2.28.2006

Trying to unwind after a &%*tty day by gauge swatching for the scarf. The pattern recommends size 8 needles, but the gauge isn't right. I can't remember if I should go up or down on needle size, so I am trying with size 10's now. We'll see.

I am for some illogical reason unbeknownst to me seized with panic at the thought of ripping back the baby blanket, so I'm going to trot over to the LYS and get some help - maybe we won't have to rip back (fingers crossed). I think I can break away Thursday night during DH's martial arts class. Oh hey - he passed his first test last Thursday and got his white belt! And official gi! Woohoo!

2.27.2006

The ends are woven in on Neighbor's hat. Bubba models it for the camera.

It looks pretty good - I am rather happy with it. Now to get the accompanying scarf done before winter leaves us . . . (oh, wait, it's northern New England - we have another two months of winter - no problem!)

I seemed to have dropped a stitch a few rows back on the baby blanket - there's a lovely little hole right near the border. Urrrgh! So much for finishing over the weekend. :(

2.25.2006

Started off the morning with fresh lemon poppyseed muffins and craisin muffins. Mmmm - nothing like fresh muffins to wake your family up with.

Chugging along on the baby blanket. I'll definitely be done by the end of the weekend. Three more inches to go before the border - and the border is only eight rows. Yippee!!

Last night was fun - good meal, great company. We had a little seafood and then went over to the Spanish bar for drinks. There was some loose talk of going to the 'dirt bar', but that faded before long.

Dave and Greg are a blast to go out with. Dave's more gregarious and Greg's a little more reserved, when he's in a good mood he's rather wry. Last night, his humor was a little dry, but he was rather oblivious to the girls trying to pick up on him - which was amusing in itself. Sometimes I envy Dave's ability to make friends wherever we go - he can walk in anywhere and have people eating out of his hand in no time flat - it doesn't matter how shy, how obnoxious, or how mean someone is - he just seduces them with that Irish charm and everyone has a good time. I like to sit back and watch - even more so when I've stopped drinking so the poachers won't pull us over on the way home. Someone has to be legal. :p

2.24.2006

Finished Neighbor's hat! Just have to weave in the ends - it looks better than the last attempt. It turns out that the decreases weren't really %&*#ed up - the pattern is just weird that way - without telling you it is so, suddenly you will be knitting the purls or purling the knits - all the better to confuse you. So, once I stopped thinking logically and just blindly followed and counted, it went quite swimmingly!

Baby blanket getting done - 7 more inches to go before I do the border. Should be done by the end of the weekend.

It's Friday! It's Friday! Another long, difficult week is over, we're going to knock back a few with Neighbor. (We call him Neighbor Greg because his son calls DH "Neighbor Dave". Kind of cute, in a Mr. Rogers kind of way. His little voice piping up across the property line - "Hi, Neighbor Dave!!")

2.22.2006

Baby blanket - 70% done.

Neighbor's hat - 65% done.

Mother Goose's mittens - 10% done.

Not too bad.

Dreaming about felting bags and knitting a Kitty Pi for each cat. I'll be good though and finish my list first. But I did research yarns to find out which felt best. I'll have to put that up in another post.

2.21.2006

Urrrgh! Neighbor's hat was looking great, then I started the decreases. The same thing happened that always happens - it becomes &*#%ed up. I got so mad that I almost frogged the whole bloody thing. Wisdom took hold though and I decided that I'll drive out to the Knitting Goddess at the LYS, humble myself and beg for some of her wisdom. Either I screwed up somehow (though I can't see how) or there is a flaw in the pattern. It's not that I am incapable of making mistakes - quite the contrary. It's just that the exact same thing happens at the same place every time. I completely rewrote the pattern in longhand, again, this time factoring in all the decreases for my weight yarn, so I don't see how it is me.

On the positive side - I paid for some yarn in Great Britain on Friday - and it came today!!!!! I am so happy! I am going to just sit here for a while and look at my cashmerino . . .

2.20.2006

Put down the knitting today to log. We're burning through our fuel and we have at least a month and one half of winter yet to go, so we cut up and split the rest of the downed iron wood today. Cold - 19 degrees, but sunny and ever so pretty. You don't mind being out in the cold when you're with people you love and you're working hard. And wearing silk and wool doesn't hurt, either!

Since we're done now, I'm going to pick up neighbor's hat and see if I can finish it tonight.

