heck, I never really believed I'd have a good job, so it's amazing (and plenty scary) to grab for that brass ring. We'll see. I'm still not thinking of making a living as an artist, but using my marketing/marketing research skills in the fiber arts field, heck, maybe I'll be able to pay myself more than minimum wage AND work in fiber arts, right?

The holiday was so wonderful--perhaps the first time in my life I felt that warm glow people talk about during holiday celebrations. I thought, this is what holidays should be like--kids making a ruckus, people knitting, Harry Potter, eggnog with rum, and our course our longstanding family tradition of More Pies Than People. My parents had their wacky moments, but heck, my mom asked Sara and me to teach her how to knit, and she got off and running quite quickly. It was nice to have the sane counterbalance of Sara and Terry to neutralize my parents (and the b&b didn't hurt either!).

Ahhhh. Nice weekend. Too bad the end of it is marred by freelance work, and then a week of solo parenting while DP goes to Colorado to help SIL get through her fourth chemo treatment. She's hanging in there, but it's getting harder. Sara knitted her a chemo cap too, which Rhys will bring out.

When I get the photos off my camera (any suggestions for a digital camera with good macro capabilities that is EASY to download from--mine is a nightmare), I'll show you the knitting debacles I am engaged in, including Eloise on the verge of running out of yarn and The Lopi Sweater I Have To Frog.

Happy happy...

Birthday Girl

2004-11-20T21:34:00.000-05:00

First, THANK YOU to all the friends and email buddies and just plain nice folks who sent me birthday wishes. Today I am 35. I spend much of my time writing, administering, and analyzing surveys (well, I actually spend most of my time procrastinating the latter, but I understand that that just makes me more of an academic). So to me, this means that I am no longer "25-34," and even worse, I am no longer "under 35." Also, as an infertile, I am now in that steep part of the fertility graph, sliding down at increasing velocity: think of it as the toboggan of fecundity-doom. Okay, don't. Like it matters, anyway: being 29 when I started TTC did, um, exactly jack-shit (I think that's the medical term) for my personal chances of conceiving easily, and as the kids get older I am starting to feel more sure that our family is complete. Don't quote me on that one, though.

So, it's a little weird, a little freaky. I kind of feel like my life has been frozen since Henry & Eleanor were born; actually since they were conceived. I have to remind myself not to say "thirty-one" when people ask me how old I am (and don't ask me how they can be two and I can be 35 now and 31 when they were conceived, but it's actually true). So I guess I don't really believe it. I suspect I will feel more and more like this. I know my mom thinks that the fact that she's in her 60's is a big joke, except of course when she looks at her retirement funds.

So my day, it was nice. Ish. It involved a trip to a yarn store, because, you know, how could it not. Webs, of course. They were having this goofy radio promotion. I'm such a dork, I thought, "Hey, a drawing for a $250 shopping spree, there will probably be only a few hundred people in the hat, MAX. Definitely worth doing." So I get there right before it's about to end, and there are people milling around and I see the box for the drawing, but to enter you're supposed to shake some radio guy's hand and I have no idea who this guy is or where he is and it feels kind of wrong to just enter without doing the required steps (dork, remember? Yes, dork). So I just poke around for a minute and then get SUUUUCKKKED into the world of yarn.

I emerge a really very restrained 30 minutes later and the whole thing is over and it's too late to enter. Shit. I probably wouldn't have won anyway, but you know, I actually have won things like that before, and wow, it sure would have been nice. Can you say, "drum carder?" Or perhaps a swift and some combs? Or maybe enough nice English wool to make St. Brigid and plenty left over for fun?

So the worst part of it, and this is where I am such a huge dork that you really will be shaking your head in pity for my stupidity, the worst part is that I kind of rushed to get there before this thing was supposed to end at 2, and so I decided to go the pharmacy to get my inhaler at the end of my outing instead of at the beginning. Yeah, because breathing=optional; more yarn I don't have enough time to knit with and a contest I didn't even enter when I had the chance=much more important than breathing. (I should mention that I only get asthma a few times a year, at the tail end of a cold. And when I try to run. I was recently diagnosed with it and I'm new to this whole thing. My previous technique was to suffer through the colds and, um, never exercise if I could help it. Still haven't done anything about that last part.)

So did I mention that I was thinking about making St. Brigid? I know, nothing like going for the gusto, but I want a long-term thinker project, with cables, damnit! So I went to the library, which conveniently has Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting (no, I am not paying over $100 for it on eBay). And lo and behold, my local library, which has crapola in terms of infertility books, actually has a great fiber arts section. So I checked out more books than I can ever read to go with the more yarn than I can ever knit. And I headed over to the pharmacy, which, as the weather started to turn rainy, was becoming increasingly urgent.

And it was, and I say this in the nicest possible way, Fucking Closed. It closed at 3pm. Who closes at 3 pm on a Saturday? Well, apparently my pharmacy. I got there at 3:15. So it was off to the CVS to get some primatine mist, which I don't even know if it's okay for me to use but I was desperate and I had seen ads on TV with little arrows going through people's lungs in a friendly kind of way and I thought it might help. Mostly it just got me high though. Well, I survived 34 years without an inhaler, what's one more day, right? I just thought it would have been nice to breathe on my birthday. Totally My Own Fault, too, which really just makes it worse.

So that was a lot of bitching wasn't it? And apparently the anniversary of my birth brings out the sailor in me, language-wise, so apologies there. Despite not breathing and losing out on theoretical free fiber stuff, it was a fun day (oh yeah, and the part about having to do freelance work this morning, whatever).

Rhys made breakfast and brought me coffee on the couch; she corralled the kids while I bought yarn. Gifts included the third season DVDs from The West Wing (I need fantasy--Martin Sheen is my President!); some carded and dehaired cashmere MIL bought off some lady who was spinning it in Mongolia (note, it feels and smells a lot like wool--do you think she got ripped off? Is there a burn test or something I can do to check? Won't tell her, though); and my own little shopping spree. I got a bunch more Lana D'Oro and some pink superwash for a sweater for Eleanor. And shoes. On sale. For me.

Dinner was at our favorite BBQ place, and that was yummy, then we got a cake from Cold Stone Creamery. Cold Stone is kind of un-PC in our town because it's one of a few chains that have recently moved in after years of almost all of downtown being locally-owned (not to mention the cultural clash of singing ice cream scoopers in a New England town that serves attitude on the side of everything). But I wanted cake and it's my birthday. And the independent ice cream shops don't have cake. Okay? I'll try to do better next year, but man that is good ice cream.

The kids were about as cute as can be singing me happy birthday and DYING to eat the cake the whole way home with it. Nobody gets into the birthday spirit like a couple of two-year-olds.

So that was my day. All in all a nice one. Now off to watch the Apprentice I taped, before I read about what happened on someone else's blog. Stop blogging about my stupid reality shows before I have a chance to see them, people! (Just kidding, blog about whatever you want.)

Gratuitous cute kid shot, because, say it with me: it's my birthday!

Guerrilla Marketing

2004-11-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

Look what's going on over at Brand Democrat | Oliver Willis.

Love it...

Also, alert commenter and RAOK ring neighbor Elka emailed me this link from John Kerry even before it showed up in my email box from the campaign! Go sign the pledge. Part of me feels so bruised from the defeat that I am having trouble getting up to fight another day with him, but part of me admires his leadership. I think I'm going to allow myself to be inspired.

The "Talk"

2004-11-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

Who knew I would be talking about sex with two-year-olds!

Eleanor is obsessed with babies. She will spend hours playing with babies at playgroups, showing incredible patience and tolerance of grabbing, slobbering, etc. She's just baby crazy.

So in the car this morning, she had her baby doll, and she was talking about how there was a baby in her tummy..."no there are two babies in my tummy. No, just one, a girl baby. I'm a mommy and I have a girl baby in my tummy and the daddy has a boy baby in his tummy." She said this with a certain inquisitive tone in her voice.

I wasn't sure what to do, but I figure if we talk about sex early and often it won't be a taboo subject. So I say "actually, the daddy puts a seed--like the seeds we planted that turned into tomatoes?--the daddy puts a seed in the mommy's tummy and it combines with the mommy's seed and a baby grows. So both girl and boy babies grow in mommies' tummies, but the daddy helps them grow."

Henry was not impressed: "I want a baby to grow in my tummy!" I just mirrored it back to him: "You'd like to have a baby in your tummy?" Then we talked about how, while our family has two mommies and a donor daddy who we don't see, in some families daddies are really important. I reminded them of the dad of one of their classmates who used to eat lunch with the kids. I said, "Some daddies are like your donor daddy and they only help with the seed but other daddies are like Tom and are really important in the family. Would you like to be a daddy like Tom someday?" Henry liked that idea. "I'm going to be Tom. I'm going to be daddy Tom." Ellie said, "I am going to grow up and have a baby in my tummy." Then the weird part: "Sometimes the babies fall out." I thought, yeah, hon, sometimes they do, but I hope it never happens to you. I didn't say anything, though.

I was on a roll so I decided to keep going. I said, "Someday you might find someone you love and you might make a house with them. It might be a girl or a boy, and then you can have a baby together." Ellie immediately volunteered that she wanted to make a house with a girl. Henry also wants a girl. Well, glad we've cleared that up, LOL, it will certainly make the adolescent angst go by quicker.

Then Henry started imagining himself as a daddy. Now, I swear to you, we are not shoving gender down our kids' throats, pink and blue pull-ups notwithstanding. "I'm going to have a beard. And a moustache. And I'm going to drive a truck. A garbage truck. No, a recycling truck." (I pause to thank the goddess that some of our influence has paid off here, LOL.) I asked "Is that what you're going to do when you're a daddy like Tom?" "No," announces Henry, "I'm gonna be a GUY."

Troll Starvation

2004-11-17T14:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I confess I have done a lousy, lousy job of troll starvation. And the troll seems to be coming back for more. It's my own fault for linking to her posts in a main post. And here I go again.

So here's the deal. In future, I will delete anonymous postings at my discretion. In case it isn't completely obvious, I am not talking about postings that are categorized by Blogger as "anonymous," I mean posts where the poster does not sign her name and/or provide a link or url for her blog. (I'll just take this moment to say "duh." You don't have to log in to identify yourself.)

I would also love it if anyone who posts as "anonymous" for blogger purposes would leave their url because I love to find new blogs. I know that the structure of the blogger comment feature makes it easy to forget to do this; I suspect I've forgotten it at times.

Obviously, I won't delete friendly comments that are left anonymously. But I think my troll friend is having a bit too much fun.

And one other comment for my troll. Please, oh please, if you are going to identify yourself and continue to post (and I am willing to have a debate with you if you will identify yourself), can you please, please get a spellchecker for your browser. I think it's a bit petty for me to make fun of your spelling mistakes, but I'm telling you, I'm having trouble resisting the temptation. Please. It might make you seem slightly less ignorant. Well, maybe.

Cognitive Dissonance Redux

2004-11-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

Newly emboldened to prattle on about politics and not knitting, I thought I'd return to a link that we all saw a lot a few weeks back, before the election. PIPA's report on The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters. Kerstin at HomeGrown Daisy (if you don't know the story, this is a formerly knitting, now political blog, great in both incarnations), linked to it again today, and it is timely once again. As those of us in the blue states ask WTF??? over and over again, as we gently bang our heads against the wall in the hopes that we might develop some form of brain damage that might make it seem like it's all going to be okay, this report seems to have an answer, at least a partial one.

Essentially, those Bush voters were all just believing what they wanted to believe. And I thought they were supposed to be the absolutists in the class--apparently one truth is as true as another, especially if it comes from Rush Limbaugh and Faux News.

So why do Bush supporters show such a resistance to accepting dissonant information? While it is normal for people to show some resistance, the magnitude of the denial goes beyond the ordinary. Bush supporters have succeeded in suppressing awareness of the findings of a whole series of high- profile reports about prewar Iraq that have been blazoned across the headlines of newspapers and prompted extensive, high-profile and agonizing reflection. The fact that a large portion of Americans say they are unaware that the original reasons that the US took military action--and for which Americans continue to die on a daily basis--are not turning out to be valid, are probably not due to a simple failure to pay attention to the news.

The roots of the resistance to this information very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11, and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. In response to an unprecedented attack on US soil, with the prospect of further such attacks, Bush responded with a grace and resolve that provided reassurance to an anxious public. In the war with the Taliban he showed restraint as well as effectiveness. Large numbers of Americans had a powerful bonding experience with the president--a bond that they may be loath to relinquish.

While I take issue with the idea of pitch-perfect leadership (erm, the footage of his school visit in Fahrenheit 9/11) and with restraint and effectiveness characterizing his war with the Taliban (sure, if you don't count the part about letting Bin Ladin get away), I think it's true that there must be something blocking these people from parsing what is pretty widely-available information. Maybe it's a guilty conscience for the war. Or maybe they just trust authority so much that if W and Karl Rove say it, it must be true.

But here is the most prophetic statement of the whole report:

Bush appears to assume that his support is fragile. He refuses to admit to making any mistakes. He admits that he was surprised that WMD were not found, but does not say that the most reasonable conclusion is that they were never there and continues to talk about “disarming” Iraq. He asserts that he never said that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11, but maintains that there were contacts with al Qaeda in a way that implies that they were significant. Most telling, his supporters as well as his opponents overwhelmingly say that they hear him still saying that Iraq had WMD and supported al Qaeda. To remain loyal and bonded to him means to enter into this false reality.

Bush may be right. Admitting his mistakes may shatter his idealized image in a way that some supporters may not forgive. But there also risks in succeeding in getting elected based on false beliefs. The number of people in the public who see through the illusion will likely continue to grow, eating away at the implied mandate of an election. Further, the cohesion of society can be damaged by a persisting and fundamental division in the perception of what is real, undermining pathways to consensus and mutual sacrifice, and making the country increasingly difficult to govern. (Emphasis added.)

Sadly, I don't think Bush will really pay the price for this--what price is left to pay? I have no doubt as to how history will remember him, and it's the rest of us who have to rebuild this place. Perhaps people will learn to take a critical view of the information they receive. I can dream, can't I?

The Future

2004-11-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Terri of Spinning Wheel (a great blog, btw) for leaving this link in the comments. Urban Archipelago

I have always enjoyed Dan Savage, ever since I first read his book The Kid, about his open adoption experience. Of course, I'm not entirely comfortable with his coining of the new word named after your friend and mine, senator Rick Santorum, but then I'm a lesbian, so the subject matter is not exactly up my alley (note: do not click on this link if you are easily grossed out--how did I suddenly become the queen of sm^t links anyway)? I do love a good anti-wingnut google bomb, though.

Anyway, there has been a lot of discussion of where we should go from here*, who is at fault, and how the democrats can recover from this loss and WIN. Talking Points Memo also questions the impulse to pander, as well they should.

I'm glad we're thinking and talking about strategy and WINNING, but you know, I think it's a fair amount simpler than all that. I agree with those who say that we should not be dumping on Kerry, blaming him for the loss. I did not think it was a choice between two evils; I liked Kerry. Yes, he made some expedient choices that I disagreed with, and I even wrote in a challenger in his last Senate race because he voted for the war (little did he know how much he would regret that vote). But I would have been PROUD to have him as a president. PROUD.

I don't think he did anything wrong in terms of policy or even the campaign. As a phone bank volunteer, I was stunned at the efficiency and accuracy of the phone lists I got on-demand on my computer. But I don't think he was a good choice. He would have made a great policy leader in the party or in a democratic administration, but in my opinion, it was a matter of substance over style. I know this has been said over and over again, but I want to say it again because I think it's simpler than everyone is making it out to be. We need to nominate someone with heart and energy. And I hate to say this, but we need to nominate that person with heart and energy, even if he's not the most qualified, most intelligent, most experienced person who's "turn" is up.

Perhaps it shouldn't be this way, but I think we democrats are just too inclined to nominate people for president who simply cannot connect with voters. Brilliant, accomplished, eminently qualified men, but people who are distant and policy-oriented and who think and speak in complexities and nuances. I don't want to pander, but I think we need someone that people can understand, and, more importantly, can trust.

Kerry was getting there, but he was only simple and straightforward and easy to relate to when he was talking about the war and GWB, and that's not enough. I admit that I never heard a simple, clearly-articulated "elevator speech" about why Kerry (not ABB, anybody but Bush, a worthy cause to me but perhaps not to swing voters), was going to do great things. He did not inspire. And speaking with relatively moderate republican family members who had deep concerns about Bush but voted for him anyway, they just didn't trust Kerry. As Atrios points out in the link above, any candidate will get the same treatment, but we need someone whose personalilty and trustworthiness shines through all that. Someone who will look into people's eyes, and suddenly none of that will matter.

Think about it. The republicans have tried to tar every single democratic nominee in the last 20 years with the same brush: they waffle, they only care about polls, they're too liberal, they have some skeleton in their closet. And who is the one candidate to whom did it not stick: CLINTON, probably the one candidate for whom most of those allegations are true. Don't get me wrong, thank god for Clinton, but the one difference between him and Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, and Mondale (heaven help us), is that Clinton was able to *outshine* the allegations with the sheer force of his personality and his simple likeability. And even post-Monica and post-everything else that went down, if Clinton were running for office today, he'd win in a landslide. Maybe that's because people think he could bring back the economy, but I don't think so. I think it's because people simply LIKED him.

If you haven't listened to Ira Glass's pre-election coverage of swing voters on This American Life (be aware that the pre-election hope may be hard to handle if you're still feeling sensitive), check out his discussions with Gig. Gig was dying for a democrat he could believe in. He was educated, informed, and reasonably thoughtful, but he just needed an emotional connection. And he found it in Bush. Lord knows I don't like him, but I understand why people think that he's a likeable guy. My partner had a very similar experience talking to my BIL, also a relatively intelligent, well-educated person. Do I want to wring his neck and disown him for voting for Bush, yes. But I'd rather give him a better choice next time.

I was not an Edwards supporter early on; I confess I was a fan of Dean. I was excited and carried away with the idea that a true progressive could generate such energy. But I am sad to say that I think Dean's proof of concept failed in Iowa, before, I might add, the scream ended it all, fairly or not. I would frankly love to secede and elect Dean president of the Northeast, but I doubt it's going to happen--those red states need our tax money too much to let us go quietly. But you know what, I think if Edwards had topped the ticket, he might have won. I wish he'd given it a few more years--he appears a bit too young at this point, and I'd like to see a little more experience--but he is a democrat who can shine in the way we need to shine.

I should add that I work with a similar issue every day. I work for an historic and important women's college, supporting the marketing effort (we don't call it that, it's Enrollment Management). There is so much here to be proud of: the history of women's empowerment and education, the quality of faculty and scholarship, the important women who emerged from here and changed the world, the connections students will make to that long line, the community that is built and rebuilt every year as new women join this community that has continued for more than 150 years. But you know, every time we connect with prospective students, we have to explain that yes, they will meet guys, no, they won't become lesbians if they don't want to be, and yes, they will have parties and a social life. In order to honor and maintain the higher purpose of this institution, we have to address some pretty base and lower-level concerns. There was a time when this institution did not stoop to address those concerns, and it lost ground in selectivity and prestige, which hurt its overall mission of educating women and helping them avail themselves of positions of societal power. I think we as democrats are making a similar error. It's not pandering, we just need to select candidates based on their ability to make an emotional connection with voters, to be trusted in the face of mudslinging and slander. That's the only way we'll swing the swingers, and even though it makes me sad, I think this election, right back to the primaries, proved that we do need to reach that group. I just think the job of reaching them is not as complicated (or as reliant on anti-gay or other divisive politics) as people think. William Saletan got it right in Slate the day after the election. Simple.

