It Ain't Easy Being Green: Variations on a Theme

My January finish-fest left me with very little on the needles, so I've slowly been building up my WIP stash.

I started out by casting on for a new version of Paper Crane, this one converted to a pullover:


Looks like my hands could use some moisturizer. More lace, more tiny needles. This one IS going faster than the last because I'm knitting it in the round. The knitting is going smoothly and happily, but I thought I ought to have something else to knit, something that's not laceweight on size 2 needles.

So what do I do? I cast on for another sweater:


This is Wollmeise sock, on size 3 needles. Vastly different that Wollmeise lace on 2s. Not. It's even green. (The colorway is Silberdistel, which I love.) The pattern, by the way, is called Slipped Hours. I'm a little afraid of this one, because I generally don't like my sweaters too fitted. But I like how this looks on the people who've knit it. I should try to lose weight before this is done.

Sooooo, two sweaters, both green, both on small needles. Variation! I need variation! As luck would have it, I joined Cookie A's sock club, and the first installment arrived last week. This is a fantastic club. Cookie is an amazing sock designer, one of my favorites. The club consists of 2 patterns and 2 recipes, plus a skein of yarn in each installment. I think I read originally that one of the sock patterns would be easier than the other, Cookie's socks normally being fairly complicated. I don't think this is the case with this installment. Both patterns are gorgeous.

So, hey! Complicated sock versus lots of stockinette... yeah, that's the ticket. I cast on.


Yup. Green. Size 1 needles.

After this, I'll probably go on a worsted and bulky weight tear.

Personal History + a Recipe

This weekend I attended a friend's bat mitzvah. I knew that C had converted years ago, and she's a very active member of our temple. So I was thrilled to be able to share the day with her and her family. What I didn't know, as I walked into the temple this weekend, was that she was one of a group of 16 adult congregation members who were being bar/bat mitzvahed this weekend.

Now I am not a religious person at all. But I was really moved by this group of men and women and the histories that led them to the bimah this weekend. Some, like C, had converted, either when they got married or just on their own. A couple of people had been raised Jewish, but decided not to have a bar or bat mitzvah at the traditional age of 13. Now, as adults, they were returning to that part of their life. One woman talked about how World War II prevented her from having her bat mitzvah, and dedicated her accomplishment to all the Jewish boys and girls who perished in the Holocaust. One woman was raised in a Conservative tradition, which at the time didn't allow girls to be bat mitzvahed.

Some of the group were learning Hebrew and studying Torah along with their children. Others were doing it as an example to their children. But all of them were there because they chose to be there. They pursued this goal, studying and learning while raising children, working full-time, and doing all the rest of the things that we do in our busy lives.

Most bar and bat mitzvahs are fun. But it was so much different when the person on the bimah is there because they chose to be there, as opposed to because mom and dad are making them.

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A little bit of knitting :) Paper Crane II moves along, slowly but steadily:


Hopefully this one won't take me 6 months. Because I'm making this one a pullover, I am knitting the bottom portion in the round. So far I think this makes it go faster.

My waiting room sock progresses as well:


(Yarntini MCN sock, "Don Stripe" from the Mad Men collection)

I need to cast on for another sweater, just for a change of pace from all the tiny yarns on tiny needles. I have not identified what that will be yet. I honestly haven't had that much time to focus lately.

So Happy Monday, Happy Valentine's Day, and Congratulations to Jess, Kippi's lovely daughter, who is getting married today! May she and her love have a long and happy life together, filled with love and laughter.

A little Valentine's treat for you all -- a recipe I cooked up this weekend when I was drafted into making scones for Jr. Jr.'s class Valentine's Tea.

Kid-friendly Chocolate Chip Scones

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

4 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
8 tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup of chocolate chips

Whisk the dry ingredients together. With your fingers, crumble the brown sugar into the flour mixture to distribute it evenly.

Cut in the flour until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add chocolate chips and mix. Pour in milk and vanilla, mix until the dough just comes together. My dough was wetter than my normal scone dough, but this is fine.

Drop roughly 1/4 cup of dough per scone onto parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for about 8 minutes. Cool on cookie sheets for about 2 minutes, then move to a rack.

Not a single scone was left after the kids got at them, seconds and all.

Watching History

I've been glued to television coverage of the revolution in Egypt this week. It's amazing watching people come together, rise up, and, with nothing more than their voices and their will, topple a dictator. Who knows what will come next. I hope that it's some form of self-determination, rather than another oppressor. I will watch, and hope for the best.

Life is good here:


How can it not be?

