Monthly Archives: February 2009

Nice

I love winter. But I hate the thawing season, the season where a perfectly dry set of steps suddenly becomes the stoop of death as you walk to your car. At 7am in the morning, when you know it’s glare ice and you need to be really careful, but you’re carrying your lunch, breast pump, tote bag, computer, two boxes to get shipped at the PO, and your coffee, it seriously sucks. It sucks even more so when you then fall, pull a muscle so badly that it leaves you in tears on the back steps for a few minutes until you finally realize that no one in the house can hear you, so you drag yourself to the door get helped inside and assess the damage.

The damage seems to be that I’ve pulled or torn the muscle on top of my thigh (what’s that called?) so badly that I can barely walk. Ibuprofen and ice have dampened the pain enough that now I can sit here, bored and hurting, being tweaked that I’ve got to miss a day of work and trying the get the boys to not touch Mommy.

This is what sucks about teaching. I could sit here and type all day long but no way can I teach. And when I only work two and a half days a week, a day out means I’m even more behind on fixing the broken violins, making copies, planning curriculum and the other million things I need to do that I can’t do from home since I don’t have my stuff. Plus my kids now miss music this week, which they already basically missed for nearly four months since the sub I had was not a musician. Needless to say, I am not a happy mama this morning. Because not only is the work issue a pain, but not being able to walk when you have three young boys is not easy. Thank goodness the Skeptic is home on my work days, but still. Not easy.

So anyway, as I sit here bored and hurting I will at least show off a few FO’s in the knitting department. I’ve got lots to update including WIP’s and some cool spinning, but then this post would be a book. So we’ll keep it to FO’s today.

First up:
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This is Spinner modeling the handspun hat I gave to my friend Rebecca a few weeks go at her shower. This was some merino, dyed in fours separate rovings that I plied together. The pattern is simply a basic hat with a purl row before I did the decreases. Sadly it was not blocked since I finished it ten minutes before I had to leave, but she’s a knitter so she understood.

Next up, Little Man’s John Deere mittens. He picked the colors himself, because John Deere tractors rule and since he is a farm deprived city kid, he’s got to get his farm fix somehow. So he wears a green uniform most of the time, mittens included.
Checkered Mittens

This pattern was from Kristin Nichols’ book, Kristin Knits and is called Checks and Dots. If you’ve never tried fair isle before this pattern would be a great first project. I used good old Lamb’s Pride for this one. And yes, that is a mistake.

My Ubernatural is done, but awaits buttons, so you’ll have to wait too!

In the meantime I’ll be sitting in this rocker, knitting my newest project and hoping I’ll be on my feet again soon. If anyone has suggestions on healing up, let me know. I’ve never had an injury like this and still can’t get over how much this hurts. Yikes!

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Filed under finished objects, handspun, hats, random

Calorimetry Part Two

I almost had to Kinnear him.
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But he did consent to this picture of the mop of hair neatly under control in his mutt of a Calorimetry. I wish you could see the mess of hair that emerges from it. As I predicted, he did emit a “hmmm” when he unwrapped it and I had to explain what exactly it was, but he’s been wearing it ever since.

In the meantime, I was extremely spoiled this year for Valentine’s Day:
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That beautiful Lazy Kate?? He MADE it for me!! I am a lucky girl. It took the inaugural run today and it works so much better than the built in on my Traveller.

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Filed under family, finished objects, giving, handspun

This is either really ugly or really cool…

When I met the Skeptic way back in college, he had long hair. And I men really long, curly, down to the waist kind of long. Gorgeous, gorgeous hair. As the years went on he cut it shorter, and shorter and one day it was gone. He had a regular guy haircut which has pretty much stuck around the last decade or so.

However, he seems to have developed some sort of haircut phobia lately and has been letting it get longer in between trims. Longer in a sort of “I’m planning on auditioning for the next Jane Austen movie” sort of way. And I like it. A LOT. He knows this, so despite the fact that he keeps complaining it’s in his face he’s been keeping it long, partly for me and partly for his salonaphobia*.

He’s dealt with the hair-in-the-face thing by wearing his cowl up around his head like a headband when he’s in the house. This does this trick, but then it gets too stretched out and bunches up at the back of his head. So I though of the perfect Valentines’ Day gift for him. A guy Calorimetry! Something to keep those nice curls out of his eyes so he doesn’t give in and go get a haircut.

Here’s the result:

(I like how it’s smiling)

with flash:
Calorimetry

without:
Calorimetry

The choice is, and you may be quite honest here….
A) It’s a really nice Calorimetry.
B) It looks like it had the potential to be a nice Calorimetry, but it looks like I ran out of Noro #1, found some more Noro scraps in the closet, ran out of that, and finished it off with a a few rows of tweed.

He’s getting it no matter what, as he wears everything I knit for him whether he likes it or not. He will either love it, or he’ll say, “Hmmm, that’s an interesting mix of colors there, Bec.” And then he’ll wear it all day long because he knows I worked hard on it. He’s very sweet that way. So I can give him ugly knitting if need be. Or maybe it’s not ugly. I can’t decide.

Well, ugly knitting or not, I hope you all had a happy Valentine’s Day today! We’re celebrating tomorrow as the poor Skeptic is currently suffering through some miserable gig at a VFW right now. And I’m off to watch Dr. Who and knit my Ubernatural now that my Valentine’s prep for tomorrow is done.

*A combination of a hatred for making appointments, being too cheap to pay for it, and a string of bad trims.

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Filed under family, finished objects, hats

I love….

…how this roving…
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…is turned into this once drafted.
CMF San Francisco

It’s amazing how those blobs of color blend together. Spinning tonight!

It’s more Crown Mountain merino, by the way. San Francisco.

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Filed under handspun, spinning

That time of year again…

Knitters’ Coffee Swap IV!!!

QUESTIONS
1. Whole bean or ground? Whole Bean.

2. Fully-loaded or decaf? Finally, I can be back on the caffeine, yay!!

3. Regular or flavored? Plain old beans for me please. I OD’d on flavored coffees back in college.

4. How do you drink your coffee? Black first thing in the morning. With milk later in the day.

5. Favorite coffee ever? Birchwood blend from Peace Coffee. Absolute heaven!

6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do? Oh yeah, I’m fussy. Fresh roasted, stuff from smaller roasters is my fave. Organic, fair trade.

7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee? chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!! And scones.

8. Anything else about your coffee preferences? I like medium roast the best. Not a big fan of French roast.

9. Yarn/fiber you love? Natural fibers, handpaints, Indie dyers, Purewool, Malabrigo….

10. Yarn/fiber you hate? Anything fake. And I don’t hate it, but I’m drowning in sock yarn right now. 🙂

11. What’s on your needles? Ubernatural (bulky sweater) lots of socks, a hat for me, baby legwarmers…

12. Favorite colors? I pretty much love everything, although I’m not a big fan of bright purple or purple/pink combined. I’ve really been loving oranges, greens and blues these days.

13. Allergies? nope

14. Anything you really love, really don’t like, or just need to get off your chest? I especially love local stuff that I can’t find around here, or online/indie stuff. Now…how did it get to be 10pm already??

Spinner rolling around in his latest Picky Pants knit in Mosaic Moon‘s BFL, colorway “Selkie.”
Longies

Longies

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Filed under knitting, soakers, swaps