Oh yeah, and if the local democratic parties in "swing" states could please make sure that the elections boards allocate voting machines by population and not by penetration of republican registrants, that would probably help. Sigh. A full investigation might be a good idea too.

*Link at Salon.com--you must subscribe (so worth it!) or subject yourself to advertising in order to read full text.

Moving Target

2004-11-14T21:58:00.000-05:00

I have finished Nick's Kureyon Cardi, blocked, buttoned, and woven in (I'm such a slacker about putting on the final touches). And lo and behold, he actually wore it. He actually likes it! Since I have now had the majority of the items I have made for them shrugged off and rejected, this is a small miracle.

So it seemed like a small thing to take a picture of the final product, being modeled by my son.

Uh, yeah, he's two. And my camera has a 1-second delay.

I decided to animate the scene for you:

That blurry one in the middle there, that's the one that started out "aw, what a great smile....whoa, where are you GOING???" Oh, to see the dog. Gotcha. (If it's not animating, try reloading--I set it to only go "around" once.)

The sleeves are a little short, but I think I can reblock and get those into better shape. For longer-term wear (since DS seems to only grow UP and never get a hair past skinny), any advice for lengthening sleeves, both from the cast on and the bound off edge since this was knitted side-to-side? I lent out my copy of The Knit Stitch, which I think has information on this.

As for other projects, I am trucking along on Eloise, but am still not sure how I feel about her. The colors are awfully loud; I just don't know if I'm going to want to wear it when I'm done.

I'm most of the way through the back.

My inability to fully commit to Eloise is causing me to get into a ridiculous frenzy of project starting. The only thing that makes me feel better is that they're all stash-busters. Here's a round-up:

At the top-left is a teeny tiny glove made with teeny tiny size 0 DPNs. It's still in the floppy stage of DPN knitting (I think I'm on all of row 3, and with 42 stitches on the thing I'm not exactly impressed). I'm using the 90% of a ball of Rowan Calmer that I have left over from Shedir.

Next, going clockwise, is sweater for Eleanor that I think I will call "Pinkola." I got this yarn on way-big closeout from Webs, I think a bag of it was $15 or something. It's a super-chunky chenille that I'm knitting at 3 sts/in. It's going to be a cardi for her, but since I'm already annoyed at the garish colors, big gauge, and non-wooly hand of Eloise, Pinkola is not exactly providing the balm I need.

Finally, at the bottom is a photo and the first two rows of a Lopi sweater for my step BIL. Rhys' siblings, step-siblings and spouses all draw names so that we don't all spend a bazillion dollars and hours shopping for everyone in the family. Three years ago I gave a lopi sweater, and I'm doing it again. This time I'm really staying in the dollar limit, though, because this yarn is from my stash. The black icelandic is from an ill-conceived project (hey, I need a black sweater--that will be cool for going out dancing--not at 3 sts/in you don't!) I started FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. You probably guessed that when I mentioned going out dancing, huh? Yeah, we were going out dancing to "Pump Up the Jam."

I even have proof. Check out the receipt, which was actually still in the bag. 1989. No lie.

Sheesh. Anyway, Froggy, you will be proud of me. Even though I hate to rip, I will frog that stupid thing and make it into a lovely warm sweater for step-BIL, who is a carpenter and works outside for much of the winter. I do think he'll like it.

The Backlash Against the Backlash

2004-11-12T14:15:00.000-05:00

There has been a fair amount of complaining lately in the knitting blogosphere that people are getting too political, and that the anger and sadness and opinion being expessed about the election and the state of the US is inappropriate and unbecoming.

To quote Teresa Nielsen Hayen's brilliant post, Grieving Process "Oh, malarkey."

This post is just so right, so apt, that I have to do more than link it. Here's what I'm talking about.

I’m entirely out of patience with Americans whose whimpering plaint is that we Democrats brought this on ourselves because it hurt their feelings when we acted like we think they’re stupid.

To this I say: Oh, malarkey.

First response: Grow up. If they’re that big on self-esteem issues, let them go volunteer as helpers at their local elementary school, where it’ll do some good. It’s faintly nauseating to hear so many supposed adults whine.

Second: Bullshit. For the last ten or fifteen years, I’ve listened as Democrats, liberals, the French, and other groups have been treated to sneers, calumny, loutish bullying, and unashamed lies by the right. It’s been a terrible burden to the spirit, and has brought public discourse in America to hitherto unheard-of lows of infamy. Where was all this sensitivity, when that was going on? If they could bear years and years of hearing that thrown at others, with never a protest or reproof at its callous ugliness, they can surely bear up under a breath of implication that they’ve made a singularly disastrous decision.

Third, I say bullshit and malarkey again. They weren’t upset about the Democrats acting like we thought they were stupid before the election took place. It wasn’t an issue back then.

You know what’s really happening? They’re seeing our reactions, and they’re scared. It’s like that moment where someone tells you what they’ve done, and it’s disastrously wrong, a complete catastrophe; only they haven’t understood that until now, when they see you stagger and turn pale at the news. And as you’re standing there steadying yourself, feeling your heart pounding and a terrible weight descending on your shoulders … you realize that the other person is preemptively yelling at you. They still don’t quite know what’s happened, but they can tell they’ve screwed up big time, so they’re screaming that they certainly hope you aren’t going to pretend that this could somehow have been their fault, because …

They can tell we’re not just acting like we’ve lost an election. They know that politically, they haven’t been acting like responsible grownups. So now, their reaction is to raise and sharpen their voices, and say they certainly hope we aren’t going to pretend that this could somehow have been their fault …

Well, yes. It is. They’ve been stupid and self-indulgent and irresponsible. Not having to pay attention to what’s happening around you is the most expensive luxury there is; and they just went to the ballot box and wrote a blank check to cover it.

The truth of this is just staggering.

Like I said before, this isn't simply a knitting blog, so I don't feel like I have to back down from my bitching. You come here, you get the whole package. Frankly, I'm so concerned with boring the pants off of those who might not be interested in the endless knitting minutae that I may soon move over to typepad so I can have categories. But I don't think that any of the brilliant crafters who have been publicly grieving these past weeks should apologize for anything.

"Remind them that they are the creatures who knit the wool, not the creatures who grow it on their backs." -Barbara Walker to Elizabeth Zimmerman, 1971

The Hat's in the Mail

2004-11-11T23:15:00.000-05:00

Done! Thank goodness mamarhys pointed out to me that today is Veteran's Day, and therefore the post office is closed. I would have been mighty annoyed if I had gone all the way down only to find that out at the door.

Instead, I sent it overnight via UPS. Hopefully it will be there tomorrow morning. I tried to burn some Audible.com CDs for her to include with it, but it took forever (who knew a book would take 10 CDs!), so I will send those with Nana. But I'm so glad I could send the hat right away. I want her to have it when she goes for the next treatment on Monday.

I went outside my office to take pictures of the hat in this tiny garden outside the administration building where I work. I know I looked a little weird. Of course, I had to have people I knew walk by, including the associate dean of faculty, who didn't make eye contact, lol. Ah well. If they haven't figured out that I'm odd in the 6 years I've worked there, they haven't been paying attention.

I give you...the FO:

Knitting night at Webs tonight was fun. I forced my friend the new knitter to swatch for her hat, especially since she's trying to do it in bulky yarn at 5 sts/in (I do think it will work with this pattern, a knit-flat garter stitch hat with a boxy look that will probably benefit from the stiffness of the fabric. It helps that the yarn is rather softly spun so it compacts pretty well). She bore up well under pressure.

I went a little hog-wild with books. I got Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns, as suggested in the comments, and cast on for the kids' gloves with my leftover Calmer and size ZERO DPNs. They're not bad once you get going, but those first few rows are pretty darn fiddly. That was a planned purchase.

Then I had to get Perri Klass' new book of essays on knitting, Two Sweaters for My Father. NB: While linking to this I found out this book is so new its release date isn't for another 2 weeks, LOL.

Then I was browsing though Knitting in the Old Way, and I know I'll have to buy it if I do the Master Knitter Program (the one at Webs), so I figured it would be an interesting read (and it is so far). It's not a cheap book.

And finally, to further work out my credit card, I got the only one of Barbara G. Walker's Treasuries of Knitting Patterns they had, which was book 3.

Ahh. Must calm down with the book buying.

Working on Eloise and not feeling hugely enthusiastic. I think I'll enjoy wearing it, but the yarn feels a little synthetic, even though it only has a tiny bit of nylon as a binder. It's just not rocking my world as much as I expected. So it's that, the gloves, a Xmas scarf, and a few back-burner projects. I have barely spun a thing in the last month or so, so maybe I'll get back to that. I do have an Aran sweater lined up if I ever get to finishing the gray shetland fleece I bought from my spinning teacher. It has a lot of second cuts in it (she sheared him herself), so it's a bit of a PITA. But I'm itching for more cables.

Anyhoo. I'm tired and babbling and the point was just to put those pics up. Nighty-night.

My Day for Random Links (warning, profanity)

2004-11-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

Do be sure to check out this elegantly-worded missive* from the blue states to the red states. Not that I'm angry or anything. But, uh, yeah, pretty much.

Props to Norma, whose blog has just gone to the top tier of my daily reads. One of the only good things about this election is that I have found out that a lot of really interesting, talented knitters are also progressives full of great information and quick wits. See yesterday's posting for a brilliant quote on election aftermath.

*For my republican trollette, that's IRONY. (I-R-O-N-Y, look it up, and while you're there, check the spelling of divisive.) Look at the underlying URL. If you're offended, it will get worse if you click on it.

Made with Love by a Liberal

2004-11-11T10:45:00.000-05:00

I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Made with Love by a Liberal

Props to Rose for the link.

The Best Laid Plans

2004-11-10T23:16:00.000-05:00

Mothers make plans. Toddlers laugh at plans.

As mothers, we learn to roll with the punches, we develop the ability to be flexible and to understand kids' changing needs.

BUT WE STILL MAKE IT TO THE YARN STORE!

Shedir is blocking.

I'm going to miss this project. I think I might need an Aran sweater on my project list in the near future.

It was definitely an adjustment. Heck, lately, with all the garter stitch I've been doing, I've barely been purling much less doing single-stitch cables on #3 needles with a chart. But I just finished it and I kinda miss it. I need mindless knitting, but I think I need to have a "thinker" project going as well.

Speaking of mindless knitting, I've been working on Eloise here and there as well.

You know, I can see why Allison had trouble getting used to her Blossom colorway when she first started knitting with it. She had a different colorway, but you know, this yarn is kind of...um...garish. I hate to say it, but, well...yeah. But I think as I get over the initial shock, I am going to like it. I don't hate it, but it's a bit intense. Hopefully when I wear it others will not have to go through the same process of initial shock, grin.

Oh yeah, the plans. We were reading a book about butterflies this morning, and the kids suddenly remembered the local Butterfly Museum . We hadn't been there since last winter, but suddenly they were all about going. I said it meant no singing meeting, but they were cool with that. I was shocked. I was a little sorry to not have the chance to commiserate with the other moms about the election--I learned about Kerry's concession when I left last week. But I was relieved that we wouldn't be sharing the tail-end of this cold with a passel of frail old people who are probably being denied access to flu shots because the government isn't rationing supplies (see above, sigh).

So I told them we'd go downtown to do errands first, then go to the Butterfly Museum. All good. We dropped my newish closed-back clogs that already blew out the side at the shoe repair place, had lunch at the crepe place, and hit the yarn store. This involved a walk in the cold around a very long block--probably the better part of a mile round-trip. Much of it with Eleanor on my shoulders. I got my workout for the day. It was fun, though. More downtown time for us, methinks. My kids are going to be cool Noho bohos in no time.

Once again, I found myself having to drag them out of the yarn store. Someone at the store pointed this out to me--why are you trying to convince your kids to leave a yarn store? The reason is that if I sat down and knitted, particularly Shedir, which actually takes more than 5% of my attention, there would be a yarn-throwing party in about 30 seconds. And not in a good way.

I imagined that perhaps the kids might sleep in the car, because last winter they used to in the 15-minute highway trip to South Deerfield, giving me a good hour of knitting and NPR time parked at our destination while they napped in their carseats. But they're almost a year older and nope, no nap. Oh, and I forgot to mention that somewhere along the way there they remembered that "the trains and Santa" were right near the Butterfly Museum. Translation: Yankee Candle. Forget butterflies. We're talking Santa, vaguely disturbing animatronics, model trains, and 25-foot rotating Christmas trees. They loved it. I had a decent time and, more importantly, picked up chocolate covered oreos and pretzels at their chocolate store.

Politically correct carrots were not procured. Nor were highly politically incorrect diapering items. Eleanor made do with regular gender-neutral disposable diapers, not gender-neutral fuzzi bunz because mama has not caught up on laundry. I will skip out of work early on Friday to get carrots and princess butt-gear. That means kid-free shopping, which is always expedient, though often expensive as I buy everything I might possibly want, thinking I will never see the inside of a store without the help of two fractious toddlers again.

All good.

So now I have 90% of a ball of Rowan Calmer. The kids really like wearing gloves, as opposed to mittens, and I think the Calmer would be perfect for making them gloves. Does anyone know of a source for a pattern for LITTLE kid (like size 2-4) gloves? I had no luck searching online, and of course none of my books have anything. I'm chicken to design anything more complex than a top-down raglan, so this would probably not be the place to start.

I'm hoping to take a better shot of the hat during the 3 hours of sunlight we have here in New England's November, but I'm thinking an express package tomorrow is not entirely unrealistic. Hope she likes it...

I Was Warned

2004-11-09T23:35:00.000-05:00

I have been obsessed with Shedir, the amazing single-cable chemo cap from Knitty's Fall Surprise. I started last Sunday (Halloween):

The cabling needle there was too big, so I put it down for a day or two to get a new needle on Wednesday. I got a J-shaped one, which I really like. It's much better for this small-needle single-cable business than the butterfly style ones, which flip and flop and drop out of the stitch. At least they do for me.

By this Sunday I had hit my stride and was moving along:

Tonight I'm almost done. In fact I would be finishing it right now, except...

Follow that piece of yarn if you would...all the way...to the end.

The pattern is quite clear: it says to be safe, get a second ball. But I'm a rebel, I'm a wild woman. Okay, I'm a cheapskate, I mean the stuff is $10 a ball! (Though with the 30% off thing it wasn't really...) But honestly, what was I thinking? I knit everything too big lately, and I didn't even swatch for this one. Flirting with disaster, I tell you.

So I'm stalled. SIL is losing her hair and shopping for chemo caps. I have 12 more rows to go, involving rapid decreases, so we're probably talking 20 minutes of knitting. I still have fantasies of express mailing this out from work Thursday.

Crazy? You decide:

Tomorrow I am solo all day with the kids--Rhys is out of town for the day, as she is every Wednesday.

We go to our "singing meeting" at 10:30 am. This is a great free program where toddlers have a sing-along group at a local nursing home. The kids live for it.

I also have to get pink pull-ups (don't ask me how the non-gender-enforcing, cloth diapering mom wound up shopping for pink pull-ups, at times, I am chagrined to say, even at wal-mart, sigh), and I have to go to our CSA (hey, local organic farming, this is a little more in line with what I envisioned for my family) to get a winter share, which is a big one we don't want to miss. The kids really must be eating lunch by 12:30 and napping by 1. The CSA does not open until noon and getting the kids out of the house in the afternoon is like extracting impacted molars. But less worth the effort. So the big question: what time does Northampton Wools open? If I can go at 10 sharp, I can get everything done.

I suppose if I blow off the CSA (I have to skip out of work early on Friday to exercise my last chance at this winter share--don't want to miss out on 20 lbs of carrots!), we can go downtown after the "singing meeting," which has the added bonus of giving us an excuse to get lunch downtown. Why do I think lunch in public with two two-year-olds is a good idea? Slow learner, I suppose. Pull-ups will be obtained (at relatively high cost) downtown as well. Sounds like a plan.

So, can I get Shedir knitted, blocked overnight near a heat vent, wrapped in the morning, and in an express mail envelope on Thursday, while simultaneously wrangling two toddlers singlehandedly and procuring an ironically incongrous array of household merchandise? Or will the cap have to be couriered by Nana to arrive next week, my family deprived of organic, local, anti-war, democratic carrots, and my daughter--gasp--forced to wear fuzzi bunz in gender-neutral colors? Stay tuned....

Sometimes it's a Knitting Blog

2004-11-04T15:51:00.000-05:00

I never said this was just a knitting blog. But I like to talk about knitting as much or more than I like to talk about politics, infertility, parenting, and life. And I like to read about other people's knitting too, so here we are. Anyway, here is some knitting content. This is actually the post I started on Sunday night, which was eaten alive by blogger. So this time, I’m actually composing in Word.

First, let’s talk about SEX, baby. Yes, that’s right, Stash Enhancement EXpeditions! What did you think I meant?

Last Wednesday, this arrived in my mailbox:

A slew of gift certificates to Northampton Wools, purchased at 30% off face value. I had called ahead to see if they had Noro Blossom, because obviously I need more yarn. No, actually, it’s because I want to make Eloise.

Because obviously I need more projects. Okay, whatever.

I practiced admirable restraint and refrained from going to the yarn store for THREE whole days. On Saturday, after my haircut, I had SEX. What fun. I’m used to Webs, a very different kind of yarn store. Webs has a huge amount of square footage, and their yarns are much, much more reasonably priced. I spent a little time browsing at Northampton Wools, and wow, there are some expensive yarns out there. I saw a hank of baby camel yarn that I think was like 25g or something, maybe 50 yards, that cost $25 each! Wow, if I had made the chemo cap with that, I would have spent $50 on it. Zowie.

But they had lots of Rowan and Debbie Bliss and Colinette, etc. Nice to browse, though the place is terribly small, dark, and cramped and, well, I didn’t get a hugely warm and fuzzy feeling from the manager when I asked about ordering other colors in Blossom. I assume this is attributable to the justifiable frustration she feels about KFI, in which she is not alone, I gather.

Anyway, though the selection of Blossom colors was meager, I managed to convert most of my GCs into this:

Ten skeins of Noro Blossom in color 2. I think ten will be more than I need, but this will be fun yarn to include in an oddball sweater.

I also got one ball of Rowan Calmer for the chemo cap pattern in the Knitty Fall Surprise issue, Shedir, for my SIL who is just about to lose her hair after her second chemo treatment. I had never felt this yarn before, and it’s lovely. I haven’t done cables in a while, and I don’t know if I’ve ever done a pattern that was ALL single cables, but it’s a big change from the mindless knitting I’ve been up to lately. I’m enjoying it, but I need to think about progress differently. I’m not going to be whipping out one of these every couple of days, that’s for sure!

Here’s my progress as of Sunday.

I’ve been working on it since this picture was taken, and I’ve done a full repeat of the cable pattern now. So it’s coming along. I think I have another week until my MIL goes out to see her, and last time I checked, the USPS delivered as well, grin.

Nick’s is coming right along. Everything is done, including the button bands, except for picking up the neck stitches. Here it is before the button bands.