2.17.2006

Friday!! Three day weekend! Yipee! Making slow progress on the baby blanket, restarted neighbor's hat, frogged and restarted Mother Goose's mittens. My arthritis has really kicked up, so everything has been slow.

It's really bloody cold (high of 12 degrees Fahrenheit today), so we're all huddled down by the woodstove and I'm knitting slowly. Brrr.

Lots of stars though - pretty, clear sky.

02.12.2006

It snowed. We got about 16 inches. Very pretty out, and still snowing, tho' lighter now.

Lucky Jesse - she had to drive out to work during the worst of it this morning, but fortunately the town plow came by right as she had to leave. She made it to work on time, but I think she'll be awfully tired after a day of leading horses up and down hills in over a foot of snow. Good leg exercises!

Abby and Kyle are snow shoveling. Otis is running through the snow like a moron.

It's odd - usually it won't snow if the temperature drops below 25 degrees F, but it's 19 degrees and still snowing. Rather odd for here.

Not getting as much knitting done as I'd like - cooking, cleaning, the usually family stuff.

The horses were awfully happy to get out in the snow and play. They rolled and bucked and ran and rolled and ran some more.

02.10.2006

We're supposed to get a blizzard - a nor'easter is coming our way. The newscasters are panicking, people here are making a run on the stores. It's the end of the world!

Not really - I mean, we live in the northeast. We get quite a bit of snow. We often have nor'easters. What's the big deal? Means more time to knit!

02.09.2006

Had the Advanced Beginner's knitting class with Abby today. It was helpful, but felt a little silly as I knew most of it. Abby got a little . . . moody halfway through and then informed me that "I'm just not a mad knitter , like you". I didn't know I was a mad knitter. I thought I just liked to knit. Ah well. At any rate, she'll not take the knitted mouse class with me on Monday - rats! I was looking forward to that.

LYS was out of the yarn I needed to finish neighbor's hat, so I'll either have to special order it or look online. I'd like to see if I can find it for less per skein than what I'm paying. Broke the news to neighbor that I was redoing his hat - he was slightly bemused but firmly decided on the yarn color.

So, I'm off to research yarn prices so I can go back to being a mad knitter.

02.07.2006

Finished neighbor's hat today. I don't like it. I wove in all the ends before I decided I didn't like it, so there'll be no frogging. It's not that there's really anything wrong with it - it looks ok on the head, I just think it's rather ugly . I'll just knit him a new one, all one color, and throw the reject in the hat basket. I'm sure someone will wear it next snowshovelling day.

Slow progress on the baby blanket - have to get hopping on that.

Abby and I are taking a knitting class on Thursday. Yes, this is the same one I 've had to reschedule four times over the last six months. I need it to finish DH's sweater - just don't understand which way I am supposed to do the increases on each side.

02.04.2006

I'll admit it, I've been checking out the Yarn Harlot’s Knitting Olympics longingly and rather hopelessly. With everything going on in my life, I don't have a snowball's chance in Hades of pulling it off. That's not just negative thinking, it's protective thinking. I'll pick a really great project, be really fired up, jump in with both feet, and then along the way get pulled off track by life and it'll sit in the stash basket for 17 years like DH's first sweater, which I've only recently frogged ( now I've got 11 lovely skeins of turkish wool). Fortunately though, I've just wandered onto Janis' fantastic proposal - the Knitting Special Olympics. The only rule is to cast-on during Opening Ceremonies and finish whenever you like. Gotta love that! And that's her button up above. Yes, I'm special, very special .

02.01.2006

Lovely day! Got a late start as I was called to witness some legal docs at the last minute, but we made it to the museum only an hour after opening, so we had five whole hours left to spend there. Abby still felt that wasn't long enough . . .

Number one daughter decided to join us instead of job-hunting, so she and Bubba peeled off and toured the museum on their own while Kyle stayed with me. That meant no sibling fighting and a very nice boy keeping me company, reading along with me and actually showing interest. All in all, a very nice time. We were particularly impressed by the way Rodin showed not only the muscle and form of the human body, but by the way he could show emotion in his sculptures.

There was no time for sitting, or knitting, as we spent four hours walking through nearly every exhibit, the spawn showing me some of the favorites they found, or remembered favorites from previous visits - although we had not been in three or four years. Of particular highlight were three new things: a mummy, an 18th century dress and an art collection of Edward Gorey's .

Some links for Auguste Rodin:

http://www.musee-rodin.fr/welcome.htm (this one has a great education guide you can download - 22 pages!)

http://www.cantorfoundation.org/Education/edu.html