I finished my second Annis. This one's for me:




You get good bang for your buck with this pattern -- it's fast, it's enjoyable, it looks great. I've shied away from using multi-color yarns in lace before, because often the colors obscure the lace. I picked this color (Agatha dark, Wollmeise) because I thought it would be tonal enough to provide some color interest without looking like barf. I think it worked. I hope so, anyway.

I love the scarf/shawl hybrid because they're lacy enough to provide interest without being so lacy that I feel conspicuous wearing them. I'd go ahead and knit another Annis, but I'm sick of nupps for the moment. I have other patterns like this to try out, so look for one coming up.

Now that the Annis is done, I've picked up the second Paper Crane. Because I'm making this one a pullover, I can just go ahead and knit that bottom section in the round. I think it will go much faster... as fast as a laceweight sweater on size 2 needles can go, anyway. I've got three-quarters of an inch so far. I'm rocking and rolling, aren't I?

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One of the things that has been brewing here in our little corner of the world for a few years has to do with crowding in the schools. Back when Sr. Jr. was in 1st grade, there was a big fight over re-drawing the boundaries in the schools. Our elementary school was overcrowded, and it seemed like rejiggering the boundaries might solve that. No one wanted that, there was a big stink, and ultimately nothing much was done.

A couple of blocks away from us was a building that used to be an elementary school. Now it's being used to house the teacher day-care facilities, the teen pregnancy program, and a couple of other things. The plan was to rebuild and renovate that building, and some of us suggested turning it back into an elementary school. We argued that it was clear that the school-age population was growing and the county would need to deal with it. The county didn't agree. "It's just a blip," they said. "A momentary bulge in the school-age population." We looked around us, at all the young families moving in and having babies, twins, even, and wondered what county officials were smoking. The county seemed to have no clue, no matter what people tried to tell them.

Now, all these years and several additional overcrowding fights later, the county has come to realize that it has a wee problem. Now, almost ALL the schools in the county are at or above capacity, with, again, almost ALL of them projected to be significantly overcrowded in another year or two. Our elementary school will be at nearly 150% of capacity soon, even after cramming classrooms in wherever they could, creating a mobile computer lab, adding trailers (oh, excuse me, relocatables), and more. *

The PTA has announced that the only thing we can do for our school at this point is add another trailer, but because of space constraints, the trailer that will be added for the 2011-12 school year will have to be on the blacktop. Yes -- on the playground. Sooooo, where will the kids play? How will the poor kids in the blacktop trailer be able to concentrate with the noise of kids playing right outside? This is ridiculous.

The problem is that it's now almost too late to do anything about this. Changing school boundaries won't make a difference, because there's nowhere to move the kids to -- all the schools are overfull. It's a bit late to think about new construction. Many of the county buildings that used to be schools are really too old, small, and out-of-date to be repurposed.

And what about the middle and high schools? All of the high schools were just renovated (some are still under construction!), and they're already over capacity.

Long-range planning and thinking -- Arlington does not have it.

* Most distressing were the comments on a local online article about this situation. Many people were blaming the crowding situation on illegal immigration. Arlington has traditionally been immigrant-friendly, but lately they've sold off some low-income properties to developers, reducing the availability of low-income housing. In fact, census figures show that in all of Northern Virginia, Arlington is the only county that saw a decrease in its non-caucasian population.

667

The downside of my January finishing spree is that I was left with no projects to work on. Yeah, I cast on for a pair of plain old socks, but plain old socks just don't really satisfy that knitting urge. I had several different sweaters on my to-do list, so I broke out the needles and the yarns and started swatching. Failed to get gauge, or even close to it. Broke out some different yarns and swatched some more. Failed again. The sweaters that I want to knit are similar to Paper Crane in that they are knit in two different directions, which means that both row and stitch gauge are pretty important. No fudging allowed, at least not without some actual math taking place. I'm not averse to doing the math. I like math. I'm teaching my older son math (intensified algebra even), since his teacher isn't quite doing it. But I really wanted to be able to dive into a new project without having to do too much mental gymnastics first.

So I decided to play around with my the laceweight yarn that I had left over from Paper Crane. I knit some swatches with it doubled, to see what kind of gauge and fabric I got. I like. When my swatches are dry, I'll post the results.

This made me remember that I wanted to knit another Paper Crane, but in a pullover version. Yes, I know this just confirms my crazy. But I like the laceweight sweater. It's perfect for those transitional times in Fall and Spring when a full-on sweater is too heavy, but a long-sleeved t-shirt isn't nice enough. So I broke out another skein of laceweight (color: Spinaci) and cast on:


Then I took some pictures of the Annis shawl I made for my friend, now that it's dry and the sun is out:


It's so pretty! And it was a pretty fast and easy project. My grab-it-and-go scarf tore, and I need a new scarf. So...