I decided to stop just after that point, because I’d really like some help from an expert on picking up the neck stitches. While I have done this many times, it never looks quite right, and I tried a few times and wasn’t feeling like I was getting the right ratio of stitches. I now know not to pick up the holey spots around the neckline, but I was still having trouble. I knew I’d be going to knitting night at Webs tonight, so I just put it aside and worked on Shedir instead. I’ll show it to Jill, the instructor who provides help at the knitting drop-ins, and see if she can give me some advice. It’s just a few inches of a 1-inch garter band, so unless disaster strikes, that will be done tonight.

Speaking of finishing, I found the buttons for the Baby Albert cardigan. That is done, ends sewn in, buttons on, signed, sealed, and, well, not quite delivered.

Only problem: it fits my DD, who wears a 3T. Whoops. I don’t know, I seem to have a problem with gauge growing. I have decided to knit HUGE swatches, which I promise to bind off and let sit overnight from now on. Except for Shedir, for which I didn’t swatch at all. Ah well. So I don’t know, maybe I’ll never learn. I figured, hey, it’s a hat. Anyway, now I have to figure out whether to give it to the baby and let them keep it for a couple of years, or to give it to Eleanor and knit a new sweater for the baby. Just in case I need to knit a new sweater for the baby, I did get a few balls of Karabella Aurora 8, a lovely superwash merino worsted in a nice lavender color.

And I’m making a Really Big Swatch out of it. I swear. I might adjust Haiku to a 6-month size. Though at first glance the pattern sizes for 1 and 2 year-old sizes, now that I compare them to a chart of standard child sizes, seem way, way too big, which would partly explain my enormous handspun Haiku—the other explanations being a) my gauge problem and b) my handspun. Otherwise I will make some other clever side-to-side garter thingy. I will probably give the parents of the baby the option to choose. That would probably make sense.

Well, the day is almost over at work and I have done very little. I have spinning photos for the next post, but you’ll just have to wait! I will also take photos of the lovely Kureyon Allison of Six and a Half Stitches RAOK’ed me all the way from Australia. It really cheered me up yesterday, moments after hearing of Kerry’s concession.

Maps

2004-11-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

There are some interesting maps emerging around what my friend Keith likes to call the interweb.

Worthy of reptition:

But also, here is a reminder that all those red states aren't totally red, and there are a lot of people all over the country who...well...have not lost their minds:

And then, soberingly, a historical perspective from Learner.org:

Now for some knitting content. Wendy talked today about sweaters reminding you of the time when you were knitting them. I spent my GOTV call time knitting a novelty yarn scarf for a gift. While some of the sweaters I made during the saddest times are treasured items, I'm not sorry I'm giving that scarf away. Hopefully it will take with it the hope and dedication of that time.

One more thing. Did you see the movie Friday Night Lights? If not, this might not make much sense, and it will be a spoiler if I explain it, but thinking about the campaign, and how progressives and democrats came together and gave it our all: we were perfect. That's something to hold on to.

Now You're Talking

2004-11-03T18:22:00.000-05:00

A New Map?

Maybe I don't have to move all my stuff to a place with even worse weather than we have here. Stephanie at Yarn Harlot says that lots of them would vote for Martin Sheen. (See thing #4.) Do you suppose that if we brought Martin Sheen they'd have us? I know we sometimes leave the top off the toothpaste tube and we don't always do our dishes, but we're willing to learn French and we promise to take out the recycling.

Thanks for listening to the last thing. I felt much better after writing that. And Suz, not creepy at all, I think all us activists have to keep each others back in that way, and pick things up when the other one is too tired to keep carrying it. Thank you. You made me smile. And Emma, thanks to you too. Thanks for understanding that it's not all of us here, just some. Some of us don't understand them anymore than the rest of the world does. See the above map. :)

Hanging in there...

I'm Listening.

2004-11-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

I’m watching Kerry’s car drive to Faneuil Hall to make his concession speech. I’m stunned. I don’t understand how he could have lost. I don’t even understand how it could be close.

My country has spoken. I’m trying to understand what they’re saying. There are people in Rhys’ family who voted for Bush. I am trying to find a way to understand what this country is saying to me, to its other citizens, and to the world. This is what I am hearing.

My country is saying that my family should be marginalized. That not only should we not have an equal right to marriage, but that we should be stripped of our rights to create legal contracts to protect our families and partnerships.

My country is saying that they want to “stay the course” in Iraq, despite our precious children coming home in body bags, despite 100,000 (that’s ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND) civilian deaths that would otherwise have not happened.

My country is saying that a supreme court that will overturn Roe v. Wade is a-okay with them.

My country is saying that a huge deficit, bankrupting our children’s future, is a small price to pay for miniscule tax cuts for the middle class and huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

My country is saying more John Ashcroft, more Halliburton, more aggression toward the middle east, more hatred of gays and poor people and people of color.

I am listening so hard to hear a voice of hope. A way I can live with this country and say proudly, “this is my home, these are my people.” I can’t find it. I do feel that with underequipped urban precincts, with dumped democratic registrations, with Sinclair and lies, and wedge issues, that the other side did not play fair. But none of that should have mattered. It should not have even been close. The wedges shouldn’t have worked because hatred of me and my family should not have motivated people. But it did.

Rhys works for an international firm, and her project is being adopted by Canada this year. If she volunteers, maybe does some moving and shaking, we could probably be transferred to Canada, probably Ottawa, next year. My grant is ending; I can work from anywhere. I know a lot of Democrats are talking about moving to Canada, but it’s a real possibility for us. Maybe now is the time. I told Rhys yesterday that if we lost, she should give me two weeks before she starts taking me seriously about moving to Canada.

Everyone has to live on this planet, and the US will be even more of a hegemonic power, and moving to Canada won’t change that. But right now, it feels like it might be the right choice.

The speeches are starting. I hope he can give me some hope.

Please Vote

2004-11-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

Please go vote. Please vote for Kerry. Please call your friends and family who live in swing states and who support Kerry and remind them to go vote. Thank you.

I am sick today, so instead of going to NH, I went to a phone party here in town and called 120 people in Michigan to remind them to go vote.

Early numbers look good, but it is still very, very, very close. We need a decisive win to avoid a long and drawn-out court challenge.

If you, or someone you know needs a ride to the polls, email me and I will get you hooked up.

I wrote a long, detailed post full of knitting content, finished objects and photographs, and my computer died before I saved it on Blogger, and it is gone. From now on I will compse my posts in Word. Okay, from the *next* post on. I suppose I'll never learn.

But hey, we shouldn't be blogging or reading, we should all be getting to the polls to take back our country.

Thank you for voting...

More Momish than Knitterly

2004-10-28T11:49:00.000-04:00

I found all these links from BlogExplosion in my site statistics. I guess it surfs blogs for you, and then sends other people to your blog--you earn referrals to your blog by reading others' blogs. I don't totally get "earning" readers, but that's cool, it looked like fun and a no-risk thing to try, so I signed up. I enrolled my blog and the system pealed out into the blogosphere, with me lurching along behind, presumably bringing me to blogs that matched my content and links. The first blog was a whatever. I agreed politically but was not excited. The second was a parenting blog that looked good but I didn't stay long because I clicked here. A field guide to annoying parents. Can I just say...YES! Needed that today, since Sara and Terry, balm to my "yes, I'm human" mom-soul, just left after a very brief visit.

I wasn't going to post today, but um, was it just me last night, having a dream, that the Red Sox won the World Series???? Did that actually happen? In a four-game sweep? Really? It looks like it did. Meanwhile, the Patriots remain undefeated. I have to say, I think this will signal an identity crisis in New England. If we're not long-suffering underdogs who root for the home team in spite of every reason to lose hope and give up, then what will we be? What will we do without a curse on our heads? Do we know how to be a region with a winning team? With two? How will we cope? I really believe this will be a challenge. We need that sense of long-suffering faith, that hope in hopelessness, because despite global warming, I don't think we're going to start having warm winters or anything.

When they were interviewing the Cardinals' manager (I think that's who it was--I'm really not a baseball person; the interest for me is more sociological) he looked like he was about to cry, and he kept saying "we should have done..." and "if we had..." and I was like "DUDE. This was an ACT OF GOD. If it was going to happen, there is NOTHING you could have done. It's like floods or locusts: your insurance does NOT cover this." He should stop beating himself up. Really, St. Louis, it's okay.

Well, I'm out of my depth with this baseball stuff, so I'll stop. But I'm in awe, nonetheless.

I finished knitting on the baby einstein coat (slowest. sleeve. ever.) but have misplaced the buttons. Sigh. I am ready to be done with that thing. Hopefully they are in the "reliable car," which Rhys is retrieving from the Rhinebeck area this morning.

I'm already on the second sleeve of Nick's. I got my GC's to the LYS (30% off, cool), so once I am done with Nick's, I will go get some Blossom to make Eloise. I think I will hold off until I have another FO, probably Nick's. My knitting/spinning corner is looking a little nutsy right now.

Back to work...I find myself saying that a lot on this blog...

UPDATE: Edited to add that, listening to All Things Considered tonight, I found out that Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, has been reading my blog. Okay, not really, but he does a much better and more eloquent job of talking about the identity crisis this sudden winning streak will have on New England. Go listen here.

In other news, I'm quite proud of myself for just calling 15 people and recruiting 2 volunteers to canvass for Kerry in swing states. I have also volunteered to drive people to the polls in New Hampshire on Tuesday, but no one has gotten back to me yet. If you want to make calls (it's so easy, and being on the east coast, it was easy for me to call west coast numbers late at night, after the kids were asleep), click on the Kerry-Edwards banner in my sidebar and then go to the volunteer center on the site. It's easy to do--they give you a script and the names come five at a time and they've all said they were interested in volunteering. All but one were quite friendly. One miracle down...one more to go. Speaking of which, check this out.

Klara Q & A

2004-10-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks for all the nice comments on my Klaralaundry post. I really appreciate them. There were a couple of questions that I wanted to answer.

First, well, I thought I had a request for a shot of Klara *on*, but now I can't find it in the comments, so maybe I just hallucinated public interest in further viewing of my mug. Anyway, here is the laundered Klara being worn:

As you can see, it really didn't shrink much at all. I would say that the sleeves got a pinch shorter, and maybe the body did too. So pretty much more shrinkage in row gauge than in stitch gauge. I wonder if that is typical for fulling, which would explain my short fuzzy feet.

One commenter asked if I washed it in cold water. The answer is yes. I did everything I normally do for the gentle cycle: cold water, mild detergent (I don't use soap because it's even more alkaline, which encourages felting), and the gentle cycle. I also washed it all by itself, partly because the dye discharged when I hand-washed it so there was a danger of dyeing whatever was in there with it, but also because I didn't want anything rubbing up against it to felt it.

Jody asked if the 5% shrinkage I was looking for was about what I got. You know, I kind of thought that I did when I first laid it out, but after wearing it for a while (and I have worn it a LOT since washing), it has stretched out again, as you can see in the photo above, so I don't think I did get that much--maybe in the length but not in the width. As you can see from this picture too, it really didn't full that much: you can see my white bra through the stitches in front, sigh. Partly this is the stretch factor, but there's room for more is what I'm saying.

While I normally don't re-launder items that are fulled, since they will continue to full and get smaller and smaller, I think I will make this a machine-wash garment. I'll be very careful with it and be sure to wash it by itself, but it does seem to stretch out a lot after a few wearings. I should add that my 2.5-year-old son is very interested in pushing my buttons these days, and he's a pretty smart customer. He has figured out that grabbing any of my hand-knitted garments and PULLING really hard is a great way to get a big reaction out of mama. So I wear sweaters rather hard these days, sigh.

I'm waiting to see how Jenifer's Klaralaundry came out. Then I'll shut up about Klara and go off into the sunset wearing her. Until I knit another one, that is....

Baby Sweaters Galore

In other knitting content, I'm almost done with Baby Albert. I found some very cute buttons, and the manager of the store at Webs made a great suggestion about alternating them, so I have alternating stars and squares. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the buttons, but you'll see them on the FO in the next few days.

Here's the sweater, almost done.

I literally have like 10 rows of sleeves, then weaving in ends and sewing buttons. Any minute now, I swear.

The pattern, from The Knit Stitch (a book I highly recommend, even for experienced knitters), has you knit pick up stitches from the body and knit the sleeves flat, with the seam at the top. I understand why she does that--it means that you really just have to sew one seam on each side for the whole garment, plus it's really the only way to knit the sleeves flat, as the bottom edge is already closed. But I didn't like the way the seam at the top looked, so I'm knitting them in the round. It's a little annoying to be doing garter stitch in the round. You know, if you are working in the round, I feel you shouldn't have to purl. But purl I do. The needles are also annoyingly small, but it's almost done, and I think the parents of its recipient are going to be pleased.

My attention has also been occupied with Nick's Kureyon Jacket. I found an error in the pattern, but Carol Sulcoski, the designer, who also designed this and this for Knitty, was incredibly helpful and responsive in helping me with this and other questions, and got me a correction right away. So now I'm cooking with gas on the jacket. I did rip the whole front right side. It had a provisional cast-on, so I thought I might get away from ripping from the "bottom" edge, since I had already attached it to the back at the "top" edge. It was really only a matter of a few rows and when I tried to rip from the bottom I realized I would have to pull the end through the final stitch on each row, which got increasingly annoying as I went on and the tail got longer. It's good that I did this, too because a) the old front had a really big strip of pink that I wasn't sure I liked, and b) amazingly, the colors lined up perfectly between the front and the back (largely due to me making an effort to match colors when I joined a new ball), so it flows seamlessly now. Here's its current state; note the much-improved symmetry of the fronts compared to this.

Caps and Yarn Shopping Strategy

The timing of Knitty's Fall Surprise could not have been more apt. SIL is one week into chemo, and I think she's going to get all her hair cut off this week, before it falls out. It is time for me to make a chemo cap. I can't really decide whether to make this:

or the hat in this picture:

I have *almost* enough handspun, handdyed silk to make the spin-off cap, and I can probably fudge the edges to make it work (and I can also comb my stash to see if I have another hankie dyed with those colors--I think I might). The silk I'm using is on the right in this photograph. I may just use the navajo-plied dark-purple silk on the left there as an edging, actually. I hadn't thought of that until I linked to this photograph. Hooray for blogging, grin.

I tried to ply those 25 wpi singles last night, though, from a center-pull ball, and ARGH! Anyone who has worked extensively with silk (this was spun from a cap, so it's not the smoothest stuff), will be laughing right now. Tangle city. Plying from a single ball is frustrating with wool. Laceweight silk is just ridiculous. So I have to figure out another solution. I suppose I can try to wind off onto two bobbins. That would be the sensible thing to do, but last night I was just too frustrated so I set it down and went back to work on the kureyon jacket. A little easy knitting for a break.

So probably I'll try to do both caps, but I need to focus on something so that I actually have something to send out to Colorado when Rhys goes out to help her out during another treatment in 3 weeks. Given the uncertainty and complications of the handspun (not enough, plying nightmares, etc.), I think I will do the knitty cap. So, my question is this. Price is no object--what yarn should I use? I want the softest, most amazingly luxurious, completely un-scratchy stuff in the universe. I spent about 5 minutes thinking I would do it in the cashmere MIL brought back from Mongolia, but then I started working on dehairing it, and well, that's not going to happen anytime soon, lol. Any thoughts.

One more thing and I'll get back to work. I'm a total Webs officionado, and that's not going to change, but now that I'm on this Noro kick, I need to branch out, since Webs carries a very limited line of Noro (Kureyon and one other, I can't remember which). There's another LYS in town that couldn't be more different: where Webs is big, Northampton Wools is small. Where Webs focuses on weaving yarns, mill ends, and great-quality yarns that are reasonably priced, Northampton Wools is all about high-end and novelty yarns. Where Webs sells most everything on cones, I don't think there's a single cone in the shop at Northampton Wools. Even so, it's a nice store, and it's kind of a nice ying/yang yarn thing to have going on in your hometown. The point here, however, is that they have Noro Blossom, which Webs does not, and which I need to make Eloise, which I have decided to do, knowing that I need more sweaters I can wear to the office.

I know all about Woolneedlework.com, but they have exactly zero skeins of blossom in stock right now. But I realized that Northampton Wools is on the Save 30 store. You can buy $10 gift certificates to the store for $7. That means that the $10.50 skein of Blossom is just over $7, no shipping charges, and no tax on yarn in Massachusetts. Done. I've ordered enough GCs to get the yarn and pattern book, plus maybe a ball or two of something for a chemo cap (repeat plea for suggestions).

Annoyingly, although I ordered the GCs on Friday, they won't be shipped until today, so while I'll stalk the mailbox tomorrow, I don't expect to see them until Thursday. That's okay, really, since I'll be watching a friend's DS all day tomorrow, so with three preschoolers in tow, I'm unlikely to be doing any good yarn shopping, LOL. And hey, you know, shops are open late on Thursday nights.

Off to Walk!

2004-10-24T07:42:00.000-04:00

We're off to walk in the Walk Toward A Cure for Breast Cancer. It should be a nice day, if cold.

I'm not a big baseball fan, but how can you keep from saying

GOOOOO SOX!

V. exciting. The kids have been really into reading a kids book we have that is based on the Mary Chapin Carpenter song "Halley Came to Jackson" about Halley's comet. We were discussing letting the kids watch part of the series, and I realized that if they win, it will have been longer than Halley's comet. Worth a little staying up late, I think. We have a softball field at the end of our street; a good one with lights and everything, so the serious teams play there; and they've enjoyed watching the games this summer. So they saw a few minutes of the game last night.

In knitting news, I'm working on a kids' Noro cardigan. I've had a few problems with the pattern, which came as a kit from a local (but not to me) yarn store. The designer has been incredibly responsive, writing back to me unbelievably fast when I had problems getting the recommended gauge and then to answer another question. Up until now the problems have been primarily mine (though I do think 5 sts/in is not an ideal gauge for Kureyon, although it is recommended by the manufacturer--perhaps my colorway is spun unusually thick). But now I'm almost certain that there's a problem with the pattern, so the thing is on hold so that when I go to the frog pond, it's only a matter of 10 rows or so, not half a sweater! I'm going to wait to hear back from the designer before I frog though. I might be able to frog from the other direction (there's a provisional cast-on right below the problem), but I don't have a lot of experience with knitting down off provisional cast-ons, so I'm going to try it before I knit a lot more.

Anyway, blah-be-di-blah, here is a photo, even though I've already wasted a thousand words, lol.

And here is a bigger picture of the colorway.

I was a bit surprised when it arrived. It's Kureyon #131, and from the online photo, I thought it was going to be mostly pinks with a bit of jewel-toned green and red. When it arrived I realized that it is mostly orange, with primary tones and then pink thrown in. I wasn't so sure I liked it, but it's growing on me. In my head, I'm calling it the "Albuquerque" colorway: it reminds me of the desert. I've also decided that this will be for Henry. In the world of insanely-gendered toddler clothing, there is NO such thing as pink boy's clothing. So I figure this sweater can be a totally non-girly item that has pink in it. I know I think too much about this stuff.
Here's a pic of the kids having "dinner" with their babies.

