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Friday, February 25, 2011

Craziness

Snow day today. We had two other two-hour delays this week, and on our regular late-start day, I got to take my two sons on medical visits.

Youngest squirrel got to have an in-depth hearing test. It was cute. He did okay with taking it, but will hopefully get tube surgery over Spring Break. He has low level hearing loss due to recent ear infections. He just went on medicines for the third infection in three months today.





Then, in the afternoon, my eldest got a Herbst appliance orthodontic thingy. Here are graphic pictures.

Before.


During.


After.


Up close and personal. He has been re-learning such important skills such as biting, chewing, swallowing... closing his mouth. He lets it hang open now, in hopes of resting his jaw. His teeth are hinged, and he cannot shift his jaw left, right, backward or forward. Yuck! It should be on about 14 months, I think, and, according to the doctor, he shouldn't set off airport alarms. I'm holding him to that, especially if he goes in an airport!

On the crafting front, I cast on a Baby Surprise Sweater yesterday. I have seven rows to go...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Hmmm... I seem to be failing on the photo front.

I knit up the boathouse row pattern from stitch poet design by "champagne maker." I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. It is a small capelet/shawl knit in the round with a few simple cables and bobbles. The decreasing makes a shallow V-neck in front and back. The strangest thing about it is the yarn: a discontinued yarn by Cascade called "fascination."

There is a modern fascination that is a sock yarn. This one, I think, is called fascination because it is 50% linen and 50% rough alpaca. It is a dry-spun, loose single that is spun up in a bulky weight. Can you picture it? I bought it at a garage sale of a woman who owns a yarn shop... Yarns from her personal stash she thought she'd never get around to. It was already wound into a yarn-cake, and still a little crunchy from the linen content.

As I knit with it, it softened. When I had to rip a row (or-EIGHT-from-casting-on-a-bloody-moebius-strip-don't-get-me-started) and reknit, it had relaxed quite a bit. Actually, it made me worried, because as a loosely spun single, I was hoping the relaxing was a blooming of the yarn and not weakness. Then to further worry me, the cast-on tail broke off after picking up and turning the piece, oh, about 20 rows.

After I completed it, I steam blocked it, and tried it on. I will have to be careful what I wear it over, because it seems to want to mark its territory. "Who was that well-clad woman? " "I don't know, but she left a clump of ivory colored hairs!" Tufts of alpaca worked their way out while knitting, and, by golly, they aren't finished, yet. In fact, I was able to follow my route from refrigerator to knitting chair pretty easily both with my eyes when the sun was up, or by feel when it set.

Maybe I'll re-spin the left-overs.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Afterglow

The in-laws are on the road home, and I have firmly caught the cold of my youngest. Hopefully that means he will fully relinquish it and stop sneezing on things.

I am working on a lovely little shawlette called Boathouse Row. I'm making it in the strangest yarn: Cascade Yarns' fascination. It is bulky 50% coarse alpaca and 50% linen. It's discontinued; I got it at a a garage sale of a woman who owns a yarn shop. She didn't know what to do with it, I guess, and neither did I for quite awhile, but it knits up to a nice rustic look. There is little memory to it, and it will be quite warm, so I'm hoping a shawlette will fulfill it's purpose. Pictures of that later.

Today we have a picture of the mitts I finished last weekend. I finished the last cuff on the way to gifting it, so the pics are on the move...




Saturday, February 19, 2011

Big day done.

I'm feeling sorry I haven't posted for some time, and I've left you all in winter! Well, two days after that last post, the temperature went up 50 degrees from -11 to 37. The snow got a serious talking to, and while there are still icy, crusty snowbanks, the majority has melted away. Even though it is brown and muddy, the grass is beautiful.

I have knitted two pair of beautiful mittens, and a lovely, cashmere cowl. You will have to go on blind faith that this is so, because we have guests, and the main computer is currently surrounded by others. That is where I download and upload pictures.

I'm having a little "quiet" time having had a big party for my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. It was nice. We had about 20 friends of theirs over, friends from when they used to live in Indiana. Many hadn't seen each other for years, and some for over 20 years. It turned out, Uncle Gene used to work with one of them about 35 years ago!

We had good grandparent time as well. Tomorrow Juston and Erin return to the Solomons. I'm sorry I won't be there to see you off! Many blessings on you, you flights and your house. I'll close this now and post pictures when I can.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Christina Rossetti Was Right

"In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago..."

That's been the tune of things this past week. Every day sees more snow, whether the weather man predicts it or not. Supposed to be warm and sunny? Snow. 30% chance? That means snow. No chance? Snow.

For pictures today, look at a white wall.

In the meantime, I've been having a grand time with mittens, and stock piling books to help me do the same. Love of my heart, the Haavisto book which I did win arrived on Monday. Sigh. I took it to the gym to study while I worked out. It gave me motivation. Not many people there are surprised, I don't think, since I regularly knit while working out (I've drop spindled as well, but that affected my speed on the treadmills). I have plenty of plans, but only one set of hands, and finite time.

I plan to post pictures of this, but I also received three beeeeau-tiful mitten and glove books from Heather in Wisconsin. Triple sigh. Much to study and much to do!

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Happy Chinese New Year

I officially declare this the year of the mitten.

Architecture mitten in the works. Actually being put in time out, because it isn't the proper length. I will need to frog some of it, and reconfigure the pattern. Sigh.

I started Lucy Neatby's Fiesta mittens in the meantime, and am LOVING them. Knitting with The Loopy Ewe's Purple Rose color of Casbah, and Blue Moon Fiber's Socks That Rock Silkie. Total heaven.



I also knit a pair of standard mittens in some of my first homespun from this Fall.


Here is a picture from our snowstorm Tuesday/Wednesday.



School was out yesterday. Two hour delay today. Even my husband's work was closed yesterday. We traipsed up and down the street with shovels and cookies, and when we got home, we tackled winnowing down and moving toys in the house. Had to rest after that. Nothing like a day off!

Today, I made some no-knead bread. It was delicious: very crusty on the outside, moist and springy on the inside.


Lastly, I finished my hat for Warm Hats, Not Hot Heads, a campaign headed up by the inimitableEllen Silva, half of the twinset knitting blog. Head over there and see what it's about, and join in! My hat is for Joe Donelly, IN rep.