I cast on one for myself. It's a crappy picture, I know. The yarn is Wollmeise, again, and the colorway is Agatha, the dark version, which is a mix of black, dark blue, and dark red.

Between the shawl and the sweater, I spent the day casting on 667 stitches.

I am crazy.

The Grande Finale (of January, not the Blog)

So... knitting first or navel gazing first? I think I'll do the knitting first, so that people who click over here from Ravelry don't have to indulge my neuroses.

January has been a great month for churning out the finished objects. Many of them were already in progress on January 1st, but not all. So far this year I've finished off 2 sweaters (Paper Crane and Dark and Stormy), one pair of colorwork mittens (Fiddleheads), two pairs of socks (Event Horizon and Ember, below), and one lace shawl, Annis, also below. That's an impressive list, even if I do say so myself!

The Ember socks are the final pair I knit for the stripey sock KAL on Ravelry. The yarn is, once again, Playful by Twisted Fiber Art, one of my favorites:


The stripes on the socks don't match, but I don't care. Interestingly, one foot has four of the dark stripes, and the other one has three, but by serendipity, both socks reached the point where I needed to start the heel right at the point in the orange stripe that matched the heel and toe yarn I had. I love this yarn so much -- the colors are amazing. Even colors I don't normally like, like orange, manage to fascinate me in Twisted yarn. The base makes a really warm and cushy sock that knits up quickly enough to be satisfying without making an overly thick sock.

My final FO of the month is another gift. A friend of mine is having her bat mitzvah in a couple of weeks. She's already hosted her daughter's bat mitzvah, and has another three years before her son's. Even though she converted years ago, now is the time she gets to fulfill that goal.

I thought back to the gifts I got when I was bat mitzvah'd and the gifts that Sr. Jr. got this summer and realized that a grown woman does not need pen and pencil sets, iTunes gift cards, luggage, contributions to her college fund, or shiney satin stuffed animals. All her hard work and dedication deserves something special, something just for her.

I knew exactly which yarn to use -- Wollmeise's Hortensie, a blue/purple colorway like Hydrangeas. C has dark red hair and gorgeous blue eyes, so this yarn will look fabulous on her.

I looked about for an appropriate pattern. I needed something pretty, but not too lacy. I settled on Annis, from Knitty last spring. I cast on 363 stitches and hoped that I could finish it in time.

6 days later...




The pattern was very nice to knit, notwithstanding the initial 363 stitch row! I want to knit one for myself now, too.

And now I really don't have anything on the needles. No socks, no sweaters. I have one shawl I'm knitting with my handspun, but I'm not sure if I like that pattern. I may rip it and turn it into an Annis.

I also plan to knit another Paper Crane, but in a pullover version. So yes, I'm just confirming how crazy I am by knitting another laceweight sweater on teeny tiny needles.

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Ok, the navel-gazing section.

I never thought parenting would be easy, but I also never expected how much I would second-guess myself and how much I would wonder whether I were doing the right thing. I suppose I should have, given that I do that in the rest of my life, but I didn't.

An older colleague of mine once said that she laughed at all the women who thought that being home with their kids when they were two years old was so important, because in her experience, it wasn't until the kids hit puberty/middle school that the kids really needed more hands-on parenting. This is absolutely true.

I constantly wonder: am I too hard on them? Am I not hard enough? Too involved? Not involved enough? Too indulgent? Not indulgent enough? Do I model the lessons I want to teach them? (Well, clearly not when it comes to cleaning their rooms. But I hope that I do in terms of what kind of person I am, and how I treat other people.)

How do I motivate them to want to do their best?

Sr. Jr., at 13, is at that age where all of these questions start popping up. He's so bright, but he coasts through school. He doesn't have to put too much effort into his schoolwork, which sometimes gets him in trouble. I think he gets surprised if he gets a bad grade, even if he hasn't studied. He wants to rush through things, do math in his head, skip steps. Then he gets discouraged and down on himself. He hides things from us, so that instead of having us help him get back on track, he just gets himself in deeper.

He also thinks that it's middle school, and grades don't really matter that much. But several of the classes he's taking are high school level classes and his grades will go on his high school transcript.