For more photos, specifically a photo-essay about the kids first haircut (!), see my new kids' blog. I'm linking from here to there, but not back, because I'm sending the other link to my parents, and well, see the posts below to know why I set limits with them, LOL. Anyway, http://mamacatekids.blogspot.com

2004-10-19T21:49:00.000-04:00

Klaralaundry. Hopefully this will come through clear enough online that you can see how lustrous the fabric has become. I can't seem to get DP to come take a pic of me wearing it, but this gives you a sense of what the fabric looks like now, which is probably the more important question. Nice, huh? I kind of want to make another one.

2004-10-19T21:47:00.000-04:00

The real thing. Henry and Eleanor sang "baa baa black sheep" to this sheep. She seemed to enjoy the serenade, but did not offer up three bags of fleece for mamacate to spin. Wonder why?

2004-10-19T21:45:00.000-04:00

No festival would be complete without a fried dough break. You can see the sheepy animals the kids acquired as well.

2004-10-19T21:44:00.000-04:00

We didn't go to Rhinebeck to see bears or lemurs for that matter. Sheep! It's all about the sheep. Before we got up-close and personal with the actual sheep, Henry gave Bo Peep's sheep a big hug. First time around, Eleanor trembled in terror in my lap while I took this picture, which accounts for the angle. I'm proud to say that the next time we encountered them, she mustered all her courage and waved to the sheep. She's always been freaked out by costumed characters, while Henry has always run right up for a hug. They are such different people.

2004-10-19T21:41:00.000-04:00

Lauren at Almost Felted wanted to know why there were ring-tailed lemurs at Rhinebeck. Because there was a traveling zoo there! I have really high standards for zoos, so I was a bit wary, but after listening to the handlers talk and watching them interact with the animals, I was impressed. Here is a handler playing with a baby bear. They clearly both love each other.

2004-10-19T21:34:00.000-04:00

Better Late than Never, a photo of the beautiful yarn from Martheme! Thanks for the RAOK! I am mired in Solstice knitting, and tempted to skip the mystery pattern and get another skein or two of the same color to make a sweater for my daughter. This is lovely stuff, a lot like Koigu. Yum!

2004-10-19T13:57:00.000-04:00

My Tale of Derring-Do (for now, sans pictures), or, Klaralaundry

I made an oblique reference to my brave, exciting risk-taking behavior in yesterday's post about Rhinebeck. So here it is, my tale of excitement, of danger, of the thrill of the gambler's life.

I washed Klaralund.

In the washing machine.

With detergent.

Yeah.

I was loving the colors, loving the design, but it was just too big, and even though I got gauge when I swatched, I guess I was in too much of a hurry knitting the thing because I wound up 1/4 stitch or so off in the actual garment. I tried to block it so the sleeves weren't too big, so the body had some shape, but with my extra-drapey fabric, the blocking "fell out" after about 5 seconds of wearing. Gravity is a powerful thing. Just ask my bra. You can kind of tell how loosely it's knit in this picture from before it was blocked. Can you see how the yellow design on my shirt shows right through the fabric? And look at the light peeking through the sleeve fabric by my left hand. It wasn't terrible--I could still wear it--but it wasn't fabulous.

I hand-washed it gently, bathing it like a baby as recommended by EZ, and drying it flat. The yarn, which honestly didn't have a gorgeous hand pre-washing "bloomed" slightly, filling out a tiny bit more and gaining a miniscule amount of mohair fuzz. But it was still too big, too drapey, and too loosely knit. What it really needed was to SHRINK about 5% all the way around. And what's the best way to shrink something? Throw it in the washer, right?

Now, someone on the Klara knit-along had washed her too-big Kureyon Klara in the washing machine (and even dried it on low!) and it had worked out well. So I decided I'd give it a try. I had to do it sort of on the spur of the moment or I would have chickened out. So as I prepared dinner on Friday night, I just chucked it in the front-loader, by itself, with some health food store detergent, cold water, gentle rinse.

The hard part was waiting. I have unintentionally felted before. It was not a pretty sight. I recently overfelted a pair of fuzzy feet slippers. I know how bad this can be. And heck, I've already re-knit one piece of this sweater, I suppose I can knit another one. Not that I wouldn't cry about it. So I tried to stay busy, and managed to restrain myself from calling in a prescription for Xanax to get me through the experience. My front-loader does open during the cycle, so I checked it a few times, and though it was hard to tell, it didn't look like anything too drastic was happening. I did sit there a few times, looking through the window at it like Zippy the Pinhead, having this idiotic conversation with myself:

Me: "That water is falling RIGHT on it! This can't be okay!"

Me: "That's why you put it in the washer. So it would get a little bit fulled. You WANT some water to fall on it."

Me: "What if it's turning into a big mass of felt? What if I'll never wear it again? Sure, you said we'd survive, but who do you think is going to have to knit the whole thing again? Me, that's who."

Me: "Look, it's fine. Let's go in the other room and eat oreo cookies and hope for the best. Step away from the washing machine. Come with me. Really. Breathe."

I pulled it out gave it about 2 minutes in the dryer on low, but I couldn't find the sweater rack and I had reached my limit. I laid it out and waited for it to dry....and....

BEAUTIFUL! The yarn completely bloomed after going through the washer. It filled out the stitches and is a million times softer, more lustrous, and has a lovely but not excessive mohair halo. I have heard of yarns that need to be machine-washed to achieve their full potential (heheheh, didja get the fibery pun there?). I think Silk Garden may be one of them.

My lawyers have insisted that I include the following disclaimer. These results may be atypical. Your mileage may vary. If you choose to launder your Klaralund, you hereby indemnify and hold harmless mamacate from any action or complaint stemming from her account of her Klaralaundry. Past performance is not an indication of future return. Contents may be hot. Do not try this at home without a responsible adult present. These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. This approach may or may not be safe and effective.

But if you do try this (and I'm not saying you should, really, I don't want anyone blaming me for their felted $100/30-hour sweater, really!), please tell me how it goes. And if you like yours as much as I like mine, I'd like to know. Jenifer is going to do something rather more sane and wash hers "vigorously" by hand. She's probably smarter. As usual.

In other news, Rhys and the kids and I are walking in a local Breast Cancer Walk toward the Cure this coming weekend. As I've mentioned here before, Rhys' sister was just diagnosed, and most of the women in Rhys' family have had it. Today is SIL's first chemo treatment. So if you'd like to donate to our walk, click here. And either way, if you pray or send good vibes, send them along to SIL.

Photos of the Klaralaundry, plus Rhinebeck, tonight, promise.

2004-10-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

It Wasn't Boring: The Short Version

Blogger ate my post. It has been such a comedy of errors the last few days that I don't know why I was surprised. Trust me that the lost post was witty, amusing, detailed, and full of knitterly interest. Sadly, you will get the bulleted version. Blame blogger.

I went to Rhinebeck.
We had a wonderful time.
I practiced restraint in purchasing, getting only a 3-lb bag of lambswool fleece and a book of top-down toddler patterns for me, and two toy sheep for the kids.
My restraint was due solely to the fact that I was there solo with two kids and I frankly couldn't shop because a) I had two toddlers with me who needed to keep moving and b) the double stroller is kind of *wide* to go into booths with.
Where, you ask, were my parents, who were supposed to go as an easy, meet-them-more-than-halfway-grandchild-access opportunity? Not there. Last-minute (and I mean I was already in the car) cancellation. We will now lower our expectations even further than they already were. My mom has a decent excuse. My dad has no excuse. They suck. Glad I've had a lot of therapy. Trying to make sure my kids don't need it too. Grrr.
The kids were amazing. We all had a lot of fun together. Photos to come. It was one of the first times I really felt like we were hanging out together, and I wasn't just desperately trying keep them alive and content. It was a lovely day together in the sunshine, under the leaves, and fiber was involved. Phooey on my parents. They missed a great time with some really cool kids.
Met a few bloggers sitting at the next table at lunch. Saw the famous Rhinebeck sweater in the flesh, and resisted the urge to call out "Hey, Harlot, you finished it!" I remembered her actual name. Smart me. LOL. Chatted with some other blogger types. Felt a little like the dorky kid at the dorky table but hey, I was with the cutest guy AND the cutest girl so it was all good. The blogger table was full of friendly people, though in my 30-seconds permitted by the Two Year Olds for adult conversations, I did not get any names other than Harlot's, I mean Stephanie's.
The adventure actually began when I LEFT the festival, and the car blew up. On the Taconic Parkway, which is officially in the Middle of Nowhere. I would like to add that I intentionally took The Good Car (DP's 98 Ford Taurus Wagon), not The Beater Car (my 93 Subaru), because it was more roadworthy. Insert ironic cackling here. Highlights included a smoke pouring from the hood; waiting an hour for a state trooper to show up and another 20 minutes for the tow truck (it could have been MUCH worse considering I was, as I mentioned, in The Middle of Nowhere with no idea what part of nowhere I was in--did you know they have a "map room" at AAA?); not being able to find DP at her scrapbook crop, the host of which has an unlisted phone number, or at least one Cingular wireless is incapable of finding, so having to call my mother to get her to look it up on the Internet (clever gambit on my part, knowing the host is also a LLL leader and has her phone number on the LLL web site), especially enjoyable was the part at the beginning of the call to my mother when she thought I was calling to see how she was feeling (yes, I'm a bitch); holding two shivering children in the front seat of a tow truck; paying over a hundred dollars for the privilege, because supposedly AAA does not cover "the parkway" (whatever, he had my car, I just signed on the dotted line at that point); waiting an hour in a diner with two overtired toddlers for DP to drive the perfectly-operating beater car to pick us up; and then paying $500 to find out if the car is worth fixing (is it "just" a head gasket or do we need a new engine--it's never a good sign when the word "just" occurs in close proximity to "head gasket." Trust me.). I am proud of myself for staying calm (actually to the point where I think I freaked the trooper out a little bit) and doing a good job of being the calm, strong, reliable mom my kids needed when they were cold and scared. And I'll leave this with the image of a 6' state trooper walking into a diner carrying a stuffed animal he fetched for me from the car. Two children, one stuffed animal=worth asking a big favor of a big cop. Nice guy. Good sport.
So now I'm tired. And annoyed with my parents even though they wouldn't have been there for the Taconic debacle. But now I don't have to feel guilty about this year's excuse for refusing to schlep my kids into NYC t0 my parents' non-childproofed home for the traditional vegan thanksgiving feast. And I have a bag of lambswool to spin. And a book. And Klaralund looks great and I got lots of compliments. I did something dangerous, took a gamble, and it paid off. I'll post about that tomorrow.
The kids were insanely overtired today, and Henry didn't nap for the second day in a row. And I taught my friend Jen to knit while drugging my kids in front of the TV. She's a natural so it was easy. I do think some of remember it from a past life. She's clearly one of those.
I missed my deadline with Einstein but only have one sleeve left so that's on hold while I start the Kureyon Jacket kit that came in the mail today (ordered late Friday night--what service!). Still trying to get gauge. Color 131 is orangier than I expected. Hopefully this will be quick. I can't really make head or tail of the instructions, so I'll just knit them and see what happens.

PS: I do understand why Blogger's spellchecker wants to change "bulleted" to "billeted," but why does "knitterly" want to become "janitorial?" Is that some sort of a comment? What is it supposed to mean?

2004-10-14T13:40:00.000-04:00

Knitting Content, I Swear

You appear to be a Knitting Goddess.You are constantly giving and are unconcerned with
reward, you simply want others to love knitting
as much as you do. If someone wants to knit
miles of novelty yarns, you are there for them.
If someone wants to learn short row shaping,
you can help. There are no taboos in knitting,
only opportunities to grow. Everyone should
have friend like you around if they want to
learn to knit, and there's a good chance that
your passion has rubbed off on a few others.

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I don't usually post these Quizilla things (though I often do them when I see them on others' blogs), but hey, if you're going to call me a Goddess of anything, most of all knitting, I'm not exactly going to keep it a secret now am I? Since I spent most of my time dealing with the strong objections to my every move made loudly by my 2.5-year-old twins, I can use a little bit of being called a Goddess. Thank you very much. There. I feel better.

For more good news, I'm GOING TO RHINEBECK, I'm GOING TO RHINEBECK! (Picture me doing a little nah-nah-nah happy dance in my office chair as I type that.) We've worked it out. My parents, who live in NYC, are going to meet me there to help wrangle the kids, which will be a nice outing for them and a chance for the kids to see their grandparents. We've had some trouble figuring out how to make it work, especially for them to see my dad, who is not the world's most enthusiastic grandfather (he just doesn't know how), so meeting them halfway, in some "get-out-of-the-city-for-the-day" kind of location, seems to be working. Last time they rode on Thomas the Train with us in Western Connecticut. We're planning to head down Sunday morning. Rhys is doing a scrapbook crop that evening, so we'll stay through dinnertime, then hopefully (praise the goddess--no not that one!) the kids will fall asleep in the car on the way home and all will be peaceful.

I'm working away on the Baby Albert for my friends' new baby. They have twins the same age as mine--I'm in awe of them doing the infant thing in addition to 2 x 2.5. Or perhaps I should say 2.5-squared. Yes, definitely squared. In looking around at my friends, I seem to be approximately as aggravated as my friends who have 4 kids, and I can barely relate to the people with two different-aged kids. Totally different thing. Anyway, having spirited kids doesn't help. I was saying--knitting--yeah--the sweater is getting a bit boring. I've been on this garter stitch kick (I can do cables, I can do fair isle, I can do lots of stuff, I swear), and I think I've hit my limit. Too bad I have 3 skeins of novelty yarn set to be garter stitch solstice gifts sitting in the queue, huh? It doesn't help that it's Wool-Ease--not bad as acrylic blends go, but the sensory experience of knitting is not what it would be with silk, merino, etc. The good thing is that I have a deadline. We're meeting the baby (and her brothers and parents) for a playdate on Saturday morning, and I plan to give it to them then. I'm about halfway through the top parts. I'll need to make some progress tonight, that's for sure. No more blogging for me.

I have photos, including one of about a mile of acrylic garter stitch (the bottom part of albert) I thought might send me to knitblog pergatory, plus a picture of a lovely RAOK I received from Martheme of Inspirations Yarn. It's a mystery project. I think I know what it is, but I am eager to make it up and find out for sure. The yarn is YUMMY. Check out her site for some really great colorways.

Think I should do some actual work today? I suppose my boss does. Ciao...

2004-10-14T11:52:00.000-04:00

More on Sinclair

There have been some great resources on the Sinclair situation that have popped up on the web in the last day or two. I have just spent the last half-hour calling local businesses that advertise on my local Sinclair affiliate, WGGB. I have had some productive conversations, including one with a marketing director at Rock 102 who agreed completely about our situation, and says that the marketing director at WGGB is "sick about it" and that the staff at WGGB has been told they will lose their jobs if they do not air the film. He has not yet decided what to do about it, but he has made it clear to WGGB that he is being innundated with calls and emails, and he is going to decide whether to pull his advertising on Monday. He also called it "a violation of the public trust." Nice guy. :)

Here is a place where you can pull up a list of major advertisers for the Sinclair station in your area, or if you don't live in a Sinclair market, you can call the national advertisers to complain:

http://www.boycottsbg.com/advertisers/default.aspx

Great information about Sinclair and the whole situation are available at

http://www.boycottsbg.com/default.htm
http://freepress.net/sinclair/
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group

If you call, be friendly and take a stance of "finding out if they're aware of the situation." Remember that we're trying to win them over to becoming activists on this issue, a potentially risky professional stance. If they say, as they probably will "are you kidding, how could I not be aware?," tell them you hope they'll decide to support the democratic process and pull your advertising, and that you will make buying choices in the future with local companies' actions on this issue very much in mind. I am planning to get a minivan in the next 6 months, and I made sure to mention that to all the car dealerships.

Also, and none of the sites are telling people to do this, I'd recommend asking for the marketing department. Nobody screens calls to marketing, LOL. These are the people who are actually deciding how to spend their dollars and the ones who are used to spending lots of money to hear public opinion (trust me, they give it to me to do focus groups and surveys!), so they're very much open and oriented to listening when public opinion calls them up on the phone. Offer to provide them with resources to learn more and sympathize with their situation, but remind them that they are an important member of the community and you hope they will take a leadership role in supporting democracy.

I hope you can take the time to make just one or two calls, especially if you are in a Sinclair market. Advertisers need to know that they have a responsibility in this situation.

In other news...

Good debate last night, huh? I love that Kerry opened with the gaping holes in national security like unscreened cargo containers coming into major ports, etc. He had a few good sound bites too.

Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like
Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.

LMBO.

Knitting content to come. Promise. Go take back our country. I will too. Oh, and if the Sinclair thing doesn't piss you off sufficiently to focus on it, that's cool, check out all the great new resources at Mainstreet Moms Opposing Bush, including a new letter-writing campaign to registered single moms in swing states, called Adopt A Swing State. Give 'em heck.

2004-10-12T15:12:00.000-04:00

The Following Is An Unpaid Political Message

I saw this over at Absinthe Knits, and while she may have other outlets for her political rants, I am surrounded by like-minded lefties who are all bombarded with the same moveon.org emails I am, so here's my chance to spread the word. For me, the personal is political--they are talking about rolling back MY civil rights (as a lesbian who lives in Massachusetts, I will LOSE the right to marry if the current administration gets its way, though I am not sure that my partner of 12 years and I will use that right, I believe strongly that we should have it). So it's part of the package--friends don't let friends vote Republican.

Since I'm talking about politics, there's a rather urgent situation going on at the moment. The Sinclair Media Group, with arch-conservative owners, is forcing its ABC affiliates to air a highly partisan anti-Kerry movie (documentary is not really an accurate term) called Stolen Honor, right before the election. This is the same group that refused to air the Nightline where they aired the names and photos of all the fallen soldiers in Iraq, saying it would be "inflammatory" (yes, that's becuase it's TRUE, and since when is honoring and memorializing those who died in battle "inflammatory?"). Here is a story from AP about the current situtation.

I wrote the following email to Sinclair and my cable company, Comcast. I found the email for the media contact for my area through very nifty googling, if I do say so myself; the Comcast website makes it very difficult to find anything. If you're local, you can email Jennifer Khoury (Jennifer_Khoury (at) cable.comcast.com --I'll spare her from the spambots) at Comcast, like I did. Here is my email, do something like it yourself if you're so inclined:

If you are going to air Stolen Honor, please also air Fahrenheit 9/11. I don't pay my cable company to receive Republican propaganda. If you are going to show the extreme right-wing view of Kerry, let's also see a different perspective on Bush. I expect that Moore would make the film available for such a viewing, or if it is not available, I expect you could get the rights to show "There's Something About W" http://www.somethingaboutw.org/ or "Uncovered: The War on Iraq" http://www.truthuncovered.com/ . If you think Bush truly is the right choice, then equal time for the other side should not be something that scares your organization.
I request that Comcast, my cable company, whom I have cc:'d on this email, drop my local ABC affiliate, WGGB-40. There is an ABC affiliate in Hartford, CT, only 30 miles south, WTNH, that would do just fine in serving its viewers, not the wealthy and powerful who are trying to control what we see.
Sincerely,
Cate, Florence, MA

I also emailed Michael Moore's website to ask him to make Fahrenheit 9/11 available to Sinclair to air as equal time.

Please write your own letter to Sinclair at comments@sbgi.net, and if your local station is owned by them (and therefore, you will be affected--find out here), please call and complain. They will tell you to contact Sinclair directly, but I think it's important that we let our local stations know that we, right here, in the community they purport to serve, are angry about this. When I spoke to the person at my station, she said she agreed with me personally, but that they had no control over Sinclair's decisions. They'll tell you to call 410-568-1780, but do call locally as well; we need to ring their phones off the hook.

Just one more thought. This is not an issue of free speech. I think it's fine to air this kind of film, even though I think it's terribly distorted. Check out the clip here to see how dishonest it is: they interview this bearded hippie who looks a LITTLE like Kerry, without making clear that it's NOT Kerry, but just a member of a group that they claim Kerry was linked to. I have no doubt that is intentional. What I think is wrong is the ONE-SIDED hijacking of public airwaves to air only one side of an issue. These are not cable stations like Sundance or MTV or pay-per-view; this is ABC, one of the core broadcast stations that reaches a mass audience. By unilaterally pre-empting the Nightline segment, they have already shown themselves to
be devoid of respect for journalism, but this is as much of an outrage. To learn more, and to follow the story through the blog, check out http://www.stopsinclair.org/ .

I'm mamacate, and I approved this message.

Edited to add that there must be something in the air. Other knitbloggers are talking politics today: Jenifer is blogging about politics, and she linked me to Creazativity who's doing some pretty sound thinking herself. Nice to know that I'm in good company!

2004-10-12T01:19:00.000-04:00

My Sky

Knitting bloggers are sharing their skies (thanks to Sandy) so here is ours. You can see the maple trees in my yard in their full glory. Fall is just spectacular here, and it's at it's height right now. It's so fleeting, though. It's almost over before you've caught your breath and taken it in. There's something precious about that, but something sad as well. We need the glory of blazing leaves, brilliant skies, and crisply cool breezes to get us through the icebound winter. I'm trying to enjoy it as it slips by too fast.

2004-10-12T00:27:00.000-04:00

Klara, still unblocked

Here is Klaralund. DP left on a week-long business trip this afternoon, so I got her to take this pic this morning, realizing that it might be hard to get a flattering picture if the 2-year-olds took it (though they would be thrilled to oblige). I am blocking it tonight (wet blocking, and some more vm came out when I washed it, oy) and I'm hoping to get rid of some of that ripple down at the bottom. It was feeling a bit too drapey and loosely knit so I'm hoping that the mohiar blooms a little bit when it's washed and fills things in a bit. Otherwise I have questions about whether it will hold its shape.

I cribbed off Jenifer of Knitting at 5337 (I can't seem to get Hello/Picasa to process links, though other html code seems to work--she's in my blogroll)and made little slits (I'm sure there's a better word) at the lower edges. You can kind of see the one on my right hip. I like the detail, though I worry that it contributes to the rippliness. Jenifer was much more clever and designed hers to eliminate the selvedge stitches, which she cast on at the point where she would join the seams, but I wasn't so clever. Anyway, the blocking looks like it has firmed things up a bit so I'm optimistic.

I'll try to post yet another picture (you'll be sick of looking at me in this thing, as will all my IRL peeps) when it's blocked. And I'm having some ideas for the Lana after browsing through EZ books. How about a NALGAR? Hmmmm....

2004-10-12T00:15:00.000-04:00

I'll Have My People Call Your People

Just had to share the extra cute pink cell phone silliness we had yesterday. They love the camera now, and Henry likes for me to take his picture smiling, laughing, etc. and then look at it. What did they do before digital cameras?

Note Eleanor's tiara and boa. She's going to be "a princess, a pink princess" for halloween, and we're raiding her costume stash for those items, at least the tiara. Henry is going to be a black & white cow. Rhys scored a used cow costume at the consignment store up the street, and I got a cool pink satin dress at Gymboree when I went to get my new glasses, so surprisingly, we're all set. Knock wood that nobody decides they want to be a dragon or something between now and then.

2004-10-10T00:34:00.000-04:00

Self-portrait.

See how hard I am concentrating trying to take a picture of myself wearing Klaralund, LOL? It's looks a bit less flattering in this picture because of the angle, but I'm really happy with it and I think I made the right size. Yes, the sleeves are floppy, but that's okay. They actually roll up surprisingly easily. Oh, ignore the mess behind me. We cloth diaper and the changing table is an interesting place. Let's just say that fiber addict+cute cloth diapers+post-partum insanity=a huge stash of--erm--cute cloth diapers.
We spent the day at MIL's, which was fun. She just got back from a three week trip to Asia, including Mongolia, China, and Tibet. I asked her to bring me back some cashmere to spin from Mongolia (it's the world's biggest producer of cashmere), and she got me--wait for it--A KILO! I have a kilo of raw cashmere sitting in the car! It still has guard hairs, so I figure worst case scenario it will be about a pound of fiber. But a POUND of cashmere. OK, pinch me.
I do kind of feel like I'm not a good enough spinner yet to be worthy of this stuff (I also have a small bag of Quiviut that Impetua sent me, and I feel the same way about that--I need to get way better to be able to make yarn as amazing as this fiber).
So what is the next project? I am going to make felted slippers out of Kureyon for Henry and Eleanor, knit on the sweater for the mystery baby, and spin Henry's Einstein sweater yarn. I also have 30 skeins (110 yards, worsted weight) of Lana D'Oro--20 in one color and 10 in a mix of colors that would go nicely together--8 of a main body color, 2 of a contrasting color and 1 of another cc. I was thinking some kind of a ski sweater like EZ makes, using her techniques, but then I realized how totally out of style those are right now, LOL. I might make it anyway. Then I was thinking maybe something with a boat neck or modified boatneck, a hemmed--uh-- hem (lower edge), and a strip of fair isle along the bottom. But I'm not sure Lana D'oro is really the right yarn for that--probably a 100% wool, maybe even Cascade 220 (cousin to Lana). I think maybe I'll do some browsing though my patterns. Of course I also got three balls of a novelty yarn for gift scarves at my last Webs SEX day (just last week), so I can work on those. But it just doesn't feel right not having an adult sweater on the needles, you know? Yes, it's a little insane. I know. I'm used to it.

2004-10-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

One Kind Day

I've been RAOK'd!

What a day for kindness! I'm loving all the comments on my blog lately, and today, Annie RAOK'd me with an invite to Audible.com. I've thought of joining them quite a few times before, and I think it would be an awesome and highly improved alternative to staying up late watching bad tv (more specifics on that in a minute). I get to download two books. I need to figure out which ones; this is going to be a challenge. I have a deadline at work today (of course that's why I'm blogging right now!), so I will make that my reward for getting this report out the door.

I also got a wonderful card from Gracie that she sent to the entire RAOK list. It was a really nice way to start the morning. I still haven't used the gc Lisa Y sent to Adagio teas. I'm thinking a proper teapot. We have one but it belonged to Rhys' beloved grandmother, so I'm frankly afraid to use it even though Rhys' mom gave it to me. A nice, cheap, mass-produced one, made in China and NOT hand-carried back to the US by an in-law would be a good thing, lol. The RAOK is such a nice group, and I'm really glad I had the chance to join. Fun!

As for bad TV, despite my attempts to pretend to be an intellectual, I love the Survivor and The Apprentice. I watched The Amazing Race religiously, but I have to say that it didn't make me cry, unlike two of my blog buddies, I might add. Then, after all the other shows are over, I settle in to watch Bravo: first The West Wing, then Celebrity Poker Showdown most nights. I do love the poker, though I recognize what a goofy habit this is, and I will now confess that I have a small crush on Phil Gordon. I know, weird. Really, that's a dorky picture, though. Hey, I'm a lesbian, I never said I had good taste in men, please! I also watched the World Series of Poker on ESPN a couple of weeks back, and then the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel this week. I know, you had never guessed this bizarre aspect of my personality. Back when we used to go to casinos, I was always too chicken to sit down at the poker table, which is probably good because I really didn't understand Texas Hold'em until Phil-baby explained it to me. But of course now that I have kids the chances of me going to a casino in the next ten to twenty years are pretty slim. Guess I won't be joining the world tour any time soon. Probably for the best, LOL. So between the poker thing and the reality tv thing and the insomnia thing and the knitting thing, there's a lot of bad TV going on in my house and some nice books that I can listen to and knit might be just the solution to keep me from running off to join the poker tour!

I have a lot of random and not-so-random acts of kindness that I *want* to do, but haven't had time yet. I meant to deliver my post-partum care package (tylenol, chocolate, dark beer, lansinoh, breast pads, and tucks) to a friend who delivered two weeks ago. She won't need it anymore and I've been driving around with it in my car! My friend who is laid up after her hysterectomy is still waiting to learn to knit. I have her yarn and Stitch n Bitch book, but no time to drop it off and actually show her. Next week, I swear! And then I have a few RAOK packages to send out, but haven't had a box, the stuff, and a free moment all at the same time to put it all together. Business trips always throw me for a loop. I have cut down work-related travel to one project per year (two this year), and it's still too many. I hate to be away from my nurslings for that long.

Okay, back to the other major distraction from the FUN stuff in life: work. I WILL get this report done today, I WILL!

Oh, Brit asked what yarn I am using in Klaralund (picture below). It's Noro Silk Garden #37. As a spinner, I admit to getting crabby when I hit knots, thin spots, and ridiculous amounts of vm in this rather pricey yarn. But the dye job is just so brilliant, I can't complain. I got it from Jenifer's ebay store--she's great and ships QUICKLY! I wanted to start Klaralund ASAP so buying from her was perfect for me.

2004-10-06T23:56:00.000-04:00

Part 3 of 2

Here's the rest of Klaralund. I got my one extra ball of yarn from Jenifer today. I would have had two plus extra balls after knitting the 40" size if I a) hadn't left the first body piece on a damn plane, and b) I hadn't gotten all OCD about the sleeve tops. Note that I am not getting OCD about the front and back.

The finished piece has green at the top; the second piece will not have any more green. Which do you think I should make the front piece? Hmm. I'm expecting to finish knitting this tomorrow night (I had hoped for tonight, but we were napless and two today, so very little knitting was done). It may be optimistic, though. I always think seaming will be quicker than it ends up being, plus did I put time in there for blocking? No. Grin. I think I'm allergic to blocking. I will end up blocking 3 sweaters at the same time (diagonal progression, Klara, and an alpaca turtleneck I finished years ago but have yet to really wear--oh yeah, and Haiku!).

I also meant to mention in the post below that I ordered some groovy fimo buttons for Haiku. They only had one in stock. I had planned to do those silver claspy things, but they didn't have any and I thought the pink fimo would be right up El's alley.

2004-10-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

Haiku, (almost) FO

Here is Haiku for Eleanor. Well, it's still HUGE on her--so it's kind of for Eleanor in two years, sigh. My spinning teacher warned me that handspun sometimes expands after it is knit. Or something like that--I had trouble understanding exactly why, but I got the gist that your swatch might be on and then your knitting might be off, and that is what happened. Heck, it happened with Klaralund too so maybe it's not the handspun. Anyway, it's lovely, soft, and will be very warm if she can ever fit into it. I like this pattern a lot, and if knitting this hadn't been such a bloody trial, I would do it again. You'll notice that the right side is smaller than the left. Perhaps you'll notice it, but I'll do my best to ignore it. I have another half a body piece in an even bigger size, lol, so this is an improvement, and it hasn't even been blocked so I should be able to make it mostly disappear.

2004-10-03T22:38:00.000-04:00

My Tale of Woe, and a Great Weekend

I'm back from Milwaukee. And I've knitted four complete pieces of Klaralund, and I've just spent the day sewing up a sweater. But it wasn't Klara. Because I left the first body piece, the one you see partially completed below, on the plane. Yes, that's right. Sigh. I was being totally OCD and looking to see if the stripes were matching up, even though I wasn't trying to control it (really! I swear!). I had it in my lap, and as the flight went on, it kind of moved off to the side, and then, I guess, got wedged in the side. I got into a nice conversation with the person next to me, even though I rarely chat with strangers on planes, and that distracted me further. So when I got up to get off the plane, I LEFT IT ON THE SEAT. I didn't realize it was gone until I was boarding my next flight, and it was on the other end of the airport, which was literally about a mile away, so there was no way to go back. The airline's lost items person was unsympathetic, and said that if my name wasn't on it, the chances were basically nil. Even if they do find it, I have to go back to my airport, an hour away, to pick it up as they refuse to mail it (apparently other airlines will mail things--this is the first time I've flown Northwest in almost 10 years, and I was not impressed with their sympathy or interest in helping me). Big sigh. And I thought my problem would be security! In fact, the inspectors were very nice and the woman was very concerned about damaging my knitting when she hand-searched my bag. Little did she know I would do more harm myself!

I've mostly gotten over it. I've finished the other body piece, and I cast on for the, well, third, body piece, and even though I have a full ball of yarn to work with, I am just taking a break from it. Why is it that practically everything I knit lately (or maybe forever) has some sort of snafu? My Haiku debacle where I didn't spin consistently and the sides of the garment were completely inconsistent. Overfelting the fuzzy feet. Now this. Sigh.

Well, lemonade, and all that. I found a home for the fuzzy feet. Turns out they weren't even a 7, they were a SIX. So they were too small for Aileen, but my friend Sue fit into them great, and she was psyched. We had a sort of a lesbian-mom Cinderella session at Aileen's Sukkot party, and the fulled slipper fit on Sue's feet. Sue's partner, Leigh, has just gone through a scary cervical cancer incident, which involved a recent hysterectomy (like SIL, she is in her early 40's, sigh). She's laid up and going crazy. I was wondering if she'd like to learn to knit, but she's one of these people who already knows how to do, like, everything, so I wasn't sure if she didn't already know how. Well, she doesn't, and she was very interested in the whole felting concept, so at naptime tomorrow I'm headed to Webs to pick out an easy first project for her and a book. I've never read that Stitch n Bitch book, but it has gotten a lot of people started, and I think it has some beginner felted projects in it, right? Well, it's between that and The Knit Stitch, which I have and have learned a lot from as a knitter of 20 years.

In other news, I went to my first meeting of the Nutmeg Spinner's Guild, which was great. There was a presentation from Still River Mill about their mini mill business. I had kind of tossed out my yarn manufacturing idea due to my lack of interest in the actual manufacturing piece of it, but based on what they said, we might be a great team. I had to leave after two hours (of a 6-hour meeting, boo hoo), so I didn't get to talk with them, but I need to finish up the freelance project I'm working on (almost done!), then do a little research on my end, and if it all looks promising I'll see if I can talk to them about working together. I think it might be a great deal all around.

The guild seems great. I generally found the people to be friendly, a nice mix of experienced folks and beginners, and a lot of knitting content. Oddly, when I went to a local spinning group, many of the people there didn't know how to knit or were barely beginners at it. This group did "show and tell" at the beginning and had some great stuff, both mill and handspun. That was great to see, since I felt like I could learn some stuff about knitting as well as spinning, and I prefer to keep the border between the two crafts rather fluid, as they should be!

One woman had knitted a vest from Debbie New's book Unexpected Knitting. I had heard of this book after reading about her "better mousetrap" socks in Interweave Knits. The Guild has a GREAT library, and I checked that one out, and I can keep it until the next meeting, in December. It's almost as cool as the Semester-long checkout I get at the college where I work! Anyway, the book is just fascinating. I've been reading a lot of knitting books lately, and actually it's getting frustrating because I don't have time to try all these patterns. Many of the patterns in New's book are over my head as a knitter, but it really makes me think about design, construction, and knitting, and makes me think of what I can work up to. I don't think I'm too far away from doing these, but it is definitely a case of breaking out of my "two body pieces and two sleeves" thinking. I may try out a pattern or two, certainly the mousetrap socks. I was even wondering how they'd do felted. Hmmm.

In other news, I finished Eleanor's Haiku, FINALLY, except for the buttons/fasteners. It's my first finished handspun sweater! Yay me! I've already got a bobbin full of yarn for Henry's semi-matching Einstein sweater. So I'm feeling on a roll.

Jenifer is sending me another ball of Silk Garden so I can finish Klara, so I'll work on that when it arrives. No promises, but I do hope to be wearing it by the end of the week. We'll see. If things go well this week and I don't have to work late Thursday, maybe I'll hit the knitting night at Webs.

That's probably enough silliness. It's late, and I need to sleep so I can keep up with the short people tomorrow. It's amazing how fast they can go on those little legs, LOL.

Oh, one more thing. I'm part of the RAOK ring now! How cool. I have a lot more blogs to read, though. Thanks for the sweet comments, and the card... I've already sent a birthday card to someone on the list. This is fun! I'm generally a pretty cynical type, but I do love the grace in RAOKs. I think we all need to remember more how much kindness there is in the world. Sometimes it's easy to forget.

Blogging and the online knitting world have really pushed my limits in knitting, and I feel like I've learned more in the last few months online than I have in a long time. I've been doing lots of garter stitch, but I'm really improving my techniques and understanding. Very cool.

Okay, really bedtime. It's one o'clock in the morning!

2004-09-28T23:31:00.000-04:00

Here is Klaralund so far (color #37). Excuse the junk on the living room floor, LOL. I have priorities (knitting!). I'm going on a one-night business trip on Thursday,and I'm going to finish it on the plane, I hope. I've even printed out the new list of permitted carryon items, which includes knitting needles, just in case the bag inspectors try to take them from me, grin.

2004-09-28T23:29:00.000-04:00

A closer look at the sleeves. I got pretty OCD about matching the stripes in the extended garter stitch section. I think three balls of yarn were involved. It came out pretty close, and I'm happy with it. I think that will be the part where symmetry will be most visible. So much for the free-spirit who will just let the stripes fall where they may. It is pretty far from the way I see myself, I have to admit. If I hadn't been in a knit along, though, this stripe-matching business never would have occurred to me. It was just from seeing other bloggers photos and hearing people talk about their approach to matching vs. randomness that got me thinking about what I wanted. I didn't match the middle of the sleeves at all, as you can see, and I'm only doing the most cursory selection and placement in the front/back. I'm fine with seaming non-matching stripes. I mean, the seams are one of the least visible parts of the sweater.

2004-09-28T23:22:00.000-04:00

The big fat hairy slippers. These were so huge and floppy, but not for long....

2004-09-28T23:20:00.000-04:00

While you wait for the fuzzy feet to full, I give you...La Fashionista! She has reached the choosing it herself stage. I do have to say, though, that there are days lately when I say "that's some outfit Eleanor picked out for herself" and then Rhys says "uh, I picked that out--what's wrong with it?" And I say..."uh, nothing honey." But what a smile, huh? I love that 2-year-old glory. They're just so...THEM, you know?

2004-09-28T23:15:00.000-04:00

Fuzzy Feet are Felted! Well, technically fulled, but whatever. Only problem: they're too small. I started out hand-felting them in the tub with a potato masher. It was going, but it was going slowly, so I threw them in the wash with a pair of jeans and a mini-football. I have a front-loader, and everything I've read says that front-loaders take forever to felt (usually 3 passes at least), so I figured, let them go through one cycle without checking, then check the second time around (or go back to hand-felting to get the right size). Took 'em out, and they're a perfect size seven (SIL is a 9.5). WHOOPS! So they'll be keeping my friend Aileen's feet warm. I think she's the only person I know who has size 7 feet. If it turns out you know me and YOU have size 7 feet, you'd better comment now because she wasn't properly enthusiastic when I mentioned it to her (and really, I didn't get all "I SUPPOSE I'll give them to you..."). So if I don't get proper appreciation, well, small-footed friends better step up! :) But I'll be making more of these. They're spectacularly quick and quite easy. Plus with the little addi circs, for some reason, it's easier to knit while nursing.