This is how he got a C in math first quarter. If he had come to us early on in the quarter, he probably could have ended up with a B or even an A. Most of the mistakes he made on tests were stupid mistakes made because he was rushing or being sloppy. Instead, it was a fight to wrestle him back on track. But he did get back on track, and his second quarter grade was much better.

But -- and here's the important thing -- in order to get into the IB program that he wanted to do, he had to have all As and Bs, even in quarter grades. It doesn't matter one bit to them that the one quarter he got a C was an isolated event. It was enough to disqualify him.

This is not a tragedy. Our home high school is one of the best in the country. His teachers have recommended an all-intensified class schedule for him. He will be fine. I think he would have liked the IB program. It suited his interests.

And in the end, I think (I hope) that he's learned a lesson about the importance of really doing his best in school.

After years of refusing to do anything even vaguely academic during the summer, he's decided he wants to do a summer enrichment program at UVA this summer. So maybe, just maybe, we're moving forward.

I'm shocked I don't have more grey hair than I already do. (And yes, I recognize that we could be experiencing much more difficult parenting issues! I'm very thankful that we're not.)

January is for Finishing

So far this January, I've finished socks, sweaters, mittens... I'm getting a false sense of productivity here! I have to keep reminding myself that I'm merely finishing up projects that have been on my needles for a long time... as in the sweater below, since June. I am not some superhuman knitting machine who keeps spitting out sweaters in a couple of days, nice as that would be.

And don't you, dear reader or two, get used to seeing so many FO's! After this one, and another pair of socks that I'm hoping to finish in the next few days, it might be a while. In fact, I have very few projects on the needles right now, and I need to rectify that quickly.

So here's the next finished object of 2011 -- the long-awaited Paper Crane:



Modeled in the 20 degree temperatures by a woman with a bad cold.

Specs: Pattern: Paper Crane. Yarn: Wollmeise Lace-Garn, Merlot colorway. Needles, a teeny tiny size 2.75 mm.

The pattern is fantastic, really well written and easy to follow. The yarn, of course, is fabulous. Despite all my whining about knitting so many stitches on such small needles, it really was a pleasure to knit. The fabric that the lace makes on that size needle is drapey and silky without being too loosey goosey. There are a number of patterns out there that call for knitting laceweight yarn on big needles, similar to the size you'd use if you were knitting a shawl and wanted a lot of stretch and openness, in order to provide extra drape, but I find that 1) I don't like my sweater fabrics so loose, and 2) this fabric is plenty drapey.

I'm planning to make a pullover version of this. It should be really easy to modify the pattern to do that, too. I'll have to make it a little bigger, because this version has negative ease, but I think it will look fabulous. So all I need to do now is pick a skein of lace to use and get going.

Look for it to be done in another 7 months or so. (Of course, I knit three other sweaters, a large number of socks, some lace, some mittens, and some handspun projects while I knit this, so it's not like I'm a total slacker.)

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Tomorrow is Jr. Jr.'s 10th birthday! It's so hard to believe that my little guy is that old. That dessert by the way, is his coveted chocolate waffle from Silverado. He wants an iPod for his birthday. It's hard to fathom that in 8 years or so, I'll have an empty house.

In Sr. Jr. news, we handed in our application for transfer to the I-B program at the other high school. I continue to really feel the difference between the two schools. I know he'll be fine no matter where he goes, because both schools are excellent. I'm anxious to find out whether he gets in or not!

Through the Haze of Yuck, FOs

Mr. T caught a cold. He shared. Yay. I don't get colds very often, maybe once every five years or so. I hate colds. I wouldn't mind being sick if I could sleep through the night. I get very whiny and self-pitying when I have a cold. At least it's a long weekend, so I don't have to worry about getting up early and getting the kids off to school. Between the cold and the loss of a friend who died way too young, I've been a bit off my best. The loss of my friend makes me want to hold my kids tight and tell them how much I love them, but I don't want to get them sick.

On to more pleasant stuff.

I finished Dark and Stormy a little while back. Twice as a matter of fact, since I re-blocked it to make it smaller. It's still a little longer than I'd like, but I'll just wear it with skinny pants and boots to balance the line. I threw it on this morning for a quickie photo shoot before Mr. T had to run off to de-ice his car and try to get to work. As you can see, I didn't even fix my turtleneck:




While the sweater is a smidge big, it's very warm and comfortable. Cozy. Great for snuggling up in on a cold day.

Paper Crane is almost done, too. I sewed up the seams that make that funky shape turn into a sweater -- the ones right over the bust. All I need to do is sew up the sleeves and set them in. I've been too out of it with my cold to think about doing that, but look for it soon.