2004-09-27T21:31:00.000-04:00

Let's Start AGAIN!

More on Completion (or lack thereof)
(Please note that this post contains almost NO knitting content, but instead contains a long rambling rant about what the hell I'm going to do with my life, so feel free to just scroll on by. Photos of WIPs and FO slippers are on the way, I I promise.)

So this incomplete project metaphor for my professional life is really sticking with me. I went back to researching my fiber-related business idea (well, one of them) last night. It would be a big investment--I think it would involve purchasing a mini-mill (which my MBA training reminds me would put a cap on my growth potential and probably reduce my desirability as an acquisition target, though I'm not sure of that), a loan, and, dread concept: employees. Aside from the un-dream-jobbyness of having to manage a manufacturing staff, like everything else I have investigated for my next life, it just seems like...a drag. Taking the GRE sounds like a drag. Going to nursing school sounds like a drag. Every "next move" has some big hitch to it that makes me feel totally unmotivated and generally annoyed at the concept.

And what a PITA whiny louse do I sound like, huh? Beautiful family; easy and remunerative career already in place (so what if it's boring and I'm stuck in a weird under/overqualified place right now); a creative outlet through hobbies. I have everything I've ever wanted. And honestly, I'm not really unhappy. I just feel like I have a responsibility to do something. And I'm not even sure what.

It's such a cliche. The type A woman can't get pregnant so she puts her entire life into having a baby. Then she gets pregnant and her life is adrift. I was so sick of hearing that one from the "after infertility" stuff (what little there is) that I wasn't interested. Seriously, I was not sitting here with my new babies wondering "what's next?" For my babies' first year (really for their first two years) I wanted to be earth-mother-SAHM-AP-cloth-diapering-LLL MAMA! And I was, to a degree. But it took me about that long to find out that because I WOH 3 days a week, despite the great lengths to which I went to minimize separation from my babies and the fact that it was if not a fiscal necessity (arguable, but it certainly was to a great extent), a relationship necessity, I would always be scorned by LLL and a certain contingent of AP types. When my son started biting at 10 months (yes, it may well have been the day care exposure to other biting toddlers), after trying every blessed AP approach, I resorted to time-outs (well, time-ins, but time in the corner) at 16 months. Not proud of it: desperate. I realized that although I was lucky to have boobs that complied with the whole nursing twins thing and although I am going to be a crunch-mama with devoted twin nurslings who are soon-to-be-preschoolers and no sign of weaning in sight, I was not going to EVER fit in at LLL or in the AP world. I thought my WOH, since it was part-time and as balanced with my family's needs as it could be, was a detail of my uniqueness as a LLL mom or an AP mom. But after going to an LLL conference and just paying a little more attention, I realize that I'm just never going to be welcome in that world. And I don't know if I'm cut out for it anyway. Yeah, I'm totally there with doing WHATEVER is needed to make my kids a priority, but I think that prioritization goes beyond a few years of time off at home, and heck, it just didn't make sense for me, at this moment in my life, to take time off. If I had been able to "schedule" my childbearing a bit more, maybe. But I'm not bitter. Some days I am nearly in tears with longing to be home with them full-time. Some days I am so grateful and relieved I did not take that route. Some days I think my kids are better off with their loving, incredible, wonderful teachers three days a week. Some days I walk out after dropping them off and it takes everything I have in me to keep from turning around and RUNNING back in to get them. I think about how cool it would be to do this playgroup or that gymnastics class or that music program but honestly, I can barely find the money for those things now, how would I afford them with no second income? Who ARE these people with the late-model minivans and the full schedule of music together and a Y membership and only one parental income? How did I not get the memo on this?

The one thing I've done a good job of lately is to keep my options open. No addition on the house because it keeps our expenses low in case my income decreases or goes away completely. No committing to one course or other because, what, we might want another baby (haven't even gotten into that particular little spin). Doesn't matter, because really, no time to pursue any of this crap until next Fall when the income will go bye-bye and I will need to do SOMETHING and not spend a year figuring out what that SOMETHING is. Taking the first freelance job offered by my current employer, even though the timing is awful for me (starts this year, while my current project is in its most intense phase), so I can be sure to have some money coming in next year.

When I'm "tied down" to a job, my mind is rife with entrepreneurial ideas, but when it comes to the point where I actually have the opportunity to do something new, I'm paralyzed by an irrational fear of...what...poverty, failure, my own laziness?

The fact is that my kids are still tiny. I'm at a point where I don't want to take on anything huge. Part of me wants to start a cool new company, do something bold, make a lot of money, make a mark. But most of me knows that this is NOT the season for that. The rational thing to do: grad school or some low-key consulting. Or both. Probably both because last time I checked grad school doesn't pay at all unless you work like a dog as a TA, and then not well.

Guess it's time to suck it up and sign up for the GRE, and get the application materials, and make a few lunch dates with people who I should network with about this. It's ironic, because the project I'm finishing up this year is about the SAT, and the hypotheses are rather critical of the idea of such tests. The idea of taking a prep course or something is pretty hilarious right now. But I have some pretty hard data that shows it helps, LOL, at least for high school students.

Thanks for listening to my ramble. I feel much better. Back to Klara. I'm done with both sleeves and I'm a few inches into my first body piece. Trying SO hard not to cast on for a baby Einstein sweater for my friends' new baby girl. Must....finish....Klara...FIRST!

2004-09-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Inching Toward Completion

I have been making some progress, though I haven't really completed anything. I have just decided that the Diagonal Progression sweater is finished since I have been wearing it everywhere. It remains lumpily unblocked and an inside view shows lots of ends, but any ends visible from the outside are woven in. You know, I have known about spit-splicing for a long time, but it never worked well for me until I read a description of it recently that said you should rub your hands together UNTIL THEY FEEL HOT. (For those who don't know what I'm talking about, spit-splicing is when you spit (yes spit) into your hand, fray two ends of yarn, put the ends together in the little drop of spit, and the RUB the yarn together in between your hands, until they feel hot. It essentially felts two pieces of yarn together and creates an invisible join. Of course it only works with fibers that will felt!) Now that I know how much and how long to felt the yarn together, spit-splicing is working great for me and I hope to have very little end-weaving in my future. But clearly I had not learned this lesson when I made the diagonal sweater. Oy, a lot of ends!

Klara is coming along, but I have to admit that my mind is straying. I have moments when I sit there and think to myself "I want to make THIS!.....And THIS!....And what about THAT project I've been thinking about for months!" I could blame it on spending so much time with 2.5-year-olds, but honestly I've always been like this. It's not that I'm bored with what I'm doing, it's just there's so much excitement out there--I don't want to miss a thing. Sounds a lot like my career search, huh? I just don't want to look back and wonder what the heck I did with my life someday. At least I'll have some cool sweaters to show for it.

So I finished knitting the fuzzy feet last night and secured most of the ends. Thanks to Sara for pointing out that since I'm felting these I don't need to weave the ends! I did just secure them so that the stitches didn't grow, etc., but I didn't even bother trying to find a tapestry needle, just did it with my fingers, so that was easy. I just need to kitchener, secure a few more ends, and it's off to the soap suds!

I think this pair, my trial run, if they come out well, will go to my SIL. She was just diagnosed with breast cancer and had a lumpectomy on Tuesday. The surgery went well and they got it all, so her prognosis is excellent. It's tough, though, as this makes every woman in DP's family except for DP and one of her cousins, who had a benign lump last year. Oddly, they don't have the gene for BC, at least not the one that they know about. The good side of this is that every single one of them has survived, some for more than 20 years, and even with the relatively crude treatments they had back in the 70's and early 80's. SIL is doing great--she's a real bright-side kind of person (not that I know anything about that, LOL), and she's obviously going to kick this cancer thing into submission. Or remission. Probably both. All that Tae Kwon Do should come in handy. But a nice pair of felted slippers might help keep her feet warm while she's kicking.

Also on Tuesday, we put Sheba down. I can't quite bring myself to post a picture of her in her prime yet, but I will do it soon. She was such a wonderful dog. She had a ton of personality, and she was a faithful protector and official boss of the animal contingent for 10 years in our family. And just gorgeous, with long light-brown fur with a dark-brown brindle. She knew how beautiful she was and always enjoyed being admired. I used to work downtown and she would come to work with me. I would walk down the street with her, and people I'd never seen before would say "Hi Sheba!" She'd wag her tail at them and prance along. There was a certain pizza place with outside tables that someone once fed her at when we were walking by. For about a year after that, she always thought the people at that table would (or should) give her food. She was my girl, and I miss her.

But you know, her death was actually kind of lovely. Before the vet arrived, we gave her all her favorite snacks, including most of a lamb chop left over from the last night's dinner. When the vet arrived, we petted her, and sang to her while they prepared the injection and did it. She never seemed afraid or anxious, and didn't even seem to feel the needle. She died with her head in my lap, while Rhys and I sang one of "her" songs (we made up lots of silly songs for her over the years). A pretty nice way to go.

Scout seems to be doing okay, and the carpet is being cleaned today. I miss her, but it was time, and she hasn't been her old self for a long time now. I realize that I've already grieved the young, perky, fun Sheba, and now it's saying goodbye to the old Sheba who was not doing well. That feels a bit easier, though it's still hard.

Anyway, that's it from here. Still insanely busy at work, and going to scenic Milwaukee next week for a one-night business trip (focus group). I did NOT make my deadline this week, but was offered an extension that I couldn't pass up, so I took it. Now I have two more weeks to be Much Too Busy. Ah well.

2004-09-20T01:27:00.000-04:00

Our Lady of the Unfinished Objects

Below are pictures of most of my UFOs that I have recently worked on. I have way too much stuff going on right now, what else is new in my life, huh? You'll also see a photo of Henry telling me to make felted clogs too--I have evidence that my child is enabling my addiction! (Blaming others--not a good sign.) Luckily I have resisted so far, and I think I actually WILL finish the fuzzy feet before starting those.

Along this vein, I am signing up for a finishing class at Webs that starts next week. My plan is to go to the class with a completely knitted but unsewn Haiku so that I can practice and get help. I don't think the class will help me be less of a nutcase about starting projects and knitting monogamously (duh--don't start another one, don't need a class for that one), but I've never been strong on finishing, and have never liked it, and have never really learned it all the right way (I taught myself to knit from a book). So I think this course will be good.

The finishing course is part of a new Master Knitter Certification Program Webs is offering (not to be confused with TKGA's Master Knitter Certification). I think it's good--I'm not overly impressed with the TKGA program--not that it's bad, but I am not dying for strangers to critique a bunch of swatches, when I think that construction, design, creativity, and understanding of the craft as a whole are much more important to ones development as a knitter, or at least to mine. The first three courses at Webs are about color knitting, an overview of different cultural knitting traditions, and finishing. Much more up my alley. However, I don't know about you, but the description of the program at Webs left much to be desired. No information about what's in the curriculum beyond the first three courses, not even how many classes you must take. I emailed the instructor, and hopefully I'll find out more. I *might* do it. We'll see. I don't really need to take something new on, but this sounds like a lot of fun.

Thinking about this does sort of point up the big conflict in my life right now. I am considering going back to graduate school for an Ed.D. I found out I don't need to go back and get another master's (I have an MBA), and it's absolutely obvious to me that it's the logical next step in my career. The grant I'm currently working on is like a ready-made dissertation, with tons of primary research data and someone else has already paid for it all! But you know, I'm almost completely unmotivated to do it, and the idea of taking the damn GRE (again! I took it in my senior year of college, then I took the GMAT to get into B-school, and to take it AGAIN?) makes me almost physically ill. I have tons more energy to investigate the curriculum of the ever-lovin' KNITTING program than I do to do the same for the Ed.D. program. And I can't decide if this is a sign that I'm just not ready for this and I need to slow down, or if it's a sign that I'm spinning my wheels (which I have been doing for a while, professionally; going through IF and then having twins will do that to a gal) and need to just DO something to move myself forward.

It makes me wonder if I shouldn't just move away from higher ed research and try to do something professionally in the world of knitting and fiber. Not anything arty or crafty--my income requirements are too high for that, I couldn't support my yarn habit on knitting alone--but for example doing marketing research for yarn companies or starting a yarn business (I have a kind of cool idea for a line of yarn, I think). Still don't know what the right thing to do. I've been "sitting with it" for a while, and I'm not getting any flashes of insight. So what do you, dear reader, some of whom are total strangers, think I should do with my life?

2004-09-20T00:25:00.000-04:00

Here is Klaralund so far. I'm about 1/2" away from the end of the first sleeve. I cast on for a 38, but I changed it to a 40. There is only a 2 stitch difference in the sleeve, so I just increased one stitch at each end of the sleeve somewhere just above the elbow. I actually did it on the row after joining the second ball of yarn so I wouldn't have to count rows on the other sleeve...laziness is the mother of invention, apparently. This is colorway #37 in Noro Silk Garden. I'm really enjoying it. I've never knit with Noro before, and it's a lot of fun to knit. I knit from the inside of a center-pull ball, and it's kind of cool to be surprised about what's coming next. Of course, all the time I'm thinking about how I can do this with my own yarn. I'd LOVE to try to dye some white brown sheep yarn in a similar way, but I think I'd need a swift the size of a Volkswagen and an enormous dye studio to do it. It would actually be pretty easy to do if I dye roving (because the dyed areas stretch out when you spin them), but I'm not sure I want to spin a bunch of yarn just to felt it. But it would save me from sewing in those ends, huh?

2004-09-20T00:22:00.000-04:00

Henry is not helping my project diet. He instructed me specifically to make the clogs. The blue ones. I will comply as soon as I have the fuzzy feet finished. I promise.

2004-09-20T00:20:00.000-04:00

My stash of partial skeins of brown sheep worsted. I can make a lot of holiday slippers with this. I have a similar amount of lamb's pride bulky for clogs. I'll try that pattern next to see which one I like better.

2004-09-20T00:12:00.000-04:00

I was really psyched to make these slippers in stripes. I have a ton of partial skeins of brown sheep yarn, so it's a no-brainer. Except LOOK at all those ends to weave in. I know, it's not that bad, but ugh.

2004-09-20T00:10:00.000-04:00

Fuzzy Feet. Here are the fuzzy feet I started this week (like I didn't already have enough WIPs). They are really quick to knit. I think felting them is going to be fun. I am going to do it by hand, I think with a potato masher and a dishpan in the tub, unless I discover a washboard in our basement. Given the mess down there it's not impossible.

2004-09-20T00:07:00.000-04:00

Here are the Haiku sleeves. I took a break from Klaralund tonight to spin what I HOPE will be the last bit of yarn for Haiku. I've already underestimated twice. Garter stitch really takes up a lot of yarn. Had to choose a garter stitch project for my first handspun kid sweater. And I'm making another (Einstein) for Henry! Sheesh.

2004-09-20T00:03:00.000-04:00

Here's Henry posing for the camera with Sheba. Sheba has been with Rhys and me for 10 years. She is being put down on Tuesday. We know it's time, but of course, we're heartbroken. Three cheers for the b-b-d (big-brown-dog, Sheba's nickname). And yes, that's a diaper Sheba is wearing. It has been a long road, and we will miss her dearly.

2004-09-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

Stalking the Mailman

Ooh, ooh! Here it is. The goods to start Klaralund. My daughter has taken to yelling "SCORE!" like an Italian sports announcer from the back of the car. But that's what I said when Joe (that's Joe the mailman, one of many on my block) handed me the box. It's not like we were all standing there waiting by the mailbox. Okay, that's exactly what it was like, but whatever.

I have swatched and got it in one on #8 needles, so I'm off to the races. I cast on while standing in a playground saying "please let Henry have a turn...do you need help with that?....that slide is really fast, let me catch you at the bottom..." etc. (Unfortunately, the playground at our CSA is a bunch of broken toys with no safety features--I'm really anything but a hoverer when it comes to playgrounds.) Then the last few stitches were cast on while waiting in stop and go traffic--turned out I had a state trooper behind me. WHOOPS! Anyway, I'll definitely count again before I start knitting.

I am about 70% of the way through my first striped Fuzzy Feet--I should have taken a pic of that too. I'm going to try to finish that up before I knit any more on Klaralund. Really I am. :) Of course, then it's just second sock syndrome and there's nothing good about that. Oh yeah, and I have to work on the surveymonkey tonight.

We've had a barfing/pooping thing here at the house last night and this morning. Henry and I were up going through every clean item of clothing for much of the night. He was very tired this morning, but once he could get some advil down (he couldn't even stomach milky for a while there--this is serious!), he perked right up and we were able to run some errands. We actually had a rather nice afternoon, including an utterly civilized dinner at the deli at Whole Foods. It is odd, though, that my kids act like other people's kids (calm, compliant, and to bed with little fuss) only when they're running a fever. I am not sure what to think about that. I think my solution will be to not think about it too much.

2004-09-15T20:08:00.000-04:00

FO!

Here is the diagonal progression sweater. Due to some no-doubt psychologically fascinating block, it only looks finished. There are still a handful of ends to weave in, plus I need to block it because the fit is a little lumpy and I know it can look better. I did wear it out to the store to buy low-carb ice cream though. At least I seem to be doing relatively well sticking to one of my diets.

2004-09-13T23:08:00.000-04:00

I have a bunch of photos of the Haiku debacle, which I have not yet explored in gory detail here, but maybe I'll save it until I can show a finished product. I am spinning a little bit more--I ran out with about 4 rows to go on the sleeves, argh. So anyway, here's a nice beach shot. That's DP on the left, and her childhood friend Lizzie on the right. The cute ones in the middle are Henry and Eleanor, in case you hadn't guessed.

2004-09-13T23:04:00.000-04:00

Well, here is the Lendrum. It took me a little while to get used to it after using a Louet for my class, but I like it a lot now.

2004-09-12T01:20:00.000-04:00

I just can't stay on a diet

I've just started a very lenient--I can't even call it low-carb--really more like "less white flour and sugar fewer times a day" diet. It seems to be making a huge difference in my energy level, and energy level has been a big issue for me lately. I'm trying to get over a thrush incident (no, I'm not desperately ill, just bfing; it makes you more susceptible), and white sugar and flour apparently feeds the stuff. Unsweetened yogurt, here I come! Bon appetit! Hopefully the energy bonus will keep me honest. I will miss peanut butter m&ms.

But I didn't want to blog about a food diet. I'm blogging about my yarn and project diet. I was supposed to be finishing up my current projects, with Solstice knitting and spinning Zeus (the shetland for an Aran cardi) taking up the whole fall.

Then I saw this. Klaralund. I don't normally buy expensive yarns like Noro. I go to the back of Webs, in the warehouse, and I find amazing bargains on unknown yarns of great quality, but little renown. I don't spend nearly $10 a ball for 50g of fancy-schmancy yarn that everyone on the net is scrambling over. Well, I didn't. Now I have. I just spent more than I have in a LOOOONG time for yarn for a sweater--$97 for 11 balls of Noro Silk Garden (which, btw, is a great deal). But living a mile from Webs makes you a bit grumpy about paying more than $50 for a sweater's worth of yarn. But this one is just so gorgeous, and it's right up my alley.