About the only thing I have been able to do it plain old stockinette socks. Soooo, I finished yet another pair of stripey socks for the knit along:


They're my stripey socks of '80s awesomeness. I love them. The yarn is Continuum, a cashmere blend sock yarn from String Theory Colorworks, in the Event Horizon colorway. I love this yarn and this dyer. She has really interesting stripey colorways like this one, as well as some more plain stripeys. She's amazing to work with, too. Highly recommend the yarn.

So now I'm going to go back to my couch to continue to hack and wheeze and work on more plain stockinette socks until I feel better enough to move on to something else.

Taking My Own Advice

In the past couple of days, two people have mentioned to me that sweaters they've made from superwash merino/cashmere blends have grown on them after a wearing or two. I told them that I'd heard that a quick trip through the dryer could help -- wash the sweater, spin out as much water as you can, and dry the sweater on low to medium heat until it's damp, but not dry. Then block as needed and dry flat.

After I washed and blocked my Dark and Stormy for the first time, I was concerned that it would be too big. I even noted in my last post that it had grown more in the wash than my swatch had led me to believe. So it was with trepidation this morning that I took the now-dry sweater, sewed the buttons on, and slipped it on.

Suspicions confirmed. Sweater too big. Longer than I wanted and much bigger in the shoulder/upper arm area. Sigh.

So I took my own advice. I plopped it back in the bath, squished out as much water as I could, then put it in a large mesh bag. Rinse/spin cycle in the wash. About 15 minutes in the dryer on low heat. When I checked it, it was still pretty wet, so I let it go another 8 minutes on medium heat. A quick prayer to the yarn goddesses, then I took the sweater out and laid it on the blocking mats.


I know you can't really tell from the picture, but much better. It's two inches smaller around and a good three inches shorter, looking no worse for it's adventure.

Collar:


And a closer-up shot of the buttons, which I got in DC at Looped Yarn Works:


So I still have to be patient while this dries -- again -- to see how it fits.

As this was drying, I've been working on more stripey socks and, yes, Paper Crane. I'm determined to get that one done, since I'm so close. Look for that to be finished and blocking by the end of the week.

Then I get to cast on for something new!

In non-knitting life, January has been very good to Jr. Jr. He was in the school's Geography Bee on Friday, as one of 5 fourth graders competing against 5 fifth graders for the school championship. It was a nail-biter. He was up against the younger brother of the boy who beat Sr. Jr. a few years ago and who went on to the state bee, as well.

This year for the first time, the bee was being held as an assembly, with all of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders watching. Very nerve-wracking! He looked so nervous up there that I thought he was going to throw up. Mr. T and I kept trying to catch his eye to give him our support, but he didn't look our way.

After getting the first two questions wrong, he ran the table -- and won! I couldn't believe it. I was just hoping he'd get one or two questions right. Now he gets to take a written test to see if goes on to the state bee in Richmond.


Then Saturday morning his basketball team had their first game of the season. After going down 14-2 in the first quarter, the team came back to win, 26-25. I was really impressed with how much Jr. Jr. had improved since last year. The whole team looked great.

I am very, very saddened by the shootings in Arizona this weekend. I've looked at some of the YouTube postings by the alleged shooter, and he certainly appears mentally ill. I don't know if he was influenced by some of the inflammatory and violent political rhetoric that has been proliferating in the last couple of years, but I fervently hope that the people who spout that kind of rhetoric will re-evaluate their tactics. They may claim that they're speaking metaphorically and that they don't condone violence, but their words say otherwise. And they need to realize that those words and images may reinforce and inflame the anger among people who can't control themselves or who are easily led.

Like the Sheriff in Arizona said, and I'm paraphrasing, speech may be free, but it has consequences.

Out with the Old

Hello, 2011! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, 2010. That was not a good year. Not the worst ever, but just a long exercise in frustration. I hope that 2011 is much better for everyone.

Since I started a whole whack of projects in the last couple of months of 2010, I'm slowly but surely finishing them up.


S's Fiddleheads, all done. They take a long time to dry, since they're essentially three layers of wool. But my goal was to have them ready to give to her when we see each other at the Geography Bee on Friday, and I met that goal. We won't talk about the previous goals that I missed. I met this one, and it's the first one of 2011. I hope that's a good omen.

And look!


Dark and Stormy! With actual, full-length sleeves. In order to conserve yarn, I reduced the width of the front button band to 2 inches from 3. I'm doubly glad I did that since the sweater grew slightly more than anticipated in the wash. It's about an inch bigger around than I planned for, but since this is supposed to be roomy for layering, I think it will be ok. If not, I think I can get it a little smaller. I just blocked it this morning, so no live shots for a few days.