So I'm almost, almost, ALLLLMOST done with Haiku. I'm talking 10 rows on the sleeves and then I have to sew it up. Diagonal progression--still sewing. Self-striping socks--toe decreases and grafting. Then there are the bigger projects--Zeus and the soy silk shawl (which I dread, I must admit). But Klaralund is just going to have to skip the line. Sorry. I figure I have until Wednesday before the yarn arrives. I can finish Haiku by then, right? And this one will knit quickly, so I can still make a nice collection of booties for Solstice.

Tell me it's okay, will ya? And dj, do I need a meeting?

What's done is done.

2004-09-09T19:49:00.000-04:00

Whoa, September!

Well, hello! We got back from vacation and it was like a tornado hit. Everything just started up full-force. I can't remember if I mentioned that I foolishly agreed to do a freelance project, over and above my current job, for another department at the college where I work. So I have been slaving away over a hot computer at every free moment. No pretty pictures of knitting FOs and spinning in progress for you, no, no, no! I could take cute little snapshots of massaged databases and mail-merged documents shoehorned into one page of letterhead by playing very fast and loose with the margins. I could even show you an online survey (at our friend surveymonkey, and yes, I got attitude immediately when I asked IT to create a "front" for it that would make it look like it was on our server) if it wouldn't be unprofessional. But somehow those don't have the same kind of appeal as nice warm fuzzy yarn and sweaters. I can't imagine why.

Back when I was still on vacation (remember back then?), I did make some progress on sewing up the diagonal progression sweater. I was thinking about that sweater, that was knit while I was going through the darkest days of IVF (numbers 3 and 4, and the part where I was bleeding and pregnant). I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms at the Brigham (motto: "Like doing IVF at the DMV") desperately, obsessively, even angrily, knitting away. I remember feeling like most of my life was so futile. All I seemed to do was deal with medications, drive 2 hours each way to have 10-minute ultrasound appointments, and cry. I had been doing IVF for nearly a year and it just felt like this insane treadmill of heroic measures that never went anywhere. Knitting was the only place I ever made PROGRESS. Sure, it was slow, and yeah, sometimes I had to frog (though I'm rather creative about finding ways to fix problems without extensive frogging), but if I kept at it, head down, brow furrowed, something happened. I remember how badly I needed to feel like my efforts made some mark on the world, however small and slow.

So there's something symbolic about sewing this sweater. I have another IVF-waiting-room sweater that I seamed right away, and which I wear all the time. It's probably my favorite of all the sweaters I've made. But this one has been languishing. Sure, it's mostly because I lost the pattern, LOL, but in a way I feel like I was waiting to put this part away. I know I won't put it away completely, but when I have finally sewn the last (damn) seam stitch (did I mention I hate seaming?), I think it will symbolize letting go of some of that pain.

But it will have to wait a little bit longer. As Sara says, until I have this surveymonkey off my back.

2004-09-07T11:34:00.000-04:00

In Memoriam

Thank you to everyone who lit candles for Louie. Here is the update his mother posted on our playgroup:

Louis Daniel Jezowski passed away this afternoon (Friday 9/3) at 4:10pm CST. He was surrounded by his family and was in his momma and daddy's arms when he left
us. He went peacefully and in no pain.

I just saw pictures of a walk Louie took with his mom, dad, and sister after they removed the tubes. It looks like they had a wonderful time in the sunshine. It should have been a beginning, not an ending.

Words fail me to say anything more. This family is in my thoughts, and we are grieving with them.

2004-08-27T22:41:00.000-04:00

I'll Be Back

I'm headed out to the Vineyard at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, so it will probably be labor day before I'm blogging again.

We'll be staying at DP's family's house in Chilmark. It's a great place--pretty rustic, but not uncomfortably so. There's no electricity, but there's propane so there's hot water, stove, even a propane-powered refrigerator. Two years ago they replaced the flush toilet with a composting toilet, which was really a bummer, but other than that it's great. It's right on the pond--much closer than you could ever build today--and you can hear the ocean across the pond. I'm hoping this year is a lot more manageable--last year the kids just careened around the place, which is encircled by poison ivy-infested brush, with no ability to process verbal warnings of danger, etc. So I never sat down, basically. This year, I'm hoping to sit down at least occasionally.

I'm bringing my wheel, but not my dyeing stuff. I think it will be nice to spin by candlelight like my ancestors did (of course, they probably went blind that way, huh?). I'm bringing Zeus--trying to get back to it. That's what I want to concentrate on, so I stay somewhat consistent! For knitting, I'll be bringing my diagonal progression sweater that was on hold for 3 years (it was knitted primarily in IVF waiting rooms, now it just needs to be finished). I hope to be able to wear it when I return. Also Eleanor's Haiku, which is looking great, and I expect to have that finished too, since it's taking no time to knit and I think I have enough spun to finish both sleeves. Finally, I have a t-top I'm making out of that Berroco seconds yarn (sorry no links but I am in a rush) for Rhys. Just in case I finish all the rest of those and have nothing else to do. :) Oh, and a pair of socks that have been my "throw in the purse" project for about 2 years now. They're inches away from completion too.

I want to start some solstice knitting, but with all these half-finished projects, I have forbidden myself from starting anything new. However, I think I will be warming feet with felted booties this winter. Hopefully I'll get back with a few FOs to report and be ready to start some solstice knitting.

Have a great week!

2004-08-27T10:46:00.000-04:00

Warning: Sad (death mentioned)

A long-time buddy from the boards is facing the hardest thing in the world. Saying goodbye to her baby. Katie lost Emma at 21+ weeks, then kept her other two triplets, Becca and Louie, in for another two weeks to make it to 23 weeks, at which point they will do NICU care (as opposed to hospice care, which is what they do earlier). Becca went through a lot, but she made it. She is home, still on 02, but expected to be fine. Louie was not so lucky. He has been through everything--surgeries for ROP and NEC, countless intubations and transfusions, and a week ago they told Katie that his heart was enlarged and he would not survive the cardiac arrests that were imminent. They put a DNR on him and they are planning to remove life support so he can say goodbye without tubes and monitors, next week. Katie is such a wonderful person, and she and her family have been through hell with all this. More than most of us can even imagine.

I'm not blogging about this just to talk though. I want to ask anyone who reads this who wants to, to join in a "prayer meeting" our playgroup is doing. You can light an online candle for Louie. I think seeing all the candles dedicated to her and her little boy will really mean a lot to Katie.

Here are the instructions from the playgroup:

If you would like to light a virtual candle for Louie, go to this link and follow the instructions –except - where it says to enter your initials, put in the name LOUIE – you can sign your name in the dedication –there are over a 1000 candles on this site so this way we can find which candles are our Louie candles. You also will get a mini-candle to keep on your desktop. The candles burn for two days and you can go back and light as many as you wish. http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/enter.cfm

Thanks.

2004-08-23T11:02:00.000-04:00

Serious: Disturbing Neighbors and Shoe Shopping

First, the seriously disturbing neigbors. I should begin by describing my neighborhood. I live on a quiet street in Florence, Mass., part of Northampton, which has become chi-chi in the last 20-30 years. Northampton has always been a little bit cool, right back to Jonathan Edwards (no, not that one) and Sojourner Truth , and of course Smith College has always been here. But my street has largely escaped the influx of "those out-of-town vegetarians" as those of us lobbying for a domestic partnership ordinance about 10 years back were called. Our neighbors, aside from, inexplicably, being almost exclusively named Joe, have been very nice and friendly. We bought the house from the daughter of our across the street neighbors (nice Joe and Gloria), and despite the fact that we stuck it to them big-time on the purchase price, they've been wonderful to us and the kids love them. They even let us swim in their above-ground pool whenever we want.

Across the street is the republican neighbor, who tends toward crankiness and is actually not named Joe, but instead, John, but who has recently taken to giving us tomatoes instead of berating us about voting against property tax increases (sorry John).

Then there is Joe and Lucille from down the street. This is the, excuse me for being horribly politically incorrect, but this is the WT house on the block. You know, a nice collection of rusted automotive equipment, semi-annual lawn-mowing schedule, dogs barking, dentally challenged...most neighborhoods have one.

This presence of WT-ness *really* bothers the other Joes on the block, and particularly bothers John. Joe and Lucille, as it turns out, are actually brother and sister (Gloria explained this to us) and have lived in that house since childhood. Lucille has a son via adoption (I believe as a single parent), who is a young teen and has autism. John constantly accuses this kid of pulling his fence down. John is somewhat obsessed with this fence business--I'm not sure if the kid is responsible or not, since John seems somewhat irrational about the whole thing.

The other day, we were taking the kids and dogs for a walk (quite an undertaking), when Joe (WT Joe) corners Rhys in the driveway. I continued on with the kids, but it turns out that Joe wanted to tell Rhys that the neighbors (John et al) had called the health department on him and Lucille, saying that they had rats in their yard and the house was unfit for habitation. I feel pretty neutral on this issue. Based on what I hear and see, this family is hanging on by a thread, and if there's any chance they can get some social work support or even just a wake-up call through the health department coming in and writing them up, then great. But really, I don't care if their lawn is waist-high--it gives the neighbors something else to focus on when they get grumpy about lawnmowing frequency.

So last night, we're having company for dinner when WT Joe knocks on the door. He tells me it was the kid's birthday and they made a cake, and not as many people came as they expected, so he wanted to know if we wanted some. I thanked him, invited him in (he declined) and shut the door. Frankly, with the whole health department/rats thing, I wasn't so sure I wanted something from their kitchen, so we debated it around the table for a few minutes and entertained our guests with the crazy neighborhood saga.

Then it got really weird. Lucille knocked on the door a few minutes later. She said that she was cutting up the cake and she found A RAZOR BLADE in it, and she wanted to let us know because she was worried that there might be more razor blades in the cake and she wanted to warn us.

What do you say to that? Well, I said, "Wow, I'm so sorry that happened. Why don't I just give the cake back to you." She agreed immediately.

So of course we discussed this to death: was there REALLY a razor blade inside this homemade chocolate birthday cake and if so WHO THE HECK put it there and isn't that a little TOO urban legend to be true? And if there wasn't really a razor blade in the cake and she just wanted the cake back because perhaps WT Joe had given it away without her approval, wow, how crazy is that to think that it would be easier to say "hey, there's a razor blade in there, better give it back" than to say "you know, Joe didn't check with me before giving the cake away, and I had promised the kid some, yada yada, you haven't eaten it yet have you, would you mind?"

I'm not sure which one I think is more disturbing. But it doesn't make me overly excited about the WT house, and while republican John seems pretty wacky, if I had to take sides right now....

Anyway, my instinct was not to eat the cake to begin with--good evidence to listen to your instincts, huh?

As for serious shoes, I just got THREE pairs of shoes from Sierra Trading Post, including Ariat mules for $30, and Wolky sandals for $50. The other was a pair of closed-back clogs for $50. That was a big pile of money to drop in about 5 mintues, but they're going to be great, and I seriously need to go throw away a bunch of really comfy shoes that I have worn down to the soles.

2004-08-21T21:28:00.000-04:00

Too Many Tomatoes

Did I mention I was getting tomatoes yesterday? Yes. I did. The farm share was 12 tomatoes. Our republican neighbor gave us 4 earlier in the week. We had a couple left over from last week. Then I got home to 18 tomatoes, and the republican gave us another half-dozen. (Tomatoes, sure; civil rights, not so much.) Yes, 24 tomatoes. And some of them were HUGE, like 3/4 of a pound each.

So I had to make something besides salad with tomatoes for dinner. Here's what I did--I'm pretty pleased with it.

2 lg cloves fresh garlic, coarsely chopped
2 (or so) tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1.5 lbs tomatoes, cored, not seeded or peeled (too lazy), and very coarsely chopped
1/2 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
cooked "fat" pasta

Saute garlic in olive oil over medium heat until slightly softened, but not browned. Add tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Let tomatoes soften and simmer until some of the liquid evaporates, but the tomatoes still look "fresh," about 10 minutes. Add basil and heavy cream, simmer about 3 minutes more to let cream thicken sauce a little. Stir in salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta. Serve. Tres yummy, and just what the doctor ordered in August. We used leftover pasta with no problem

Thanks for the comments on the last post, despite the lack of consensus, LOL. I think everyone is right--it's a little one, a little two. Now that I'm in major problem-solving mode, I'm really feeling like the violence is attention-seeking. It stinks because they really get quite a lot of attention as it is. I do need to be able to unload the dishwasher or go to the bathroom and at 2.5, that's not an unreasonable expectation (as it is at 6 months with twins I'm sorry to say). So I need to work on this. Even though it's a tough thing, I'm glad to have a concrete issue to work with. But I had to get the theory out of the way first, LOL.

Ever hear that joke about the Frenchman who was talking to an engineer who was describing some great breakthrough he had achieved, which had recently been successful in the field? The Frenchman said, "it sounds great in practice, but it will never work in theory." I'm a little like that, I need to know my theoretical framework before I can attack a problem, even if the theory really doesn't mean squat. Sara will understand this one, I just know it. But I'd love to hear more thoughts on the bodhisattva vs. wildebeest concept.

I have a fibery post in the offing, I swear. I am amazed that anyone but me is interested in talking about infertility, parenting, AND fiber. Kinda cool.

2004-08-20T13:52:00.000-04:00

When I said things were heating up at work, I wasn't kidding. I've been pretty much swamped. I'm taking a break from creating a survey using Survey Monkey. It's a great service, though a goofy name. I will probably use them as my main online survey provider, but ugh, can you see it: "well, big snooty hospital/university/corporation, I'm so glad you're willing to pay me large sums of money to do your online survey. Please direct your browsers to surveymonkey.com, so we can review the instrument." Sigh. Ah well. This is the 21st century, and goofy online business names are part of the drill, I suppose.

In addition to things heating up at work, they've been pretty hot at home too. I've been really struggling. I think toddler parenting is not my forte. I'm trying to accept this. I feel like I've been rather an overachiever at parenting so far, in my own way, never letting my kids CIO to sleep, extended nursing, and generally doing a pretty good job of being the kind of parent I imagined myself being. But I'm yelling a lot more than I'm comfortable with. I had a kind of come-to-Jesus meeting with myself about it the other night. I need to get a grip, remember that the people who are driving me up a wall are TWO, and do my best not to yell. Not expecting perfection, mind you, just trying to make life a little more livable for myself and the kids. In order to have any hope of accomplishing this, I need a major attitude adjustment.

OK, so the easy part is reminding myself of their developmental level. All of a sudden lately, they are speaking so clearly and articulately, that it's hard to remember that they are really still babies. When someone says to you, "mama, can I have corn holders please for my corn" at the dinner table, it's hard to turn around, when you've searched the kitchen and are unable to find them, to discover that that very same person has thrown himself on the ground and is kicking and screaming and throwing his dinner all over the room because HE REALLY WANTED CORN HOLDERS AND YOU HAVE RUINED HIS LIFE BY NOT DELIVERING THEM. I always think of toddlerhood and teendom as similar stages, and this is a perfect example. Just like teens who can act and sound and look like full-fledged adults one minute, but then want to play video games and sleep with a teddy bear the next minute, these kids are only playing preschoolers on TV--they're actually at least 60% still babies. I need to lower my expectations for their behavior a LOT. I think I can do this.

Then comes the harder part. I need to figure out how I am going to deal with defiance, violence, and general difficult behavior. I'm not talking "no, I don't want to put my shoes on right now" (though that happens ALL the time), I'm talking hitting, biting, throwing heavy objects at people's heads. I've gone back to my parenting books (which I kind of gave up on for a while, feeling like trying their techniques was NOT helping me, see a mom of twins' a funny article about parenting books here) to get an attitude adjustment. My break helped me see the issue: there are two basic schools of thought about toddlers.

Toddlers have a basic desire to please you and to participate positively in family life, but they are frequently overwhelmed by emotion and normal developmental challenges, which spills over into tantrums and defiance. Parents need to coach their toddlers to deal with behavior problems and act a trusted allies in "emotion coaching" (term from Kurcinka), to raise responsible and empathic adults.
Toddlers are untamed humans who need to be firmly guided into an understanding of social norms, as well as made to expand their awareness of needs to include the rest of the world, instead of just them. Tantrums are a normal course of the painful and difficult process of letting go of a completely self-centered world-view, and parents need to kindly but firmly enforce family and social expectations, such as manners, to raise responsible and empathic adults.

Do ya see my problem? Frankly, both of these world-views make a heck of a lot of sense to me, and if I had my druthers, I would really like to believe number 1. I would really like to believe that my kids, in fact, everyone's kids, were born with a strong core desire to do good and to happily work with their families for the greater good. However, experience is starting to make me feel more like number 2 is a better description of reality.

Deciding whether I believe 1 or 2 is a huge issue for me. It means the difference between verbal and physical redirection and time-outs. It determines how I approach the day, how much I work to mold the world and our family to their moods and desires and how much I use "tough love" to teach that "if you're feeling screamy, you stay alone in the living room while the rest of us eat dinner," instead of one of us going with Screamy to play in the playroom. And I so want to believe 1. And I think 1 might help me be less yelly, though it won't help with burnout, which I concede is a big part of my yellyness.

My mom says that not only do I not yell too much, but I don't yell enough. She has told me, and this has been echoed by quite a few other people, mostly of her generation, something along the lines of "they will keep pushing your buttons until they find one that works. When you respond relatively calmly to everything, you aren't showing them where the limits are." I do think we have plenty of limits (perhaps, if I listen to 1., too many, and we're not setting them up for success). And my mom is not someone anyone, including her by her own admission, would hold up as a parenting genius. How many thousands of dollars have I spent on therapy to work through her parenting? But it's not just her, I have heard this from quite a few people when I gently but firmly say "no, we do not hit," and gently redirect the hand. The alternative--grabbing the hitting hand and dragging the offender to the corner and yelling "NO HITTING!" doesn't seem like such a great alternative, but I admit that in moments of frustration, that's what I've done. And at 2.5, the number of moments of frustration is increasing.

So I don't know. I have to keep thinking, and keep watching my kids to decide whether I have baby bodhisattvas or young wildebeests. Either way, I need to get a grip on the yelling, and I'm working on that. I need to sleep more, and I need to take breaks even though I feel like we are already separated too much with me working 3 days a week.

I dunno. The main thing I need to do now it to get to my CSA and pick up my share for the week. Can you say TOMATOES!

2004-08-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been a blogging slacker. I *sniff* returned my wheel! And I have gone for two WHOLE days without spinning. We went to Maine last weekend, and I didn't bring my wheel on that trip either. So it has been a strangely spin-less week around here. I did take the kids to Webs on the way home from work Tuesday (BTW, the renovation looks fabulous) to return the wheel, and I told them I was going to try to buy another wheel when we were there. They said they wanted spinning wheels too. Eleanor, surprisingly enough, would like a PINK spinning wheel (or "pinning wheel" as she says), and Henry, not to be outdone in the gender conformity department, has requested a blue spinning wheel. So, I've got the order in now. I'm going to Webs tonight for the knitting drop-in, and Barbara, the owner, says she'll have a Lendrum set up for me to try. If I like it, I'll buy it. If not, I have another scheme up my sleeve to get a Louet, but it will take a while, probably so long that I won't be able to spin anything for the Big E.