I have about a quarter of a skein left, and I did unravel my swatches and use them for the sleeve cuffs.

The pattern was an absolute joy to knit. The yarn was wonderful to knit with. If the sweater looks bad on me, I'll be very unhappy.

Some close-ups:


(The T-pins mark where the buttons will go.)


Today I am wearing new contact lenses. I haven't worn contacts regularly for a long time, because I have just enough of an astigmatism to make it difficult for me to find contacts that correct my distance vision but are comfortable to read with. My eye doctor has some new candidates that we're trying out.

After picking Jr. Jr. up from the bus stop and walking home with him, I asked him if he noticed anything different about me today. Here's how his thought process went, and I swear, these are direct quotes:

"You got a haircut? No... You took a shower? [well, yes, but that's not different] ... You put on makeup?... You're taller!... New pants?... New shirt?... You're more beautiful?"

What a suck up.

O Yarn Goddess, I Beseech Thee

Normally I am very paranoid when I estimate how much yarn to buy for a sweater. I hate the thought of running out and I like to account for the possibility of extensive swatching. I usually get at least one more skein of yarn than I think I will need, just in case.


This is Dark and Stormy, done except for the sleeves. I reduced the front button band to 2 inches from 3 inches.


This is all the yarn I have left. The two little balls in front were my swatches. So, to summarize: about one and a half skeins to do two full-length sleeves. Shit.

Erica (Ms. Squoosh) very kindly offered to dye up an additional skein for me, but I'd be concerned that one skein dyed at a different time than all the others would end up looking too different in the final sweater. So I'm just going to weigh my total yarn, divide it in two, and knit down as far as I can go. Short-sleeved and three-quarter sleeved sweaters are fashionable right now anyway. Sigh.

I really love this sweater, too, despite this:


strange pooching in the shoulder area. I'm hoping this comes out in the blocking. I can tug at the collar when I'm wearing it and it disappears, but nothing is final until the sweater is blocked, of course.

I have been doing little else this break, knitting or spinning-wise. The kids are home, Mr. T is at work. We're hanging out, playing, getting stuff done. Sr. Jr. and I both needed new glasses, so we went for our vision appointments yesterday. Both boys have projects to do for school that are due after break and require supervision, of course. You know, the stuff of everyday life.

I started mitten liner #2 for Susan, and I need to get back to it.


Jr. Jr. and her son are both in the school's big Geography Bee next week, which would be a perfect time to give them to her. So now I have a deadline.

I really, really want to start spinning this:


I'm sorry for the not so great pictures, but SOMEONE apparently didn't catch the SUBTLE HINTS that I wanted a light box for the holidays. This braid is so gorgeous in person that I wish I could accurately capture the colors for you.

Christmas was very nice and low-key here. I think Jr. Jr's favorite present was his now-traditional bottle of apple juice. We had "Jewish Sweet and Sour Brisket" for dinner and Jr. Jr. even asked for seconds! So much for the hour long, layer your flavors Cook's Illustrated Recipe; he likes the one I found on the Internet that uses ketchup and and has only 5 ingredients. But it was tasty, so who am I to complain? Less work for me.

I'll leave you with a picture of my boys, playing nicely together. We had to capture the moment, since it happens so rarely, LOL. They were playing with Jr. Jr.'s math dice:


Have a Happy New Year!

Partied Out, with Reading Report

Oy. It's been a long string of holiday events and parties. Every day, sometimes more than one per day, for a bit now. I'm tired. I'm ready to stay home and cocoon. And knit and spin and read and bake and try new recipes, of course. I'm ready for Winter Break.

Hasn't been a whole lot of knitting going on. I did start the lining for the second Fiddlehead mitten for S. I will get those to her after break. I failed at finishing them by the Winter Concert. Oh well. Other than that, it's been a row here, a row there of nothing much.

But! I did finish plying that enormous bobbin of singles that I finished spinning before Thanksgiving. I lost a little of it in some plying mishaps, but I still managed to get a nice long skein. I first started plying it on my Ashford, which has a jumbo flyer unit on it that can handle a lot of fiber. But it was acting wonky and frustrating me, so after just a little bit, I broke the single and moved back to my wheel of choice. Shortly after I started plying on that wheel, the single broke and I couldn't fix it. After that, however, things went along swimmingly.




I ended up with about 417/8 yards, chain plied. It's a little bit overplied, but hopefully not enough to have an effect on the project I will knit from it.

I chose a simple shawl, the Lacy/LazyKaty shawl (Rav link), and I wound the yarn into a ball:


I really want to start knitting this right now. Now! But I can't. I'm trying very hard to be good and finish up the mittens before I start working on this. We'll see how that goes. I also want to start another spinning project, but that may have to wait until after Christmas.

I have been reading, some good, some okay, some eh. I tore through Tana French's three books, mysteries/psychological mysteries set in Ireland over the last 20 years or so, encompassing some bad economic times, better economic times, and back again. The first one, In the Woods, was my least favorite, but still good. The narrator/main character of the book is kind of dumb and self-deluded, which made it a little frustrating. The rest of the book was great, but not liking the main character detracted a little from the experience. I would still recommend it. Her other two books were much more enjoyable. I found myself searching Amazon to see if she'd written any more, but no. I'll just have to wait for the next one.

I also read Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. I enjoyed this book, too, however, I didn't think it was the Great American Novel that all the reviewers seemed to think it was.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu, was also well-reviewed. It definitely had a clever and interesting basic idea. Its focus on language and story reminded me a bit of some of Jasper Fforde's work in the Thursday Next books, but this book was more serious than those, dealing with a son's search for his father, literally and metaphorically. Unfortunately, there are long stretches of the book where I read it thinking "Is anything going to happen?" Then something would happen, leading to more long stretches wondering whether something else would happen. In the end, I'm glad I read it, but maybe a better editor could have tightened it up a bit.

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We celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas, which can sometimes tax the imagination. This year's been particularly tough, between the early start of Chanukah (right after all the work I put into hosting Thanksgiving) and the kids getting to a point where the things they want cost more money and begin to bump up against our ideas of how much stuff kids their age should really get. If they had their way, they'd get multiple new video game systems and games, and Jr. Jr. would be getting an iPod Touch. Sorry, boys.

I don't feel like there are any real "wow" gifts for them, but at least they're getting some fun stuff. And in the meantime, we'll have our traditional Christmas morning Belgian waffles, and Sr. Jr. and I will try a bunch of new recipes. The guys are planning a Star Wars marathon, too. So it will all be good :)

Holiday Rush

Ah, yes. The days of half hour lines at the post office, the mad rush to the mall to buy outfits to wear to holiday parties, not to mention gifts, etc., the seemingly never-ending round of school concerts and parties...

Tonight is the elementary school Winter concert. I can predict, with my psychic powers, the entire evening: the orchestra playing Hot Cross Buns and Jingle Bell Rock. The chorus singing a selection of different holiday songs from different traditions. My husband ridiculing the school's chorus teacher. Sweating away in the multipurpose room. The mad rush to the sweets table when the concert is over. Jr. Jr. is playing trombone and gets to play the glockenspiel as everyone enters and takes their seats. Good times.

Tomorrow is Mr. T's firm party, and also the neighbor's annual Christmas party. We rush from one to the other. This year the firm party is at the firm, so I can dress a little more casually and not be overdressed for the neighbor's party. One of my least pleasant chores every year is trying to find a dress for the stinking holiday party.

I sound a lot more Scroogey than I am. These things are all fun and I have wonderful memories of past concerts and parties.

But wow is it cold here right now! It was 20 degrees at bus stop time this morning. I was decked out in handknits, which helped immensely. Handknit knee highs rock. I highly recommend them. The only part of my body that was cold was my face. Poor Mr. T is getting extremely cranky because he hasn't ridden in a while. It needs to warm up a bit or he's going to go all Redrum on us.

Knitting still goes in bits and pieces, and there's no spinning at all at the moment. I finished the second mitten for my friend, but I haven't started the liner yet:


I was half hoping to have this done by tonight to give to her, but it'll wait a few more days.

I finished up one of my String Theory stripey socks at my FILs this weekend. (That went really nicely. I think they appreciated the help, and appreciated spending the afternoon with us. We'll go back again right after New Year's to help take things down and get the tree out of the house.) I started the second, but didn't get too far:


Then I decided I needed to have another stripey sock on the needles as well, so I cast on another pair of Twisted Fiber Arts socks, this time in the Ember colorway:


But the most fun I'm having right now is with Dark and Stormy. I'm still loving the sweater, the yarn, and the knitting. I'm almost to the point where I can stop knitting downward and do the ribbing:


Sorry for the flash picture, but the others came out too dark. I tried it on and I think it's going to be perfect when it's done. It's nice and warm, too.