There has been a bit of a discussion about entering spinning in fairs on the Spin List, and I mentioned the Big E, thereby garnering lots of competition for myself, LOL. I may end up delivering and/or picking up skeins for some of that competition, grin. The nice thing is that they have a beginner's class for spinning, so that makes me more inclined to try it out. I have mixed feelings about entering my spinning for competition. It sounds like fun, and it would be a treat if I won a ribbon, and the feedback might be useful from an instructional perspective, but I'm not sure that's how I want to see my spinning. I'm not sure the technical side, particularly in the finished product (as opposed to learning techniques that might make it easier to work creatively), is what I'm after. I'm not sure that anyone else's opinions about my yarn matter--it's whether *I* like the yarn and whether *I* am inspired by it. Of course, if I ever get to a point where I want to sell my handspun yarn, but honestly I don't see that being any kind of big business for me.

I'm also thinking of doing the Spinning Bee, which seems like a lot of fun, but I'm worried that it will be only experienced folks who are "speed spinners" and it will be embarrassing to be a newbie doing it. OTOH, I think the kids would get a big kick out of watching me participate, and it would be fun as long as it's a mellow, fun kind of thing. Well, in the meantime, I need to actually get my hands on a wheel, or I won't have anything to show!

As for knitting, I'm finishing up a sweater from an old issue of Interweave Knits. I lost the magazine, and I wasn't even sure how the neck should look. Luckily, I was saved by my buddies on GLB-Knit and Spin-List and I now have copies of the pattern (which, I think, should be legal since I did pay for the pattern in the first place). Turns out it's a 2x2-rib mock turtleneck. I am glad I used the yarn I did--a 50-50 alpaca/wool (I'm pretty sure--also no labels to be found!), which is very soft. The original pattern is for a mohair blend, but I think that might not be so nice next to your neck all day. Anyway, I'm really excited about it. Too bad it's hot as blazes outside! :)

Work is really heating up these days. I've got a bunch of tight deadlines, so perhaps less time for blogging in the next few weeks. But I'll try to take pictures of anything I knit in the wee hours!

2004-08-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

Blogging. Right. Hello again!

Wow, August is insanely busy. It's always like this, but I retain this idea of lazy summer days. Sure, between cramming in vacations, visits, celebrations, and oh yeah, all the "gotta do before the school year starts" stuff at work. Sigh.

Coming back from our vacation has been hard. Sheba, my 12-year-old dog, is not doing terribly well, and having been away for a week made me realize, frankly, how much I resent it. I feel terrible about it, but there's already a lot of cleaning up of bodily fluids in my life, and it's hard to have more, that's all. We're sticking with her and giving her the old age she deserves, but it's just hard.

The kids have had a hard adjustment. They love daycare, but they'd rather be home with the moms, and the feeling is mutual. So there have been a lot of tantrums about going to school in the morning. In the midst of all this, I got a freelance project I bid on (it's actually for my current employer), so that means even more to do in August and September, and I'll need to figure out extra child care. We're hoping Rhys can take some time. They would all love that, and so would I.

So, after being away last week, then staying over at Nana's on Wednesday, we're off to Maine for the weekend. We're staying in a tiny house with like 7 other people. It should be very, very interesting. I am bringing my credit card in case we need to find a Super 8 motel at the last minute.

Hopefully more, with pics, next week.

2004-08-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

Neeext...

I actually mixed the dyes and painted this by moonlight, if you can believe it! This, hopefully, will be my birthday present for MIL. It's plain "domestic wool" roving in the center, and the two silk caps are in back. I haven't spun this up yet (it's actually not totally dry yet).

2004-08-01T00:13:00.000-04:00

My stuff (some of the stuff in the previous pics was Sara's) all spun up! L to R: dark blue/red/purple silk hankie navajo plied; rainbow hankie navajo plied; blue-dominated rainbow wool thick-thin singles; "use up the mixed dyes" singles, silk singles painted in the yarn.

2004-08-01T00:11:00.000-04:00

Dyed rovings/silk drying after being rinsed out (not a drop of dye came out when I rinsed them--amazing!)

2004-08-01T00:07:00.000-04:00

Close-ups of the dyed (wet) rovings and silk caps and hankies. The green/blue/yellow roving in the middle was painted by Sara's 7-year-old DD, Hannah.

2004-08-01T00:05:00.000-04:00

Our dyeing setup. We did all this on the front step of the rental house so we wouldn't make a mess on someone else's property. The whole thing went off without a single spot of dye on a single inch of formica or ceramic, thank goodness!

2004-07-31T02:08:00.000-04:00

FO! Rhys went right to bed when we got home (she drove the whole way, plus she packed the car while I took the kids to the beach), so I didn't have anyone to take a pic of me wearing it, so this is what we have for now. But I wanted to show it off ASAP.

2004-07-31T02:05:00.000-04:00

Just back from vacation. Wonderful time, pictures to come. We went to the Adirondacks with Sara and family. We had a blast. Terry and I have decided that Eleanor is a clone of Hannah. It's truly scary, as is the hero worship going on as El follows Hannah around the house, doing absolutely everything that Hannah does.

Am, for some reason, polishing off half-bottle of white wine that has been languishing in the fridge in our absence. Dogs and cat seem to be feeling especially neglected, but otherwise healthy and generally gleaming thanks to the kind ministrations of Loren, our housesitter and erstwhile babysitter. Am relatively tipsy thanks to wine.

Must take self to bed and sleep this off. Much spinning and knitting was done during vacation, including a tragic mishap related to miscalculation in spin-knit-spin approach, which I confess I was warned about. Result: one half of sweater is about a size 3T, other half is, I dunno, maybe 5 or 6? All this is due to spinning the fiber in different batches and having it become increasingly thick as I went along. Not, not, not good. Ironically, if I had made the sweater in pieces instead of using the side-to-side Knitty Haiku pattern, I wouldn't be in such a pickle.

Photos of the gory details will also be forthcoming, as much as I would like to hide said object in a closet with all my knitting failures (such a closet does exist in my house) and forget about it. Instead I have devised a plan which involves CUTTING said sweater in two (one half with one gauge and one half with the other--see I told you it was bad) and then picking up and knitting (after spinning) each one into two different sweaters in two different sizes.

In better news, I have FINISHED shapely! After much worry that it would be too small, it fits wonderfully, if a teeny bit tight around the bust. I won't be nursing twins forever (though there are days I don't believe it) so hopefully the E cup short-rows will fit for the long term. The alternative would have involved darts that met in the middle and crossed, LOL, so I wasn't about to do that.

I seamed the damn thing in the car on the way home. Remember how I said I had gotten over my aversion to seaming? No, I just hadn't done it in a while for more than 2 inches at a time. Yep, still hate it. Glad I had a long car ride in which to do it! Making next project in the round. I think I'll join the scrap along.

Sara and I did some dyeing on vacation (and I am proud to say that we did not damage the vacation house in any way, shape, or form). I'm still experimenting and learning, so I'm doing about a yard or two of roving at a time, which spins up into about 60 meters of singles yarn. So I'm generating "scraps" at a rapid clip. I think they will add some great interest to a scrap sweater, though. Dyeing went great, and it's quite easy. Now that I have some stock solutions made up, it's something I can easily do in a couple hours after the kids go to bed, especially if I set up a table for it in the basement. Last night, in fact, I started dyeing at the beginning of Kerry's speech, and finished steaming before midnight! The main thing I learned is that it is okay if it looks kind of dark and muddy when it's wet--it lightens up considerably when dry.

Really must sleep. More, including a deluge of cute kid pics, tomorrow (if the posse allows me any computer time, that is).

2004-07-22T14:48:00.000-04:00

I should probably explain the BIW thing, since I've been referring to her liberally in the comments on Karen's blog. BIW stands for Bitter Infertile Woman. She's a superhero that some friends from the old ParentsPlace IF board (iVillage basically destroyed those boards--most of them went to N54 and The Parent Perspective) and I created to help us through the nightmare of infertility, recurrent miscarriage, and treatment. We were sick of trying to relax, stay positive, count our blessings, and say "it's no big deal" like everyone tried to tell us to do, so we decided to embrace our inner BIW, and we created a private email loop where we were free to be as bitter as we wanted to be. I am so grateful for those women--we were each others' lifeline during that time, and I don't know where I'd be without them. When you're in the thick of it, it seems like nobody understands. And in a way, nobody does. Even now, when I read blogs like Karen's and Tertia's, while I can relate to what they're going through, I can't feel it.

The hardest part for me back then was not knowing how the story ends. Not knowing if I would have to face the worst news of all, that I would have to stop without a baby, that the process would break me down so far that I would not be fit to parent, that donor egg wouldn't work, that I would be rejected by the adoption homestudy because I had literally gone insane from the pain and the stress and the devastation of it all. I know that sounds crazy, but there were times when I thought: this is how it happens--this is how normal, functioning people end up in institutions. I had clients when I worked in mental health who had held down jobs, even had families. This is the kind of thing that breaks people, or at least that was my fear at the time (it doesn't help that my mom had a psychotic break around the same age I was when I was going through IF).

I always said, if I just knew that it would end well, that I would have a baby in my arms at the end of all this, then maybe I'd be a little pissed at how long it's taking and how much crap I have to go through for it, but I'd really be okay. But not knowing that, not knowing if it would ever work, if the hole in my heart would ever be filled, that was where the incredible pain and terror came from.

So now that I know my own happy ending, I can sympathize and I can hope and wish (I am not so sure about praying, see this and this for an absolutely gorgeous discussion of why), but I can't be there again. Not that I'd want to, god knows, but I'm glad these folks have each other, and I'm glad I had Gina and Giz and Anne and Hope and Dawn and D. And I'm glad we had BIW.

That was the point of this post, wasn't it, to explain who BIW is. She's a superhero in charge of protecting the infertile from dorky, stupid, useless, idiotic, horrible, rude, intrusive, misinformed, and obnoxious comments and attitudes of DFDs, or Damn Fertile Dorks. She often takes the guise of a Xena-like character, wielding an ultrasound probe and an intramuscular needle charged with progesterone in oil. We prefer to refer to her actions as "smiting" other people, in the vein of this comic Giz frequently cited while experiencing recurrent early miscarriages. But BIW usually just smites the DFDs with harmless annoyances of life--despite our deep anger, we IF folks don't really want bad things to happen to the DFDs. We just want them to be a little less smug about it. BIW is also really good at reminding us to allow ourselves to be as bitter as we wanna be. For a long time in there, I was constantly trying to relax and improve my attitude and get HAPPY so that it would a) make me pregnant, magically, just like the DFDs said it would and b) make me feel less like a bitter, dried up old hag (at 30, mind you). BIW is glorious in her bitterness--she's mad, she has progesterone, and she's not afraid to use it!

So anyway, BIW is out there cheering on those who are fighting for what they deserved to have without a fight. She'll be there to defend you from DFDs who have stupid advice to give you. She's got Infertile Myrtle's back. She is grieving with those who are climbing out of the depths of despair. I still call on her from time to time, when people say "double trouble," or ask if I "took something" to get twins or when other twin moms brag about how "natural" their children are (yes, mine are made entirely of petroleum products and cellophane).

So BIW lives...rock on, BIW.

2004-07-20T22:59:00.000-04:00

Silk on the niddy noddy.

2004-07-20T22:58:00.000-04:00

Haiku fiber on the bobbin. The guide yarn, from the last batch, is hanging from the whoosis (I didn't study my course materials on spinning wheel parts!) below the flyer.

2004-07-20T22:57:00.000-04:00

Same fiber, different colorway for Henry's Haiku.

2004-07-20T22:54:00.000-04:00

The rest of the combed top fiber for Eleanor's Haiku.

2004-07-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

Here is the first half of the body of Haiku. The photo is a little washed out, but you get the idea. It is SOOO soft.

2004-07-20T13:08:00.000-04:00

A dose of fiber for the day....

This post would be much better with photos, but we'll have to wait until a couple of somebody's are in bed for that. But I'll tell you...I suppose the exchange is a thousand words for each picture, right? Sit back... ;)

Okay, so I started Haiku with the fervor of a zealot. I let Rhys chase the kids, I knit in the car, at the playground, while chatting with friends, etc. I am using the heather/tweedy purple merino top that started out as a sample pack item from Webs, and then I trotted out to get more of it as soon as I spun it up. It's yummy. My initial idea was socks, but it was too soft and satiny for feet (I know, true socknitters will be offended, but there you have it). But this seemed great. I have about 5 oz., knitting up at 4 sts/in in stockinette, 4.5 in garter. That amount got me almost exactly halfway through the body. So I got another 8 oz. of the purple, and got Henry to choose between a greenish and a blue heathered top for his sweater and got him about 14 oz. of that. He chose the blue without a second thought, by the way--my guy knows his mind!

So now I'm back to spinning the stuff and I really have my work cut out for me. I'm a little worried about matching the gauge the second time around. I am not worried about perfection--there's plenty of thick and thin in that yarn anyway, but it would be bad if it was consistent within itself, but at a larger or smaller gauge, you know? I posted a thread about whether it is better to spin-spin-spin-knit-knit-knit or spin-knit-spin-knit-spin-knit on spindlers, and it looks like I'm going to see if I can do the latter successfully right now. And forget that other project (Zeus)--I haven't touched that in a week with all this other stuff I have going on. I'll be lucky if Zeus gets done before 2005 the way I'm distracting myself these days.

The only good thing about running out of the purple merino is it forced me to get back to Shapley. I put in some good work on that project in the car going back and forth from Rhys' mom's house this Sunday and Monday. I'm almost finished with the increases on the back. I have to be sure to remember *not* to put the short rows on the back, though the idea makes me think of some kind of Hindu goddess of breastfeeding multiples, you know, with boobs on both the back and the front. That would definitely come in handy for the days when they keep trying to kill each other while nursing!

I finished the silk cap I started on my last class, and I put it on the niddy noddy last night. My niddy noddy, oddly, seems to measure out to 62 inches or so, which is 10 inches shy of 2 yards, which is just weird. Anyway, I tried to count it but lost track at 100 wraps when Rhys asked me a question. (Note: I didn't kill her. I deserve credit for this.) I think I was less than halfway through, so that's a lot of (very thin) silk. I had an idea that I'd ply it with alpaca and then paint the two together for MIL, but I'm not sure I can spin the alpaca that small and I don't think it would work well as a wrap.

Maybe I'll give it a try, but I'm LOVING knitting with the handspun merino top, and it's hard to tear myself away from spinning more of it. Forget about my mom's soy silk. Honestly, spinning silk is so much easier, I'm a little spoiled for the nice vegan stuff. Ah well, I'll get back to it eventually, I'm sure.

2004-07-20T11:26:00.000-04:00

What a great weekend! We had a lovely time with Giz and family visiting. Giz is an old buddy who I went through IVF with. We once even miscarried on the same day. Isn't that special? We both wound up having twins on our fourth fresh IVF attempts; hers were born 8 months before mine, as she was always ahead of me in the process by a couple of tries.

I haven't seen the boys since they were 4 months old, and she had never met my two, since she had moved out of state shortly after my two were born. But she came up for the weekend with the guys, and it was so wonderful to see them. They're the kind of people you really want to live next door to. So fun, down-to-earth, non-snobby, smart, fun, and sincere. Rhys didn't know Giz that well before (our friendship was largely online--she was an original BIW), but she loved them just as much as I do. It was a wonderful visit.

Rhys and I had a chat after they left about how watching Giz (and DH, Gizmo, not their real names, LMBO), was really good for us. We learned a thing or two, and they helped me, at least for the moment, get over my mean mom phase. I think they helped the kids check their tantrums a bit too--it's always good to have the influence of slightly older kids around. Being with Giz and watching her with her boys reminded me to stop trying to do so much when I'm with them, and to try to be more collaborative with them in finding solutions.

I think I came into it all with such high hopes, and then we had such severe biting, etc. problems so early (around 12 months), that all my high ideals about working with the kids, talking things through, and helping them find a solution that works for them, kind of went out the window because NONE of those things work to help stop a 12-month-old biting. Really, I'm here to tell ya, I tried them all. So I sort of gave up on all that and became much more authoritarian than I would have liked. It was the right thing to do at the time, but they are so much more verbal and able to understand things now, and I think some of the tantrums we've been going through lately are a matter of them telling me that they're ready to participate more in discipline. I've had a lot of luck with giving choices and talking things through, whereas as little as a few months ago those things only fed the fire of the tantrum or aggressive behavior. We'll see how it goes when I'm solo on Wednesday and trying to do laundry and housework (though time with Giz reminded me that even at this age, when there are two, you really can't get much housework done except when they're sleeping).

Anyway, they're awesome role models for us, and I'm really glad she got pg first so I can learn from her and not feel like a total dork that she's so much better at this than I am (ok, so I do feel like kind of a dork, but I can rationalize it, which is good).

Back to work. A colleague/friend of mine who's an economist is going to come over this week and make sure I don't hurt anyone while trying to do regression analysis, a tool which I am entirely unqualified to use. I'd better put away the nice easy qualitative project I was supposed to be working on and get down to remembering what the heck that data set was all about.

2004-07-20T11:14:00.000-04:00

Sara wasn't sure how to make her image clickable. I thought I'd help her out, and why not, while we're at it, make it so nobody has to click? Hmmm?

Mild-mannered professor-mom by day....spinning skating superhero by night!

2004-07-16T15:14:00.000-04:00

Last spinning class last night. Boo hoo. Sniff sniff. I am going to see if I can keep my rental wheel until the Lendrums come in. I'm happy to pay for another month of rental if I can apply it to the cost of the new wheel.

The teacher suggested we try a new fiber so that we can get help during the last class. So I bought a silk cap and tried that. What fun! It was initially hard to draft, but once she told me that I had to really fan out the fibers before starting to spin, I had no problem and it just trucked along. So now I have another UFO. I think my plan is this: I'm going to spin the rest of the cap, ply it, then dye/paint it when we do our dye project on vacation (I've ordered a starter kit and plan to have a day of dyeing when we're vacationing with Sara and family). Then the YARN, not a FO, or perhaps I should say, not a FKO, will be my birthday present for MIL, who is a knitter herself. Pretty neat trick, huh? Of course, that's only if I can restrain myself from starting this with it.

In other news, the merino top that had originally been intended for socks, but turned out too soft and probably a bit too chunky (4 sts/in in stst) for socks is now destined to be...haiku, a cuff-to-cuff cardigan for a kid!

And a good day's work was had by all. Oh yeah, I also finished a timeline for the end of my grant (for someone who's ready to move on, it was a bit wistful), started a focus group report, and initiated a major data request, so it wasn't all surfing around for knitting patterns and daydreaming about spinning, I promise!

Photo of silk on the bobbin to come, probably later in the weekend since we're having Giz and her family over for an overnight visit! Can't wait to see them, so I'm outta here...

2004-07-15T15:38:00.000-04:00

I've been morbidly fascinated by the google ads that show up on my blog over time. But the "Support RNC Victory" one has got to go. Disgusting! Except...actually...it occurs to me that if you CLICK on it, they'll have to PAY for it! OOOOH...better include more references to George Bush, the miserable failure and John McCain. For the fun of it, maybe I'll include one to Rick Santorum (don't click on this one if you are easily offended). Click away, my friends, click away...

2004-07-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

This is what I needed to wave under the noses of all the people who offered stupid advice while we were TTC. Well, in retrospect, I suppose that kicking them in the shins worked equally well....