I keep planning to get that big bobbin of singles plied up, but then I end up not having the time. Errands pop up, Jr. Jr. gets sick, and the day goes by. I really want to have a good chunk of time to do that, and chunks of time are rare these days.

One week until winter break! I'm looking forward to sleeping in, working out, cooking with Sr. Jr., and relaxing with the whole family.

In the Valley

Here we are in the brief and perhaps non-existent valley in between the holidays. Technically it's not really "between the holidays" for us, since we're in the middle of Chanukah right now. But so far it's been very laid back after all the frantic preparations for Thanksgiving and before all the holiday parties and end-of-the year activities.

We went to two very lovely Chanukah parties this weekend, where we hung out with friends, drank amazing vodka from Siberia, and discovered that Jr. Jr. likes brisket, as long as it's not mine. The bicycle menorah is a big hit. The present-giving has been a bit haphazard, since I didn't have too much time to shop, but that's ok.

This weekend we will go to my father-in-law's house to put up his Christmas tree. His lung cancer has advanced far enough that he's in too much pain and is too fatigued to be able to do it himself. We want them to be able to celebrate the holiday and have all their familiar and loved ornaments to see and reminisce about. We'll go back on January 1st or 2nd to clean it all up, which works out well, since his birthday is January 3rd.

No! I haven't finished Paper Crane yet. Stop nagging me. Anyway, it's a very light sweater, which wouldn't be too useful now that we're in the Winter chill. That's right. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And, no, I haven't cast on the second Fiddlehead mitten for my friend S. It's cold out, and I know she could use the mittens. Stop making me feel guilty! I'll do it this week, I promise. I will! Maybe.

None of this has nothing to do with Dark and Stormy. Really. I swear. Just because I can't stop knitting on that, doesn't mean that I don't still love Paper Crane. I mean it.

I've gotten past the part where I separated the sleeves from the body and I'm down at the waist shaping. The pattern only calls for one round of decreases for a very subtle bit of shaping at the waist, but I'm going to add another round, just to give it a little more shape.



I love how this is turning out so far. Simple, yet interesting. The knitting holds my interest, but I don't have to concentrate too hard. The yarn is such a pleasure to knit with.

In the midst of this Dark and Stormy love-fest, I did manage to finish up another pair of stripey socks. I can't haul Dark and Stormy with me to piano lessons and to hang out at Temple while I wait for Jr. Jr., so socks come along with me:


(You can get much better sock pictures if you have someone else to take the pictures!) The yarn is Gothsocks Laudanum, her MCN blend, in Faery Folk. Soft and warm.

I'm hoping to finish one more pair of socks before the end of the year. Should I go all out and say that I'll finish the second Fiddlehead and Dark and Stormy, too? What about spinning? I still have that bobbin of singles to ply up. I'm not going to make any promises to myself, because there's a lot going on in these next few weeks.

Wandering Eye

Thanksgiving is over. Everyone's gone. We had as nice a time as we could have had.


This was the first time the family has all been together for Thanksgiving in a long time, since years before my mother died. Given that there are some entrenched hard feelings and champion grudge-holders in the family, I was worried. But everyone was great. The food was good (if I do say so myself) and it was very nice to have everyone together.

And, just after I've recovered from that, Chanukah starts tomorrow night. I'm sorely behind in my gift-purchasing. Some gifts have been ordered, but just haven't arrived yet. Jr. Jr. runs into the house every day after school and starts searching for the presents. He can't find any. He swears he's going to find them under our bed, but all he finds are empty boxes. Little does he know that some things are hiding in plain sight...

I didn't knit at all for several days over Thanksgiving week. I was just too busy. All my stripey socks are stalled. One pair is almost done, but I haven't finished them off. And I tried to get back to Paper Crane. Second sleeve -- it's almost done! But, oh, endless stockinette on tiny needles gets boring.


That's 72 rows of knitting. I have another 96 rows just to get to the armhole shaping and armscye. You can see my problem, right?

I needed something more interesting. I needed something less laceweight. I just bought a pair of cream-colored cords that would look really great with brown boots and a brown sweater, so...


I strayed. Forgive me, for I have been adulterous in my knitting. The culprit? Dark and Stormy. Here's the Ravelry link. Knit in one piece from the top down out of worsted weight, with cabling to keep things interesting. The yarn is Squoosh's Merino/Cashmere worsted. I love it. It's round and squooshy, with great stitch detail. I don't think this one will pill quickly, like a lot of more loosely spun and plied cashmere blends.

I still have that bobbin of singles to chain-ply. I don't know when I'll get around to that. Maybe this weekend, if I can tear myself away from Dark and Stormy.